Fringe Reviews
Reviews from the Fringe
Reviews by Marlo Campbell, Liz Hover, John Kendle, Melissa Martin, Quentin Mills-Fenn, Barb Stewart, Jared Story, Peter Vesuwalla and Jen Zoratti

Winnipeg fringe festival, July 19-30, various downtown venues

It’s not over until people stop asking you what you thought, which is why Uptown presents 58 reviews this week to wrap up the 2006 Winnipeg Fringe Festival, a Western-themed celebration of theatre that rounded up an all-time paid attendance record of 69,320 dogies during its 12-day theatre stampede.
With this festival just packing up, it’s already time to look ahead to next year’s 20th Winnipeg Fringe.

Reviews by: Stacey Abramson, Liz Hover, Prescott James, Sharilyn Johnson, Barb Stewart, Jared Story, Peter Vesuwalla, Jen Zoratti

• • •

B
5 Winnipeg Comics
Easy-to-Swallow Gel Caps
Venue 19
While I’d like to pretend I’m an adventurous Fringer, what I like about seeing 5 Winnipeg Comics every year is the dependability. I know what I’m getting: five standups doing 15 minutes each, with 95 per cent new material from the year before. That’s what it was last year, the year before, and the year before that. It may or may not be what you’re looking for from the Fringe, but that’s what it is — and what it likely will be next year. There are no surprises to report from Jason Beck, Rob Bruneau, Warren Persowich and Charlie Onyske, who all had consistent sets with material covering everything from girlfriends to politics to pop culture. The lineup was spiced up this year to include one of my personal favourites as host: Mel Silverback. The half-Jewish, half-mountain-gorilla comic (actually Dan Licoppe) was a perfect break from the straight standup and pleased the wannabe edgy Fringer in me. — SJ

A+
52 Pick-up
Enigma Productions
Venue 17
What sounded at first like a gimmick quickly became one of the most moving pieces of theatre I’ve ever seen at the Fringe. Originally written by T.J. Dawe and Rita Bozi and staged by Screwed & Clued’s Stewart Matthews and his real-life wife Natalie Joy Quesnel, 52 Pick-Up tells the story of a couple that meet, fall in love and go through a particularly painful breakup for no specific reason but many small ones. The catch is that the show’s 52 scenes are randomized, each assigned a playing card, all of which are scattered around the stage. The breakup might come before their first date, reminiscence of their first meeting might proceed it actually happening, and the future’s punchlines become the past’s setups. The most tender moments are made painful by the fact that, chances are, you’ve already seen the pair at one another’s throats. I had tears in my eyes by the time it was over, and it was all I could do not to get drunk and start calling ex-girlfriends. — PV

C
2112
poison pixie productions
Venue 15
Few performers can play several characters in the same scene at once quite as well as Chris Caswell. She proved that last year when she played about a half-dozen roles at once in Maudlin Dementia. When she’s at her best she’s like a juggler keeping countless balls in the air, but she shoots herself in the foot with her new show, in which she fusses way too much with her minimal set, always putting up and taking down pictures of trees to let us know where we are in a scene. It’s a crutch she doesn’t need. I wish I could say that was her show’s biggest problem, but her weird time-travel story in which lovers are temporarily separated is muddled, confusing and lacking any real emotional resonance. The idea that the main character might have caused her own birth is an intriguing one, but there’s no real payoff, and because her father is seen only as a silent character in a video clip Caswell occasionally plays, it’s impossible to care what happens to him. Caswell should have played him herself; she’s good at things like that. — PV

C
After Liverpool
Mon Petit Cochon
Venue 7
I’m glad to see CBC gave this show four stars, but the performance I saw at the beginning of the Fringe was not worthy of such praise. Actor Adam Jennings approached me later that day and asked me what I thought. I told him it sounded as though he was still reading his lines, that I had seen him perform much better in the past (in last year’s Ash Wednesday), and that the play on the whole got on my nerves. (Jennings, I should mention, is the kind of guy who actually wants to know what you think.) A few days later he told me he had ramped up his performance and the show was doing really well, and I’m glad. Still, the script, adapted for three actors from a series of two-person pieces, played out like a pretentious, repetitive mess useful as a workshop exercise (as it was originally intended) but far too abstract to carry any emotional resonance. 
— PV

C-
All in the Game
Run Ragged Company
Venue 2
All in the Game follows four 30-somethings and their quest to hook up on vacation, while two sportscasters give a play-by-play on the action. Get it? Though the premise in itself is quite brilliant, the sports clichés— ‘player,’ ‘scoring’ and ‘deep penetration,’ to name a few-— quickly lose their humour about five minutes in. Unfortunately, the clichés went beyond the dialogue. Our four lovers — a seedy pickup king, a jilted and somewhat prudish divorcée, a promiscuous gold digger, and an English-mangling Russian immigrant are trite and unfunny stereotypes. Though the play does have some wicked one-liners, 70 minutes seems like a painfully long time to hear obvious sports entendre applied to sexual acts. The whole show is like one long, bad pickup line. — JZ

A+
Art’s Heart
R3M 2Z2
Venue 4
The height of originality, Art’s Heart was one of the most endearing shows of the entire festival. Local actor and playwright Anthony Johnston penned the piece and plays the role of Art, a hyperactive dude with a heart problem. But Art’s troubled ticker goes far beyond his health problems. Art is also an emotionally damaged, hopelessly lonely young gay man who lives alone with his best friend, Paul — a fish. Like a small boy slowly earning the audience’s trust, Art shares details of his past, and the childlike flippancy with which he describes his dead mother and premature brother is haunting. Johnston’s acting is brilliant as he moves seamlessly from kindergarten-like innocence to raw introspection. — JZ

C
Bad Dad, A Comedy of errers
Gestalt Entertainment
Venue 12
I was fortunate to catch a later performance of comic Mark Whitney’s one-man show, overhauled after some earlier scathing reviews. It’s getting there. The 15 minutes of standup at the top lacks polish and originality. The irony is that truly great standup tells you something about the person performing it, but it’s not until Whitney gets the jokes out of his system that we start to learn about him. His story is compelling. He made millions right out of high school, did some jail time, lost everything, started over and is a successful businessman again today. I couldn’t wait to Google him, but I felt I was missing part of the story. What made him lose sight of the mighty dollar long enough to stage a Fringe play? He says he’d wanted to be a comedian since he was 15. What changed to make him pursue his dream halfway through life? Still, his is an enjoyable and interesting story, and the show still has promise. — SJ

C-
Barn Again
The Crosseyed Rascals
Venue 9
When an improv troupe breaks all the few rules in the improv genre, it’s hard not to be critical. The Crosseyed Rascals aren’t new to the game, but this show will make you think it’s was the first time they’ve ever been onstage. Constantly blocking each other, the cast got very few scenes to go anywhere and it was clear that some members were defaulting to tried-and-true characters, whether they fit into a scene or not. That said, this wasn’t all hopelessly unfunny. Though it was the kind of improv show you could bring your kid to, it just wasn’t quick-witted enough to keep an audience compelled for an hour. — JZ

A-
Bliss
TLS Theatre
Venue 3
Despite the bevy of beautiful women onstage, all I could look at was Rob Vilar. He stole his scenes in Ashley Majzels’ adaptation of Katherine Mansfield’s short story, but not in a way that detracted from the play. Majzels and his cast manage to capture the beautiful subtlety of the work in a way you rarely see in a fringe play. A contemporary of Virginia Woolf, Mansfield suffered depression made worse by a series of tragedies, and there’s a sense of doom in this story about a woman who’s unexpectedly overwhelmed by a state of bliss, no doubt setting her up for a fall only revealed to us at the play’s sudden, open end. It feels as though there should be another act, but that would have been beside the point. I knew how the rest of this character’s life was going to play out and left the theatre feeling sad on her behalf. — PV

B
The Bold & Spiky Poetry Show
Gee & Larkin
Venue 19
It was justified that Rob Gee and Steve Larkin’s names were often mentioned in the same breath as that of Jem Rolls during the festival. The two high-energy British poets worked separately, taking turns onstage for one or a few poems at a time. The flow of the show was perfect, drifting from whimsical to sexual to political in just the right doses. Even the heavier moments seemed strategically placed among the comedy. While either of them could carry a show on his own, each complimented the other wonderfully: Gee was the more likable of the two, while Larkin was slightly more cynical. They were laid-back and unpretentious, proving that performance poetry can be fun. — SJ

B
Caberlesque!
Bside Productions
Venue 1
Mostly singing, a little storytelling, a hint of nudity and plenty of sexual innuendo — you’d think this show would have it all. But with a lack of any really dazzling choreography, the pace never quite reaches the fever pitch for which one would hope. Four actors and one musician take us to 1930s Berlin, 1960s Amsterdam and present-day New York but don’t give us a good reason to be in these places. In Berlin there are hints of impending catastrophe, and the Amsterdam sequences capture the sadness of prostitution, but the show never really takes the ball and runs with it. It’s saviour is the appearances by the multi-talented Sharon Nowlan, who does a stunningly sexy feather dance near the beginning and ushers in the present day with a show-stopping glow-stick twirl. Really. — PV

A+
Canterbury Tales
Erik de Waal
Venue 8
Erik de Waal could read the phone book and keep an audience spellbound. The man is a master storyteller, completely transforming into a new character with quick, simple costume changes. Who better, then, to tackle Chaucer’s work, transporting the stories, and the audience, to South Africa? It only takes a minute before he declares the middle English text unintelligible and then adopts his own vernacular with all the charm of African lingo and Chaucer’s love of double entendre. Some of the tales become modern, some remain old, and de Waal brilliantly balances out the comic and the tragic. If you’ve never read Canterbury Tales, de Waal’s adaptation is still accessible, and for those of us who have, he makes the stories fresh and exciting. I could listen to this guy all day. — PV

A
Can’t Get Started
Black Sheep Theatre
Venue 4
It must be said that New York writer Tom X. Chao is a magnificently sick man. His last show, Freak out Under the Apple Tree began with a sketch in which he tried to do a good deed by donating a pillow full of pubic hair to the local convent. This year’s Can’t Get Started gets a bit further into the mind of the kind of playwright who thinks that way. Chao is an expert at creating despicable characters who don’t know they’re despicable. Appropriately nerdy Colin Munch plays a pretentious, narcissistic writer not unlike Chao himself. He broods, writes manifestos, obsesses about King Crimson and wonders why women don’t appreciate his brilliance. He may be a misogynist jerk, but if you’ve ever been on a date with someone who, for example, turned out to have astoundingly bad taste in music and you felt the urge to comment on it in the harshest way possible, then there’s something about Chao with which you might identify. — PV

D
COMPROMISING POSITIONS
Middle of Nowhere Productions
Venue 2
Marriage isn’t always easy, and neither is writing and acting in your own play — as couple Richard and Christi Schultz discovered in Compromising Positions. This married couple from North Dakota debut their playwriting talent (or lack of it) with a script that airs out all the dirty laundry of married life. ‘Dry,’ ‘long winded’ and ‘hackneyed’ are just some of the adjectives that describe one of the most tedious plays of this year’s Fringe. The Schultzes approach the issue of gender equality with the most uninspired of stories, and Richard’s acting is comparable to a million naked midgets singing The Song That Never Ends while writing on chalk boards with a million rusty nails (yes, he is that annoying). The one saving grace of the whole performance would have to be Christi, who exhibited some solid dramatic work and upstaged her horrendous husband in every scene. — PJ

A-
CRUMBS "BETTER LIVE THAN ON TV"
Crumbs
Venue 1
Local favourites Crumbs were back again to make Winnipeg Fringe audiences laugh at the group’s own particular brand of absurdity. Apparently touring Europe has sharpened their skills to a fine point and made these local boys edgier than ever. Although it’s particularly difficult to comment on a show that changes every night, it’s safe to say that veterans of the Fringe and fans of Crumbs were likely not disappointed by any Crumbs performance. Two men and one woman phrase weave themselves together to create a cornucopia of hilarious narratives in one outlandish performance laden with pop-culture references and satirical hilarity. — PJ

B-
DANGER: THIN ICE
Working Class Productions
Venue 11
Danger:Thin Ice is a charming, slightly uneven “thriller with comedy” written by and starring Andrea Shawcross. Shawcross is engaging as a just-jilted obsessive-compulsive trapped in a Winnipeg winter while her grip on reality teeters on the edge of her breakup. No matter that her boyfriend sounds like a lout and she’s better off without him. This young woman’s routine has now been thrown for a loop and without it her world begins to crumble. Shawcross manages the delicate balance between humour and drama skilfully, but her repeated fumbling of lines is distracting and the plot device of breaking out into old chestnuts (such as Witchcraft and Someone to Watch Over Me) seems to have little relation to her character. All in all the writing is strong and evocative and this enjoyable production could be a true gem with a little more polish. — BS

A
Dead Like Steve
Dead Bunny Productions
Venue 1
Steve dies and goes to hell — which, for Steve, means an eternal musical filled with Hot Wheel track beatings and reruns of Who’s the Boss. A raucous and energetic look at the underworld, Dead Like Steve manages to take a not-so-original premise and make it fresh, not to mention funny. With clockwork comedic timing and a superbly written script, this show is full of laughs — and even the cheap shots are funny. Special props to Will Belford, who served up one of the most hilariously over-the-top incarnations of Satan I have ever seen. Though there were occasional breaks in character (I caught a few actors smirking), it only added to the fun of the performance. It’s a nice change to see a fine-tuned comedy done exceptionally well. — JZ

A-
‘DENTITY CRISIS
Agua Luna Productions
Venue 3
This year’s self-proclaimed “schizophrenic Fringe experience” is a 40-minute romp with the psychologically dysfunctional and clinically insane. Tinkerbell is dead, Jane’s psychologist has just had a sex change, and Jane’s mother is engaged in a love affair with her husband, her son and a French Baron (who are all, coincidentally, the same person) — yet, Jane is the one who’s insane. Edith (Karen O’Brien) has delusions of grandeur, and the multiple personalities of Robert (Ryan Miller) are sure to keep even the most critical Fringer entertained. Jane’s confusion about her life and family questions the very essence of identity and sanity. — PJ

A+
D’n’D — THE IMPROVISED CAMPAIGN
Red River Serial
Venue 6
When a show begins with a mighty cheer from a slew of adoring D’n’D fans, you know you’re in for something absurdly interesting. Much like wandering through a Star Trek convention, D’n’D — The Improvised Campaign is a night out with some of the most outlandish people ever to crawl from their parents’ basements. If improvising one continuous game of D’n’D for both weeks of the Fringe seems ridiculous, that’s because it is. But that doesn’t stop everyone from having a good time and laughing along with the cast. Led by Dungeon Master Dave Kitchen, this loveable band of heroes and endearing villains will have you in hysterics and questioning everything you thought you knew about “the greatest game ever played.” — PJ

B+
Dr. Caligari’s Cabaret of Love
“Cupid is dead,” began Jonah Von Spreecken, reviving the creepy Mr. Slurch character he played in last year’s Gloomology. Then he held up a picture of the dead cherub, impaled by one of his own arrows. Slurch then told the audience that he would be taking the reins as the arbitrator of love, and a fine job he did. Yes, love was all around the top floor of the King’s Head just around midnight on July 27 for this second annual cabaret fundraiser for the Fringe volunteers’ pancake party, organized by Jem Rolls and Chris Gibbs. Although the event wasn’t nearly as obscene and gory as last year’s show, the atmosphere was just right, with 20 audience members lighting the show with flashlights and a host of Fringe favourites delivering material not seen in their shows. Highlights included Jem Rolls’ poem We Broke up Because the Sex Was too Good, a bit of pedophile comedy by Keir Cutler (Teaching Shakespeare) and a clever sketch by Stewart Matthews and Natalie Joy Quesnel (52 Pick-up) written especially for the night. — PV

B
Dying to Be Thin
Section J
Venue 5
Surprisingly, this production about eating disorders doesn’t turn out like an after-school special. Following her descent into the dark depths of bulimia, teenager Amanda Jones (Tara Paterson) pleads with the audience and herself, claiming her disease is normal. Her story of striving for perfection in every way speaks to the pressures of adolescence in a very convincing way. Paterson pulls almost every kind of junk food imaginable out during the performance, making for a queasy look into her quest for weighted perfection. Thankfully there were some well-placed comedic breaks in the production that added compassion and helped steer the show away from being completely depressing. — SA

A
THE EXQUISITE HOUR
By the Book Productions
Venue 4
This sweet and amusing production seems almost out of place at the Fringe given its sheer lack of edge and gentle ways. Nonetheless, it’s a delightful work starring Bruce McKay as the lonely bachelor Zachary Teale and Cheryl Jack as the slightly zany, kind-hearted Mrs. Darimont. Darimont shows up in Zach’s backyard on a summer’s eve in 1962 and asks for an hour of his time. Under the keen direction of Fringe veteran John D. Houston, Teale and Jack shine as these two lonely characters whose lives are irrevocably changed in a mere hour. They inhabit Stewart Lemoine’s script — which ranges from broad humour to nuanced emotion — with a lovely gentleness which makes us all wish for more innocent times and our own hours of exquisiteness. — BS

B
FASTER, IMPROVISiON… KILL! KILL!
Improvision
Venue 10
Faster, Improvision… Kill! Kill! doesn’t really live up to it’s name. There’s not much that’s violently outrageous in this show from local improv vets Alan MacKenzie and George McRobb of Improvision. However, despite the lack of bloodshed this duo is quite capable of producing laughs. Beginning with the tried-and-true Question game, the show started a little flat, only producing mild chuckles. It wasn’t until Improvision ventured into more original games that things got really funny. Pulling a young man onstage to ask him about his yesterday and then re-enacting his highly uneventful day, Improvision injected his boring Friday with life and hilarity. The laughter intensified during the last game, which saw a blindfolded Improvision member walking among mousetraps. What they were saying wasn’t exactly comedic excellence, but laughter ensued with every snap of the traps. Screw smart remarks and witty jokes, painful slapstick is where it’s at. — JS

A
FAT CAMP!
James Judd
Venue 2
Thanks to Sex and the City, the gay friend has become every businesswoman’s favourite fashion accessory. Now you, too, can experience what it’s like to have a witty and hilarious gay friend with James Judd’s Fat Camp. Judd puts on an intimate one-man show that weaves together politics, religion and anecdotes about forced exercise and sugar-free diets to create what is very much like a night out with an old friend. Judd brings you up front and weighs you onstage. Poisonous spiders, prison overalls, and the words “do not feed” constituted what was one of this year’s most charming Fringe performances. — PJ

A
Fear of a Brown Planet
Third Man
Venue 11
It’s extremely hard to put serious and controversial issues into a comedy, but this critically acclaimed one-man play successfully balances tough issues with witty banter and jokes. Toronto’s Nile Seguin approaches the audience with several interactive components, all of which test the levels of comfort and racism in each person. He humorously recounts various instances in which he has dealt with racism in his career as a performer. Each experience is no doubt depressing in reality, but Seguin turns his tragedy into comedy, all the while sending a subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) message to the crowd. This hilariously dark comedy was well crafted, brilliantly performed and extremely thought-provoking. — SA

C-
THE FEMINAZI
Will It Productions
Venue 2
This is a puzzling show in which the funny Suzanne Willett makes the mistake of beating comedy to death with a too-long work whose point is unclear. The Feminazi is one of four characters Willett presents in the show, but none of whom seem to have any relation to one another, except for a vague sense of feminism. Even then, the Virgin Mary does not usually spring to mind when one thinks of feminists. These two characters are separated by musical numbers featuring a beyond-boring, untalented folk singer and a brash middle-age rapper who’s fighting for the rights of older women. All these characters are one-trick ponies who should not be brought out again and again in a show, especially when there seems to be no reason for bringing them together in the first place. Willet obviously has talent; it was just hard to stay interested here. — BS

A
FEMMENNONITE
Saucy Gal Productions
Venue 2
Grace Penner is trapped. She’s trapped in her family. She’s trapped in her town. But most of all, Penner is trapped because she’s a Mennonite. Leigh-Anne Kehler admirably plays a small-town girl who wants to break out in a big way. This coming-of-age struggle is equal parts sadness and humour, and you can’t help but feel for Penner as she tries to escape the restrictive lifestyle imposed on her. But if the play does attack Menno life, it does so with a fantastic sense of humor. When Penner has to define ‘oxymoron’ during her last high school examination she gives the hilarious answer of “flamboyant Mennonite.” Kehler plays numerous other characters and does so with great ease, switching personalities at the drop of a Bible. FemMennonite is a superb look at the precincts of Menno life. — JS

A
FILL THE VOID; NATURE ABHORS A VACUUM
Transparent Productions
Venue 3
Bill Hicks lives! He’s just living in the body of L.A. comedian Phil van Hest. Delivering the same make-you-think counterculture comedy that Hicks was so good at, van Hest produces big laughs and mind-blowing thoughts. Does he rip off the late comic legend? Hell no! While van Hest does rip on religion and speaks of positive energy, just as Hicks did, van Hest delivers with a less angry approach that’s equally funny. Describing the pointlessness of marriage, how your brain is out to get you, and how Dick Cheney is a cyborg, van Hest’s material ranks as some of the most original and funny standup out there. He did, however, almost lose the audience late in the show when he called 9/11 our generation’s JFK scandal. That was maybe a little too ‘out there’ for this crowd. — JS
B+
Folk from the Yolk
Ostrogo Theatre
Venue 10
This production suffered a major setback when two of four cast members dropped out and the show had to be adapted, but I’m not sure what difference it made. This relentlessly absurd story about (I think) the creation of the universe after a number of failed attempts goes beyond the realm of challenging theatre and at times seems impenetrable. You’ll either appreciate this show for its inventive staging, its use of puppets, its anachronistic pop-culture references (time is measured in Jaggers; i.e. the number of years Mick Jagger has been alive) and its chaotic narrative, or you’ll zone out and leave scratching your head. A beautiful reminder of what fringe theatre can be. — PV

B
Fringe on Trial
gummy bears and disco balls productions
Venue 7
Stars of MuchMusic’s Video on Trial, Trevor Boris and Sabrina Jalees sure know their audience. Through a screening of an E! True Hollywood Story parody (featuring a hilarious appearance by fellow VOT star Debra DiGiovani), we learn Trevor and Sabrina are murdered by OJ Simpson in 2007. To get a second chance at life, they must appease God with a successful Fringe play. A sketch with the two as Angelia Jolie’s forgotten adopted kids was well written and executed, and each’s respective standup sets were stellar. They sang (poorly), they danced (equally poorly), they acted (ditto). All of it was oddly hilarious, and the audience ate it up. The show as a whole lacked polish, which would irk the Fringe hardcores more than the MuchMusic mavens. The scene changes were awkward. But in front of their crowd it seemed Trevor and Sabrina could do no wrong. — SJ

B+
Jesus Christ: The Lost Years
Monster Theatre
Venue 16
Despite being a confirmed atheist, I am intrigued by the account of Jesus of Nazareth being just a regular person with human faults who has the burden of being the Messiah thrust upon him. Next to Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, Monster Theatre’s account of just what he got up to in those years not mentioned in the Bible is the next best thing. Two performers trading off several roles give the Bible the ol’ fractured fairy tale treatment as Jesus learns, to his horror, that David isn’t his real dad and no one seems to know who is. A nice little gag about The Da Vinci Code and a show-stopping appearance by the Three Wise Men (of course they’re Jewish with a name like that) were standout moments in a play that’s careful not to be offensive but isn’t afraid to push the envelope. — PV

B-
THE JOHN LANDREVILLE PROJECT
Circus Monkey Theatre
Venue 8
Circus Monkey Theatre’s change from Leonardo’s Last Supper to The John Landreville Project was too late to make it into the program, but the troupe still manages to pull off an entertaining, slightly underdeveloped work. A tongue-in-cheek take on CBC’s Life and Times (here called ‘Canadian Memoirs’), this multimedia show explores the life of the seemingly late, somewhat great “genius” John Landreville. Landreville, a sort of Glenn Gould minus the talent, managed to become a cultural powerhouse by the sheer strength of his own gall. During the airing of the program (which includes videotaped interviews with former friends, colleagues, etc.) the thought-to-be-dead Landreville shows up to torment the show’s host, Noam Stevens. Hilarity and violence ensue. The ending needs work, but the show had definite appeal. — BS

A
KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS
pEALING Comedy Troupe
Venue 7
This Fringe hit well deserves its success for giving us a hilarious, dark romantic comedy with murder on its mind. Based on the Ealing Studio comedy of the same name and the book from which it was adapted, the show chronicles the rise of the vengeful Israel Rank (Bryan Webb) to dukedom in the family that disowned his mother for marrying his father. This cast of three turns in dizzying performances, with both Alison Boyce and John D. Huston whirling through multiple roles with nary a blink of the eye. This adaptation by Kenneth Brown and Huston holds a keen eye on dialogue and pacing, keeping the lines smooth and the tempo swift. Saucy, smart and slapstick, Kind Hearts and Coronets is a Fringe delight. — BS

C+
KING CANS, SCRATCH TICKETS,
AND MORSE SILDEN
Burning Meatloaf
Venue 5
Two men, two stools, two king cans and a shitload of scratch tickets comprise this year’s Burning Meatloaf production. This is BM’s fourth year performing at the Fringe, and you’d think they’d knock this one out of the park. However, this fast-paced 60-minute snapshot chronicle about living on your own for the first time is slightly disappointing. The boys of Burning Meatloaf craft some fairly successful physical comedy (that keeps you from becoming too bored) and the situational humour is relatable to anyone who has opted to spend his or her last $20 on beer and scratch tickets instead of groceries and underwear. Still, this two-man show is far too cryptic to deliver a truly fulfilling performance, and the flow of the play is often interrupted by bad movie-voice commentary that leaves you thinking “WTF?” — PJ

B+
LA LA LA DISPUTE
University of Winnipeg Theatre Department
Venue 6
I sure wouldn’t have fallen asleep in every sociology class if this show was the professor’s teaching method. La La La Dispute is a highly enjoyable study, an experiment conducted to answer the question of who is more unfaithful — men or women? It turns out we’re equally as sinful, a conclusion this play comes to by the simplest of tests. Have two men and two women each live completely isolated lives, throw them all together and watch the shit hit the fan. The girls love both guys. The girls hate each other. The guys get along famously until there’s a girl in between them. It’s the stuff of real life. At times this cast looked every bit the students they are, but that just made it seem even more real. — JS

B+
Local Celebrity
Slyboot Productions
Venue 5
What must the search for love be like for someone who works as a prostitute — or how does a hooker search for love? Alice Nelson’s story of finding a way to make some serious money in a hick town is funny and sad, sometimes at the same time. Nelson looks more like the girl next door and certainly isn’t what most people think when they hear the word ‘hooker,’ but she manages to put a human face on an impersonal profession, neither as romantic as Pretty Woman nor as exploitative as Whore, but somewhere in between. Nelson’s use of minimal staging is especially impressive, and her hand-job montage is one of the most sexually absurd things I’ve seen in a one-person play. — PV

B
Lovin' Large
Tequila Checkers Productions
Venue 10
Vancouverite Scott Taylor's life is all about sitting in front of the TV, eating microwavable dinners for one and sucking back Kokanee. After a hilarious but thoughtful rant about how the makers of such products are in conspiracy to keep him single and fat, he recaps his life and tries to figure out how to break free of the cycle. His speech about taking chances and living in a rut was cutting and would make anyone in the audience secretly pondering their past life decisions hang their heads in shame. (And really, who doesn’t think like that?) Essentially a series of stories about personal relationships — perhaps a few stories too long — this one-man show hit its dramatic peaks and valleys with enough laughs to keep it from getting tedious. I left happy to know that he got out of his rut and wrote a great Fringe play. — SJ

B
McCarthy and the Old Woman
RJ Deverell Production
Venue 21
This one-woman show about the life and times of Florence James (founder of the Seattle Repertory Playhouse) recalls the horrible times of blacklisting and McCarthyism in mid-century Seattle and Saskatchewan. Performed by Rita Shelton Deverell, long-time broadcaster for CBC, the play goes through Deverell’s real account of researching and recording James’ inspiring yet devastating past. Deverell’s transition into any character but herself or James can be choppy and confusing at times, but she nonetheless had the sweaty crowd laughing on cue at every joke. The history of Cold War politics mixed with the dramatics and fascinating charisma of James’s experiences made the produ