Fringe Fest 2024: Day 2
We review a lot more shows today, including one I didn't like!
As luck would have it, I’ve seen quite a few shows that include surprise bits and shout-outs from other artists performing at the festival. Based on these guest appearances, I’ve got WINNING: Winning and Love, Sharks & Frenching: a hot date w/ Lou Laurence on my radar, as well as some validation for already snagging tickets to SeaMAN and SOFT SPOT.
Unfortunately, not every show I saw Saturday was so great.
Day 2 Reviews
What the Hell was That!?
I reviewed Laren Steppler Tenor’s show already last year and as part of my 43rd Fringe previews, but goddammit, he deserves another. What the Hell was That!? is a tour-de-force. Laren’s expert musicianship (he is a seriously good opera tenor) is matched only by his sense of irony, comedic timing, and introspection. What the Hell was That!? is about Fringe, about music, about what art even means and whether it can, in fact, bring us together. I would like to think music is more than the manipulated physics of sound waves, and it seems Laren Steppler Tenor agrees. Five stars. See this show and ask yourself, “What the Hell was That!?”
COWberet
COWberet is very fun. It is so fun, in fact, that I was hungry for even more fun, even smarter fun, fun a la Amica Hunter’s previous show, Anatomica. This variety caberet exhausts the store of jokes you could think to make about cows, but think again!—apparently there are a lot of mooooooving parts that switch up with each performance. COWberet is well worth your time.
Accidental Beach
The team behind the 11 O’clock Number once improvised the perfect musical. Well, here it is presented in its original form (now with costumes and props). Accidental Beach is very, very funny. However, I must say, a little bit of magic is lost when an improv show is not actually being improvised. This leaves Accidental Beach in a weird sort of comedy purgatory: too good to be a one-and-done show, but not quite good enough for a recurring, rehearsed show that feels like it should be more put together. I’m stuck. I don’t think I would champion changing the show to make it more polished and less obviously improvised, but I also yearn for something to reconcile my cognitive-dissonance. Ugh. This is a lot of heady words—unnecessary, heady words—devoted to what is ultimately just a very cool and funny Edmonton-themed show that you should see.
Crazy Bitch Boss Bitch
Fuck this was great. Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck. I fucking loved it. Thea Fitz-James holds a PhD in Performance Studies and her show makes that evident. Her character, Maggie, is a workaholic who, perhaps, is instead meant to wander. Thea’s performance is inspired, as is her choice for the audio cue that pushes the plot along. At times she gave me Pearl from the titular X prequel—in all the best ways. Crazy Bitch Boss Bitch is a professional, profanity-laden pronouncement on patriarchy and private enterprise, and you owe it to yourself to see it.
High and Dry
I hate this part; it’s time to review a show I didn’t like. This hurts, because there are quite a few things that work in High and Dry, especially Holly Wandler’s performance(s). I’m also the target audience for this show: my grandmother, the person who raised me and was there when no one else was, died last Monday, and High and Dry is all about, well, that. Unfortunately, High and Dry is also a lesson in why ‘Show, don't tell’ is a cardinal rule of storytelling. Our characters, especially the protagonist, spend far too much time telling and almost no time showing, and when they do show, the showing takes the form of rummaging through a pantry for fifteen minutes. I wanted to like this show, and it even made me cry a bit, but I don’t think I can recommend it. Too much of it was, frankly, boring.
Dirty Little Secrets
Hoorayyyyyyyyy more improvvvvvvv! Rapid Fire people and friends from Vancouver (Syd Campbell is back!) delivered an hour of solid entertainment based on some of the raunchiest, nastiest, and horrifying secrets submitted (anonymously) by the audience. Such hits include: “I fucked my boss and then fucked her son a week later,” and “I’m probably breaking up with the person I am here with this week.” So yeah, if you build a mostly sexualized hour of improv around all that, turns out you have a formula for a good time.
Late Night Cabaret
I’m not reviewing Late Night Cabaret, as detailed here, but I saw it on Saturday night (which just felt right) and will probably go again, and you should too. Audrey Ocho—err, I mean, ThunderLips, is awesome; that’s all!