Get your tickets and get ready, because it’s time to go Fringing!
And if you’re looking for an idea of what Fringe shows to see, look no further – PodSask will be reviewing all 23 shows at the Saskatoon Fringe Festival!
Here’s the first round of reviews:
Can’t Help Falling In Love…with Shakespeare?
What we loved: ABBA, King Lear, Tears for Fears, Julius Caesar, and Lady Gaga — “Can’t Help Falling In Love…with Shakespeare?” does its best to explain plays you should know, using music you definitely do.
Strong performances from the show’s anchors Mary (Sadie Gryba) and Arden (Max Cory) provided a solid backbone for the music revue’s relatable homework stress narrative, and the arrival of the hallucinated Shakespearean chorus proved a clever and enjoyable flavour to tie it all together. Walking through important moments from some of the bard’s greatest works, before tying those works’ most important themes to modern pop songs, prove to Arden and the audience that those themes and by extension Shakespeare’s plays are just as relevant now as they were four hundred years ago.
What we didn’t love: As is often the case with a cabaret or revue, the range of the quality found in the performances is noticeable. Not every song lives up to the quality that the cast demonstrates they are capable of.
The small format of the Rayner Whiteside Financial Group Community Stage lends itself well to a small cast. While this show’s ensemble was small by musical theatre standards, it was too large for the space. The choreography and staging was cramped and crowded, leaving me wishing the performers had more space to shine.
Verdict: While it isn’t without flaws, and may have been stronger on a larger stage or with a smaller ensemble, the framing of the show does a wonderful job of tying the narrative and music together. Well worth seeing if you’re interested in a well-crafted and -performed Shakespeare-themed romp through your mom’s backyard barbecue playlist.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
– Zachary Knuttila
***
The Mooneaters
What we loved: Truly a bizarre premise worthy of Fringe-ness – a woman (Lauren Griffin) who has been abducted by aliens who eat language and words decides how to spend her last day alongside the memory of her friend (John Reaney).
Mind-bending setting aside, this show delivers on a lot of its promises. Griffin and Reaney are both delightfully physical in their performances and the use of light and sound and projections at the Broadway Theatre added depth and tension to the production. What started as an eerie alien meta-horror story evolved into something much more poignant about the things that define who we are and the stories we leave behind.
For a show themed on an alien invasion, this show carries wonderful emotional weight. The audience feels the full gravity of the impending doom for the main character, and the ending is simultaneously sentimental and haunting.
What we didn’t love: The show is a little bit self-indulgent — but what original Fringe show isn’t, really? It drags in places, and some of the physical bits felt more like a chance to show off the talents of the cast than really take us deeper into the story.
The premise, as well, takes a lot of acceptance at face value from the audience. Aliens who eat words and look like giant winged moth people? Look, the more you think about the details, the less impactful the story becomes. Kudos to the performers and the script for never lingering on them for too long, because they’re really just a vehicle for the introspective themes.
Verdict: It’s hard to say exactly what single thing makes this show so compelling, but I was leaning into it the whole time. Maybe it’s all the parts working so well in tandem, or maybe it’s the magnetism of Griffin and Reaney — but “The Mooneaters” is a bittersweet exploration of grief and what’s left of us when we’re gone, and a fine example of a quirky premise made right by great execution.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
– Matt Olson
***
The Day the Beanstalk Market Crashed
What we loved: Vancouver-based shadow puppeteers and performance artists Chloe Ziner and Jessica Gabriel, better known as Mind of a Snail, continue to evolve. And they promise their latest Fringe offering will keep evolving too.
Their unique art combines simple projection against a screen using an old-fashioned gadget — that people of a certain vintage will recall for its use in school classrooms —with shadows, live video and mostly physical performances with sparse dialogue.
Saskatoon marks the debut of this play in the duo’s third visit to this Fringe festival.
This performance reflects on the imagined aftermath of the Jack and the Beanstalk fairy tale with ancestors of Jack exploiting the goose that lays golden eggs that was rescued by Jack in the classic fable.
In this age of toxic tech billionaires accumulating power with scant accountability, the show skewers callous corporate culture. “Bean coin” is mentioned several times.
But dream-like visual imagery dominates here, rather than linear storytelling. Think avant garde American filmmaker David Lynch and you’ll appreciate this bold and uncompromising method.
What we didn’t love: But Lynch is not everyone’s cup of weird tea. And targeting the ills of capitalism hardly represents a novel message.
Also, this performance buckles a little with the sheer audacity of its inventive and innovative ambition.
Yet watching the struggles of trying to merge several different art forms for the first time becomes part of the fun for a show like this. And it’s vital to remember that this play premiered on the opening night of the Saskatoon Fringe. The first audience at the Broadway Theatre was promised: “It’s going to be shifting.”
Verdict: This troupe has earned enough good will from Fringe audiences to garner some faith in their ability to keep tweaking the show to work out some kinks.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
– Phil Tank
***
Tragedy or Triumph
What we loved: At first blush, the Vancouver-based Spontaneous Shakespeare Company might seem like not much more than a fun gimmick, taking improvised storytelling and wrapping it up in an Elizabethan veneer to zhuzh it up a little. In reality that could not be further from the truth. “Tragedy or Triumph” is, in short, remarkable.
Strip away the Shakespearean artifice and what remains is six performers, each as clever, sharp and quick-witted at the next. It’s a strong foundation — then add to it the clear comfort and familiarity they have with one another’s senses of humor and improvisational styles and all the building blocks are there for something special. The result is quick and focused, with no awkward pauses or sudden changes of direction as the actors try to steer their story towards a climax. It just works — so well, in fact, that if it wasn’t built on an audience suggestion it at times seems that it wasn’t improvised at all.
All that is left then is the cherry on top: all of this is done with the pomp, rhythm and rhyme of Shakespearean English (as if improv isn’t already tough enough). These impressive performers slip right into it like it’s the only way they have ever spoken. If you’re familiar with Shakespeare, you’ll feel just as at home in the style as they do, and even if you aren’t you won’t find the language distracting from excellent storytelling and clever humor.
What we didn’t love: There really isn’t much to say here. Unless you don’t like fun, you’ll struggle not to love it too.
Verdict: See it… and then see it again. It’s tough to imagine that a night will go by this week where the Spontaneous Shakespeare Company fails to wow.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
– Zachary Knuttila
***
red dirt / red storm
What we loved: What a great premise to talk about love and existentialism: pursuing that “final frontier” of space to Mars and Jupiter and beyond. The show is broken up into out-of-time sequences showcasing the life and love of Ess (Ashley Victoria Robinson) and Clark (Zach Counsil) as they look past Mars to new planets.
Both performers are quite gifted, but Counsil really stands out as he flashes from fresh-faced and eager engineer to life-hardened, multiple-world-weary man trying to make a place for himself in the stars.
It’s a dramatic tale about the costs of progress, and the two actors do well to bring a human element to the pragmatism of pushing our boundaries as far as they’ll go. You always get credit for creativity, and this was a fresh and clever script.
What we didn’t love: Part of what makes high-minded sci-fi really shine in TV and movies is having the visuals to go with it. Unfortunately, that’s really hard in a Fringe show. An audience member has to be on the edge of their seat just to suss out which part of the timeline we’re in as the scenes whip by with lighting changes that don’t do enough to differentiate where and when we’re at. There was some element missing to help pull the audience through the plot.
Some of the scenes and scene changes go so quickly that it’s hard to develop a rapport with our dynamic duo. The whole show could also slow down a couple beats, but that could easily be attributed to opening-night energy.
Verdict: It’s not often one can call a show “cool,” but this really is just a dang cool show. The pieces are here for a glorious romp through time and space, and with a little tweaking it could jump from good to great – but it’s still absolutely worth checking out, especially if you’re a big sci-fi fan.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
– Matt Olson
***
The Family Crow: A Murder Mystery
What we loved: Nobody who attends this one-person performance can deny that they were warned early. But it’s not frights that are coming, even though a potentially dark tale of murder is told in a venue that is occasionally plunged into blackness.
The audience is about to face an hour of crow puns flying at them like a flock of birds.
Toronto-based puppeteer Adam Francis Proulx delivers an exquisitely rehearsed play dressed in black and a dark purple vest with a crow puppet perched on his top hat.
Proulx spends nearly an entire hour talking nonstop, aside from dramatic pauses, and takes the audience along on a hilarious ride as the crow investigates a suspicious death in a family of crows. A grouping of crows, as Proulx points out with relish, is known as a murder.
The Refinery provides the ideal home for what is essentially a very simple show with just Proulx, some desk lamps and his puppet with some hilarious help from an audience member and an electric fan.
During the unrelentingly entertaining show, Proulx inhabits five separate characters, exhibiting his immense talent and ensuring that the play never becomes confusing.
Sure, some of the puns are absolute groaners — like the philosopher So-crow-tes — but Proulx’s terrific timing wrings them of every drop of comedic value.
What we didn’t love: At one hour, the play seems about five minutes too long — even Proulx admits at one point, “That was a very long road for a very bad joke” — and you can see the resolution coming. But those are very minor quibbles.
Verdict: This show marks Proulx’s first visit to Saskatchewan and we must hope it’s not his last. Even if you hate puns, you will be challenged to leave this amazing performance without a smile on your face.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
– Phil Tank
***
That’s Life: A Verbatim Piece
What we loved: Charming, simple and human, “That’s Life” explores the idea of what failure means to different people through interviews and a verbatim play. It’s a lovely little piece of theatre that addresses a very straightforward topic. The performers bring the interview transcripts to life in a lovely way, and the show (mostly) ties together well.
Verbatim plays are tricky things, and this script pulls together almost adorably. The performances took a couple minutes to really come to life, but once they did it became a fine window into the minds of many Saskatchewan residents. A coherent and cohesive verbatim play is a fine feat for a young group of theatre artists to pull off.
What we didn’t love: The “verbatim play” part of the show is only about 25 minutes long at most. Even in the world of Fringe theatre, that’s limited. Coupled with a (very well-performed) piece of original music, the bulk of the performance takes roughly 30 minutes. There is also a conversation between the performers and the audience to expound more on the ideas of “what is failure” which — while interesting — felt a bit lacking as a theatrical production.
Also — the verbatim script is well-crafted. It’s okay to trust the audience to understand the show without adding in framing devices that really beat them over the head with the premise.
Verdict: If this production was 40-50 minutes of the level of performing we saw during the verbatim piece, this could have been a real standout. It’s a thoughtful and well-performed project that connects to the community, and it deserves all the credit in the world for that. It feels like the seed of a magnificent idea that is simply not fully grown. It’s an interesting time — you just have to know exactly what to expect.
Rating: ★ ★ ✩ ✩ ✩
– Matt Olson
***
The Saskatoon Fringe Festival runs through August 9. Information for all shows, tickets, and the full festival program can be found at 25thstreettheatre.org/fringe-theatre.
