It's Fringe time here in Winnipeg. Happens every year about this time. I usually make it to a few plays, ones that my wife has scoped out ahead of time. After one year's "Canterbury Tales" horror, (sometimes I wake up screaming because it was so bad) I don't trust myself to pick my own plays. Maybe I should bad about this. I don't, but maybe I should. It's not like most other Fringe-goers are that different. Last night I watched as couple after couple wandered around the Exchange with the Free Press review held aloft, ever before them, trying to rush to see whatever thing some newspaper critic gave 5 stars. At least my wife knows me and knows what I'll like. People who select a play simply because some random reviewer gave it 5 stars deserve to be disappointed - like the sour faced guy coming out of the much-heralded Flamenco show who was heard to say, "That piece of crap got 5 stars?". Well, if you don't like to watch people dancing, what does it matter if someone gave the show 5 stars or a hundred: YOU'RE NOT GOING TO DIG IT, FRIEND!
Case in point: Free Press ubermensch, Morley "Ohh What a Big Pen I Got" Walker criticized one show for being too American and for using, and I quote, "too many four-syllable words." Let's leave the ridiculousness of thinking that the American content would go over Canadians' (who get between 80-95% of their media from the US) head, let's concentrate on that pesky problem of big words. You see, Walker describes the performer as "Bill Maher overdosed on amphetamines" and quips, "Nothing escapes van Hest’s bitter, acerbic and vulgar gaze, though he sounds like he has memorized a PhD thesis deconstructing American social mores. Maybe I'm wrong, but aren't there a whole bunch of big, freakin' words in that review? I can only assume from this that the only big words Walker objects to are the ones other people use. Reviewers need to remember that their job entails more than merely giving your own personal opinion of something You're supposed to be guiding a potential audience towards things THEY will like and away from things THEY won't.
I overheard two people talking before one of the plays. Guy #1 recommended a certain play to Guy #2. Guy #2 crinkled his nose, "Didn't that get a bad review in the Fress Press?" Guy #1 rolls his eyes, "I know that reviewer and I was at the show that guy was at. Everyone else in the audience loved the play. They were howling with laughter. Everyone except the reviewer." Guy #2 furrows his brow, "He didn't mention that in the review." Of course he wouldn't. But again, if people solely rely on the word of one person, one person you don't know, you're going to miss some really good stuff.
That said, here's what I saw, all of which I'd recommend:
1) Canned Hamlet. Fun, energetic comedy. What Fringe comedy should be, prepared but with enough room for some improv.
2) Zombies. One man show written and performed by some English dude. Once i got over the disappointment of there being no actual zombies on stage, I rather enjoyed this play.
3) Shock Corridor. Take a B-film from the 60s about a newspaper reporter trying to win the Pulitzer Prize by going undercover in an insane asylum and solving a murder. He convinces his girlfriend to pose as his sister, there are nymphs, and crazies and, of course, shock therapy. Wild, incredibly bizarre play adapted and directed by George Toles. Brilliant!
I'll write more about these plays later on, as well as my two cents on Kevin Smith's Clerks II, which I saw this afternoon at a matinee with 5 other people, sitting spread out, avoiding making eye contact with each other. I can only imagine that this is what going to a 70s porn theatre was like.
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