Lunatic Fringe / I know you're out there

My favourite of the Winnipeg summer festivals (IOW the various events they put on to make up for the horrible winter) is the Fringe Festival. Some people prefer Folk Fest with its man-skirts, wannabe hippies, and mini-lawn chairs, but I'm a Fringe guy. I like theatre.

As most years, I've seen a pretty wide variety of shows, everything from serious "plays" to experimental spoken word. And, like most years, some things are good, some things... aren't. That's the beauty of the Fringe.

One play I saw yesterday - Kier Cutler's "Teaching the Fringe" - got me thinking about the Fringe in particular and theatre and society in general. Cutler is a regular Fringe performer, one of the handful of actors referred to by those annoying patrons who insist on wearing threadbare ghosts-of-Fringe-past t-shirts as a "Fringe god." Last year, when he was staging the last of his Teaching trilogy (Teaching Shakespeare, Detroit, and As You Like it), one Winnipeg audience member was so offended by what she (bizarrely!) interpreted as Cutler's attempt to 1) instruct would-be predators how to seduce young girls and 2) legitimize teacher-student relationship that she wrote a three page letter to the Fringe organizer and reported Cutler to Child-Find Manitoba. Cutler's response? Teaching the Fringe.

Cutler uses the letter as the anchor for his first autobiographical show, but more than just responding to the ludicirous charges, Cutler talks about audiences and audience behaviour. He recounts some of his more extreme N.A.M.E.s (negative audience memebr experiences), but there was the under-lying message audiences are largely unaware of their role in theatre. And it was this part of the show that resonated with me. As I thought more about it, I realized that audiences are getting worse and worse.

In the show right before Cutler's show, "Mr Fox," a cell phone went off four times. Same lady, same cell phone. Seriously. Once is irresponsible enough, but to leave it on and have it ring three more times is beyond stupid. If you're unable to master the subtle art of flicking the off button on your little Razor or Motorola, maybe you shouldn't have a cellphone. This woman eventually left, but like a typical Canadian apologised as she left. But she was just an extreme example of a larger problem of audience memebers. I have yet to see a Fringe show this year that wasn't interupted by a cellphone. The Fringe orgainzers play a recording of one the local CBC guys reminding people, "for respect to the artists," to turn off their cellphones and yet people must sit their and think, "That reminder must apply to everyone but me."

Maybe this the problem Cutler is talking about: an increasing believe in society that the rules apply to other people. I saw a woman get furious with Fringe volunteers because they wouldn't let her go into a show she was late for. The doors were closed, there are countless signs around stating, "No late comers," but apparently that didn't matter because she was "from out-of-town."