In the News

The Fringe Revolution is at hand

Alternative theatre festival featuring 1,200 performances kicks off Aug. 13

July 29, 2009
Liz Nicholls
Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON — The melancholy looking chap with a long-handled axe sticking out of his chest was a tip-off that something was up Tuesday in Old Strathcona. If he was dead, he certainly didn't lie down. Beside him, drag queens towered in their platforms; the undead dispersed photos; lithe dancers handed out cookies.

Man the barricades. Stage A Revolution is at hand, Aug. 13 to 23 — the 28^th annual edition of Edmonton's massive summer Fringe Festival, prototype and instigator of the continent's flowering of fringe festivals. Tickets are on sale now for our alternative theatre binge, a yearly mass uprising against such cultural proprieties as going home early and watching TV, and the unspoken civic proscriptions against congregating in public places.

Fringe revolutionaries can acquire tickets for some 1,200 performances by 214 companies in 29 "theatres," with an international cast of artists 700-plus strong — by going to a website ( www.fringetheatre.ca), an in-person central box office (in the TransAlta Arts Barn), or a box office phone number (780-409-1910). When the curtain goes up Thursday, Aug. 13, there will also be computerized sales at the doors of each official venue.

The price of revolution hasn't changed: artists can charge up to $12 for their shows, with a $2 surcharge (a "capital replacement fee,") collected by the Fringe, making a $14 max.

The indispensable 94-page Fringe programs ($6) are on sale at 7-Elevens, plus Tix on the Square and Audreys downtown, and an assortment of Strathcona merchants including Chapters and Greenwoods.

At a news conference Tuesday designed to incite riotous behaviour at the box office, Fringe performers mingled and hyped their theatrical wares.

And Fringe Theatre Adventures executive director Julian Mayne expressed his hope that revolutionary fervour would heat up ticket sales, which numbered 77,800 last summer.

Edmonton's closest Canadian fringe rival, the Winnipeg festival, just ended, selling 81,000 tickets this year. So our own festival has something to live up to. "I challenge every Edmontonian to embrace the spirit of creativity ... and buy one ticket to one show!" cried Mayne. "Our entire supply (about 155,000) would be gone like that!"

The Fringe map has changed for this edition. It's down one official venue from the 12 stages of 2008. Both King Edward School and the Academy at King Edward are under renovation and the PCL Studio in the Arts Barns is now volunteer headquarters. But the Fringe has acquired The Laugh Shop, over the Strathcona Starbucks. And the festival has reclaimed its own cabaret space at the north end of the Trans-Alta Arts Barns, lost for several years to storage. As well, Planet Ze returns to the Fringe fold.

The most dramatic growth is in the number and geographical disbursement of BYOV (bring-your-own-venues, acquired and equipped by artists). There are 46 indie companies (up from 33 in 2008) ensconced in 18 BYOVs that include theatrical rebirth for Strathcona churches, bars, restaurants, hotels, shops, a library and a school, La Cite francophone — and one real theatre, the Varscona. The BYOV action crosses the river, too, back to the Jasper Avenue club New City, and even farther afield, to The Avenue Theatre on 118^th Avenue.

New? There's a Revolution Internet Cafe where you can read reviews, and write your own. There's a late-nightly (12:15 AM) variety/chat show, hosted by Rapid Fire Theatre, in the Fringe Cabaret Lounge, Stage 5. And, speaking as we are of new, there are the shows, your personal playground for fringe experimentation.

As the program reveals, there's the usual complement of come-hither show names — FULL FRONTAL NUDITY, LOVEHATEKILL, Sex-Bot, For The Love Of A Zombie, Never Trust A Naked Marriage Counsellor, and the enigmatic The Skinny Presents ... Adventures In X-Ray Theatre. And the company names have a similar marketing hustle: Quick & Dirty Theatre, for example, or the more wistful Bashful Scandinavian Productions and Rather Undisciplined Productions.

Some favourite Fringe artists return. Montreal's Keir Cutler is back with his deadpan college lecture Teaching Shakespeare, for example. David Belke celebrates his 20^th anniversary at the Fringe, with two shows, one a remount of his hit The Maltese Bodkin and the other a premiere, A Final Whimsy. Teatro La Quindicina premieres a new Stewart Lemoine comedy, The Oculist's Holiday, and THEATrePUBLIC returns with the next part of Spiral Dive. Guys in Disguise have three shows, including Triple Platinum, nggrfg, and Classic2: The Sequin.

You can play it safe, with well-travelled musicals, like The Rocky Horror Show or Sherlock Holmes The Musical. You can branch out and surprise yourself. Or you can do a little bit of both.