REVIEW: 2 MASTERS of the Fringe
Don’t Frown at the Gown (Stage 12) comes from those long-time Fringe Masters Darrin Hagen and Trevor Schmidt under the production umbrella of Guys in Disguise. The duo, who write and perform their own stuff, have long since broken out of the gay ghetto (although their orientation is obvious and celebrated), with shows like Flora and Fawna’s Field Trip and Puckbunnies.
Their shows are inevitably bitchy, wry and designed to appeal to a wide audience.
There is always a large proportion of humour in a Hagen-Schmidt production. The two may tackle serious problems but they are very funny as they spin their unique morality tales.
In Don’t Frown at the Gown, the two clever provocateurs take on that most precarious of social observances – the wedding. It is the ’60s. A mother comes steaming into her daughter’s final fitting at Lady Laura Lee’s Bridal Belle Boutique – “You are in a sacred space,” she murmurs.
Things, of course, don’t go the way she expects. The towering Lady Laura (Jake Tkaczyk) is one of Mom’s (Darrin Hagen) darkest nightmares – a single woman (possibly) who is making her own way. Mom’s beaten down daughter (Trevor Schmidt) is only allowed to say, “Yes Mother” and play with her hair. The daughter’s best friend (Jason Hardwick) shows distinct lesbian tendencies and Mom tells her that she can’t be her daughter’s friend anymore. She needs to get married and have children – like her kid.
The rest of the play has the gorgon mother (It’s time for “children, suburbs and cupcakes” she tells her daughter) crashing smack into the beginnings of the women’s movement. The conflict between the old dinosaur and the coming feminist wave (with her confused daughter in the middle) is consistently hilarious – if a bit overly familiar.
The play is funny until it’s not. In a couple of solo-spot monologues Mother describes her horrendous marriage night, for which she had no preparation and Laura Lee talks of the pain of tearing herself from her family and setting out on her own – because she had to.
From then, the laughter subsides (into some continuing chuckles) as the emphasis shifts to the pain, confusion and sea changes in relationships that the modern sexual revolution will bring. In a moving bittersweet ending we see how the resulting upheaval tore families and relationships apart.
And because all four of these seasoned performers are as adept at overt drama as they are in comedy – it all works.
4 out of 5
***
What fun Kate Ryan must have had putting together Everything’s Coming Up Chickens (Stage 12) – the new revue from her company Plain Jane Theatre. Plumbing her encyclopedic knowledge of the music of Broadway based on a lifetime of first-hand experience and an enduring love of the genre, she has happily assembled a too-short hour of some of Broadway’s best.
Fringe-goers are familiar with the highly enjoyable, audience- pleasing musicals Plain Jane has given us over the years – It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman, The Bells are Ringing and Fiorello are just three that come to mind – and will no doubt approach this one with glee and enthusiasm.
They will not be disappointed.
Ryan goes back to the ’30’s (As Thousands Cheer – a 1933 revue by Irving Berlin) but then proceeds through a catalogue of familiar (and not so familiar) songs from the Great White Way. She even quotes from her own career. Fringers of advanced years and long memories will remember Upstairs at O’Neal’s, a revue her father (the legendary Tim Ryan) put together for the 1984 season of the Fringe on the second floor of the long gone O’Neal’s Bistro, and in which, as a very young player, Kate performed.
As she always does, Ryan judiciously chooses the best from the extraordinary pool of musical comedy performers in Edmonton for her cast. The four are Kendra Connor, Karina Cox, Jarrett Krissa and Garett Ross. The performers take on many characters but each manages to convey clearly separate, idiosyncratic identities. Their blue-ribbon professional biographies are mightily impressive.
If there is a theme that runs through the show it’s the problems and travails of show business, which is first underlined by a clever send-up of If I Were a Rich Man. Ryan avoids the obvious big Broadway hits – except for Connor’s killer full-voiced version of Noel Coward’s I’ll Follow My Secret Heart and Julie Styne’s Everything’s Coming up Roses – which features a complex arrangement and some devilishly close harmonies for the entire group. A Soap Opera gets the full Gilbert and Sullivan treatment. Connor again unleashes her full operatic voice in Un Bel Di from Madama Butterfly only to have Ross mumble as he leaves the stage, “I hate songs about insects.”
In mid-trill, a dog comes on stage and she veers off into a ditty about never appearing on stage with animals. The adorable dog did stop the show – leaving one disgruntled audience member to grumble as she left, “The dog didn’t get a curtain call.” Ross shines in a solo from Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, about a songwriter who loses his lyricist to big money when they get very successful. Jarrett Krissa is funny as a spear-carrying legionary who has one line in Julius Ceasar and has to stand and wait on stage for a loooooong time. Karina Cox sings with a supple soprano and is a born comedienne.
And just for fun, Ryan finishes the show with the old Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five hit-parade-topping 1946 blues stomper, Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens.
The entire production, under Ryan’s skilled, precise direction, whirs and purrs along.
Janice Flower provides notable support as music director and the basic, but always effective old-time snappy vaudeville choreography was from Ryan and Jason Hardwick.
5 out of 5
