FRINGE: 2 plays that TAKE A CHANCE
One of the great joys of the Fringe is taking a chance. If you have an hour or two, just walk between the venues and choose a show at random. Turn to the right and you get something memorable – turn the other way and it may stink up the joint.
Today, For Now (Stage 7), a bright comedy, isn’t exactly memorable but it certainly didn’t raise a stink either. In fact, it was quite fun.
The male half of the presenters, Jeff Leard, came through the Fringe a couple of years back with Sperm Wars, an ingenious one-man show that told the story of a small but heroic sperm who fought his way through a woman’s body toward a precarious union with the one single egg that was waiting – all told in terms of Star Wars.
Leard, a one-man joke machine, is joined this time around by Vancouver writer-performer Valerie Cotic. The two take on numerous characters and guises as they contemplate the ultimate doom: the end of the world as we know it.
At the centre of it all the two assume the characters of a couple of harried newscasters who are trying to hold the world together as it collapses around them. They also play all the field reporters and most anyone else who might have something to say about Armageddon. She, breathlessly: “All the scientists are forecasting the end of the world.” He adds, “Yes, even the entomologists.” She replies, “Yes, the ornithologists as well.”
How bad is it? Well, it’s so bad that if you phone 911 – you’re put on hold. The police won’t be of much help. They’ve rifled the drug evidence and are all high.
The president calls for her speechwriter to pen her a message for the American people but, “…give it a happy ending.” An actor fulfills a life-long dream – she finally gets to present her one-woman version of 12 Angry Men.
Elon Musk is fired into space in a Tesla convertible. A religious leader named Cosmic Ray admits to his flock that it was all a lie. He made up his whole religion. Turns out his congregation doesn’t care – they just came along for the fellowship anyway. They invite Ray back into the fold as a member and ask him to hold his crystals high.
Two prim middle-aged ladies prepare to meet the end by carrying on a refined conversation and consuming a $600 bottle of chardonnay – only to find that as the day gets closer, so do they, and raw passion overtakes them.
The humour generated by this fresh Vancouver troupe is delivered as if fired from a Gatling Gun and there are a lot more yuks to be had.
Not all of it works, but enough sticks to the wall to keep you laughing.
3 out of 5
***
The physical theatre company RAGMOP has been at the Fringe before. The duo, composed of Canadian clown Nayana Fielkov and American circus artist Matthew ”Poki” McCorkle, sold out the whole run of their entertaining Falling Awake here a couple of years back. The two tap into a seemingly endless array of dexterous theatrical abilities (including clown, magic, mime, mask, puppetry, illusion, dance and various other circus arts) to mount a show that is a marvel to behold, a continuing treat and a boisterous display of exotic, theatrical talent.
As you might imagine, employing all these traditional though bizarre abilities in one show leads to an outlandish surreal experience, but the two ground everything in enough reality to keep the show from drifting off into “what-was-that-all-about?”
Although there was quite a bit of “how-did-they-do-that?”
In Hotel Vortruba (Stage 37), she’s a knockabout comic with a face of silly putty. He’s in full white mask – but then you can read anything you want into that baleful countenance. It begins in a fearful storm as Fielkov attempts to check into a hotel that would make Adam Sandler’s Castle Dracula feel like Buckingham Palace. After a quite hilarious bit where she goes through every terror imaginable, she finally gets the courage to ring the bell for the check-in guy.
You really can’t go into detail about what follows – one reason being that it’s impossible to describe. The two combine some remarkably complex physical comedy with some breathtaking magic tricks. Objects refuse to obey the laws of physics. They disappear before your eyes or float in the air with no describable wires or support. Endless wine bottles (and glasses) appear from a single small serving sleeve. A really big rat appears and goes into a protracted Fred and Ginger pas de deux dance routine with Fielkov. It’s graceful and complex and darned if some real chemistry doesn’t develop between the two. Next stop: Dancing With the Stars? Perhaps they’ll get their own Fringe show next year.
I could describe the big climax which includes (among other things) Fielkov, a clothes pin and a fishbowl – but you’d never believe it.
Check into this hotel.
5 out of 5
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