FRINGE FOREIGNERS in our MIDST: 3 Plays from Artists not from Around Here
Since Canada is all about embracing cultures, attitudes and perspectives different from our own, here are three plays from non-Canadian performers for your 2019 Fringe consideration!
No, You Can’t Return Discount Shrimp
Stage 9 (Telus Phone Museum)
You can’t get much more foreign to a Canadian Fringe audience than in this play by American writer and performer Bill Pats – in a story about a charismatic and manipulative jerk who seems to enjoy over-asserting himself and stepping on toes throughout his colourful life – despite the manifest protestations of everyone around him. In short, the American way. This play even includes a scene with a public shooting, complete with gunshot sound effects.
How more American can it get? And you don’t even need your passport!
One may wonder why Pats flips in Canadian names for places and locations in the story. Isn’t it America’s job to act like we don’t exist? This might be a first, folks – but it’s just one component in a lengthy list of things that were right with this piece.
The one-man play is busy, frenetic at points, jumping between different events in the daily life of one “Dave Stevenson,” a master of assertive disaster who tries to right the wrongs of his world, even when that means manipulating others to meet his poor man’s Machiavellian ends. But as the work unfolds, the viewer discovers it is going somewhere else more interesting, revealing in an unexpected fashion who “Dave” really is and where his life choices have taken him.
The script is a standout work in terms of its originality as well as in Pats’ portrayal of the character as he deftly turns the entire piece around on itself over the course of the 45-minute running time. The only criticism is that the last part of the script could use a smoothing out. Still, it’s challenging to accomplish everything this play does within so short a time frame.
4 out of 5
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