Why I Love the Fringe… and Sisyphus

The 2008 Vancouver Fringe Festival has restored my faith in ‘live’ theatre. From the heights to the depths, the festival offered an astonishing range of experience.

And it is a vital festival. When I was excited by a show I was often exhilarated. When I was bored I was violently bored (and not stewing in the malaise indifference I feel at a well-produced regional flop). The best writing at this year’s Fringe was as good as, or better than, the writing on our main stages (excepting masterful classics like Shakespeare). The mediocre writing was as mediocre as the usual dreck. The best acting was as good. The best staging was as smart, if not smarter.

I’ll concede that our regular season shows, due to a level of professional competency, don’t fall as low as the major bombs at the Fringe. But as I noted above, these bombs are so much more enjoyable than the blandly competent failures we get during the rest of the year.

I’ve avoided the Fringe for years. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because it is so very live. In the past I may have been too cowardly to sit through a raw failure. Real risks are taken at the Fringe. Due to small budgets and unpredictable venue situations, it’s hard for a production to cover its nakedness under a veneer of professional legitimacy. When you leave a great Fringe show, you feel invigorated, even if you’ve been attacked or asked to take part against your will (perhaps even more so in such situations). When you leave a bad Fringe show, you might feel a little tainted by the experience. Either way you can’t deny the fact that someone has just bared his or her soul to you. In a room. Usually not a very big room.

I was at one production last week, I won’t say which one, in which a brave performer had undertaken and executed his project with skill and integrity. But in the first minute of the show, it was clear that a disaster was about to unfold. For some mysterious reason, everything the artist was reaching for — humour, philosophical depth, surprise, intelligent audience complicity — persistently eluded him. Within two minutes of the opening, my partner in the next seat had disengaged, shut her eyes, and gone sort of out-of-body in order to cope. I was equally horrified by the glacial unfolding taking place, a painful predictability that would make the next hour seem like ten. Part of me was panicking. But part of me was watching intently, full of admiration. This is the part that won out. I faced the artist bravely. Yes, the content of the show was uninteresting, but a heroic human drama was taking place on another level. Like Sisyphus, the artist, with his whole confused being, kept pushing the ball up the mountain. Heart and soul. This was an effort worth my respect. Even though it could only end in failure. And maybe that’s truer to life than the show that says we can somehow conquer death.

On the other hand, I’m still soaring from Jem Rolls full-frontal assault on the banality of our consumer culture. I’ve rarely seen an artist-assassin obliterate his audience with such poetic precision before turning the weapon on himself. And did I pee myself yesterday at the ridiculous antics of Gutenberg! The Musical!? Maybe just a little.

Wandering about the festival bar I see performers from the shows I managed to get to, and I can’t help giving them an admiring glance. I feel a little sheepish in their presence. So much talent, so much courage.

I’ll be back next year. And I plan on seeing even more shows. I’m marking my calendar now. Does the Fringe make my life better? Does it answer the big questions? Does Sisyphus ever get the ball to the top of the hill? Maybe I’m just in love with the effort.