vancouver fringe

A Savage Birthday has numerous comedy skits by four performers that reflect the influences of Eric Davis, the Red Bastard  at the 2009 Vancouver Fringe where the performer wears a costume with a large padded belly and behind and face fully painted.  The best of these was by Monica.Pyress Flame who demonstrated considerably physical dexterity. 

Other sketches of note were Thomas Jones as a hobo, Jim Sands as a German nazi Shakespearian and Priscilla Costa as a birthday girl waiting for no one to show up at her party.  A lot of effort is apparent in the costumes.  Some of...

A Savage Birthday

A show about a future world where people evolve out of their bodies into a unified consciousness melded by an alien called Aomega performed by Daniel Nimmo from Australia. 

It opens with Aomega offstage facing a videocam that is then projected onto a large ball suspended from the ceiling.  Eventually Aomega appears onstage and talks to a small stuffed bear also suspended from the ceilling and focusses the videocam on this stuffed bear.  Aomega then directs attention to the audience and accessible audience members get to have their hair toussled, sat on and almost licked although this tall performer probably...

Aomega

This is a show about a performer, Chris Gibbs, doing a show about an ancestor that partnered with a thief and con man to form a detective agency. 

While the tale being performed is interesting by itself, the transitions between actor as actor and the show within the show was insufficiently distinct and made the action on stage hard to follow at times.  While the actor seemed quite capable, this show could benefit from better direction and a tighter script.

Antoine Feval is on as part of the Vancouver Fringe. For more information please go here.

Chris Gibbs

This 30 minute show at the False Creek venue consists of eight short pieces of performance art by a Hong Kong based husband and wife team.  The opening three dance pieces are modern dance representations of female and male using traditional style masks with a tai chi based piece synthesizing the two.  There are two pieces of amazingly beautiful demonstrations of sand painting with the use of a lightbox, videocam and projector. 

The solo performer, Hoi Chiu, also performs a hip hop based piece with music from Ryan Kurylo as DJ produce.  An original traditional style song by Ivan Hui...

Ancient Chinese Secrets of the Tao

Stretch Dog, written and performed by Robert Olguin, is a play about an actor who is trying to do the work he loves while also providing for his wife and baby daughter, two lifestyles entirely at odds. It’s a tried and true artist’s account of what it means to feel fulfilled by one’s work, but also get some bills paid. Olguin starts the play in sharp white light delivering a poetic account of a childhood memory. It’s all very edgy but suddenly we’re transported into his agent, Marty’s, office never to revisit the intriguing beginning again. In the agent’s office...

stretch dog

Alice Nelson and Jacqueline Russell’s Raunch, cued by Ariel Levy’s book Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture is a fun ride into the world of “feminism” and female physical identity.

It’s kinda like a slap stickier, more relevant, two woman Vagina Monologue. Nelson and Russell take you through a short historical tour of feminism from the early 1900’s to today, examine the morality of Girls Gone Wild, explore the puppeted world of “Hooker Chic” and, added bonus, personify a debauched boob job, including spittle. Yea, so… this is a good play. It’s an excellent balance of...

Raunch

Morgan Brayton is a force. One moment she’ll kick you in the gut, the next she’s making you “auh” at the cuteness of it all.

Her show Raccoonery!, a series of comedic monologues brings onto the Performance Works stage a cast of characters that you wish wouldn’t leave once the lights fade. Whether it’s the blonde dreaded 20 something telling her roommates that she won’t be paying their oppressive rent because she discovered that she’s 1/100th native, or the singed moth hopelessly in love with a flame or the 7 year old who endures the hardship of the ice cream...

Morgan Brayton

One Man Riot is an autobiographical monologue that reveals the roots of Jem Rolls' performance poetry and spoken word activism.  Rolls' epiphany came during the 1990 Poll-Tax riot in London, where he was swept up by the crowd and found himself facing a line of riot police wielding clubs and shields. Instead of meeting violence with violence Rolls chose to hold up a mirror, in which each man on the line could see himself reflected.

As Rolls tells it, this was a tremendously empowering experience.  As he portrays it, in this one-man tour-de-force, it's a breathless chase through the streets...

Jem Rolls

Actors Aaron Hutchinson and Elizabeth Kirkland are credited in the program as co-collaborators with playwright Melissa Haller. Hutchison and Kirkland brought their own relationship experience to bear on Haller's original script and the result is the ring of truth in what is said and how it's spoken.

LoveSong

If you enjoy Greek Mythology then you should like the play Echo. In this one wood nymph show, Echo reminds us there are always two sides of the story. And stories change over time.

Echo needs to speak, she is filled with gossip and can’t help using words. Not surprisingly her gift for the gab gets her into terrible trouble.

Hera, Zeus’s wife, puts a spell on her. She is never to speak again unless she is spoken to and then she cannot use the words unless given them from someone else. She has no words when she falls in...

Echo

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