The Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»Fringe Festival runs until Sept. 14. Details at .
Little One
Vancity Culture Lab at the Cultch
Sept. 10, 12 and 13
Written by Hannah Moscovitch and presented by Alley Theatre (Tape, Mrs. Warren’s Profession), Little One is as riveting and polished as a Fringe show ever gets. It’s a nasty, sad and sordid little tale told from the perspective of med student Aaron (Daniel Arnold) looking back on his childhood with a psychopathic little sister Claire (Marisa Smith). Adopted by a liberal, affluent couple, Aaron lost his parents in a fire but Claire – also adopted – suffered such a devastating early childhood trauma that she now does bad things to small animals, molests other children and is a threat to Aaron. “Mom, Dad, Claire’s killing me” goes way beyond sibling rough and tumble. Arnold is so natural and absolutely compelling; he blends Aaron’s wry humour with guilt – although I’m not certain what young Aaron could have done to help Claire. Smith’s Claire is constantly smiling and almost catatonically creepy. Smith and Arnold have worked magic together before and they take it to a new level in Little One. It’s one to see.
Poor
Firehall Arts Centre
Sept. 10, 12, 13 and 14
I parked my car alongside Openheimer Park packed with ragged tents and ragged people before I walked back to the Firehall. Best city in the world in which to live? Not if you’re poor. And increasingly, only if you’re rich. In actor Suzanne Ristic’s first full-length play, socialite Shelly Cormorant (Lisa Bunting) blithers on: “I wish I were poor. Their lives are so unfettered.” And she talks glowingly – but not sincerely – about her one “poor friend” who lives with her kids packed into one room. Bunting’s performance is terrific as Shelly sheds her fancy gown for rags – designed and created, of course, by Shelly’s personal couturier. I’m not sure poverty and the poor lend themselves satisfactorily to satire and Poor exists somewhere between satire, voyeurism and comedy. It’s a hard sell making a theatre crowd feel guilty about privilege (or move them to activism) when most of them have bought a ticket, driven their car to the theatre and probably bought a $5 coffee somewhere along the way. Nobody seemed to be bothered; a standing ovation extended a warm welcome to Ristic as a playwright to watch.
High Tea
Studio 16
Sept. 9, 13 and 14
It must have been 40 C in Studio 16 the night I went for High Tea with writers/performers James Brown and Jamesy Evans. Sweat was running off them – and the audience – even though James and Jamesy had persuaded us we were all swimming in a sea of iced tea. Few performers take audiences as far as this pair from Sussex: a teapot is a teapot, or a dolphin or a telephone. High Tea begins as their other shows do with straightman James arriving for his weekly cup of tea with weirdly eccentric Jamesy. Two cups, one teapot, one tiny table and two chairs is all it takes for them to build an apartment, a shipwreck at sea, a Noah’s arc filled with birds, animals and dinosaurs (performed by the audience). Theirs is the kind of imagination children have: go-anywhere, do-anything, mind-bending, free-swimming. ĚýĚýĚý
Perhaps it was just the heat, but with all of us whinnying and cock-a-doodle-doodling, I was ready for a nice cuppa when the show was over.
The Zoo Story
Vancity Culture Lab at the Cultch
Sept. 10, 13 and 14
It’s astonishing how controversial The Zoo Story, written in 1958 by Edward Albee, remains today. It was his first play and 50 years later, Albee wrote a second act, re-titling the combined two acts, At Home at the Zoo. He now prohibits productions by professional companies of The Zoo Story by itself, defending this decision by saying the play is his to do whatever he wants. So this Fringe production, ably directed by Tanya Mathivanan, is non-professional but you’d never guess it. Tom Stevens is down and out Jerry, desperate for human connection; Scott Button is buttoned-down Peter, equally desperate to be left alone on a park bench to read in solitude – something he lacks at home with his wife, two kids, two cats and two parakeets. Together, the actors take this strange little one-act and turn it into a harrowing theatrical experience. Stevens combines loneliness and menace in a mixture that’s just waiting to explode. What we don’t expect is the latent rage that Peter finally lets loose. We may not be caged in a zoo, but we are, Albee suggests, all animals. Threaten our security, our complacency and just see where that goes.
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