Playwrights tackle infamous brothel fire
The Journal has had a team of seven reviewers at Fringe ‘O’ Saurus Rex. While today marks the last set of reviews in the print edition, you’ll find many more at edmontonjournal.com/fringe.
THE GREAT WHOREHOUSE FIRE OF 1921 ★★★★ Stage 13, Old Strathcona Public Library
The mine workers of Big Valley, Alta., are bathing suspiciously often, and their wives have had quite enough of it.
Small-town legend and a brief newspaper clipping inspired playwrights Linda Wood Edwards and David Cheoros to build a fictional narrative about a questionable central Alberta house fire in 1921.
Rumour has it the house, which belonged to a Mrs. Hastings, was a brothel, and that a group of local women set it alight to protect their families.
The show is about the fictional friendship between unapologetic businesswoman Mrs. Hastings and God-fearing Victorian Mrs. Smith, who boards some of the girls who work for Mrs. Hastings.
Although Mrs. Smith is unable to conceal her disdain for the world’s oldest profession, the ladies’ friendship grows stronger when they find each has something the other wants.
Mostly storytelling with limited movement around the small library stage, the play features a magnificent sassy Sue Huff (Mrs. Hastings) and painfully prim Linda Grass (Mrs. Smith) jumping between dialogue and monologues.
The banter is packed with bitingly humorous lines, like this one about marriage: “Why wait to inherit one man’s money when I can get most men’s money right now?”
It’s empowering to imagine that at a time when most women were relegated to menial housework, there was a sage entrepreneur trailing industrial fortune across the nation to exploit men’s proclivities.
Janet French
THE MANY LOVES OF IRENE SLOANE ★★★★ Stage 12, Varscona Theatre
Have you ever fantasized about what it would be like to inject yourself into a favourite novel or play? That’s sort of the premise of this new comedy written and directed by Stewart Lemoine, and commissioned for The Novus Actors’ annual Fringe show.
Irene Sloane is one of several characters in an unfinished play manuscript that takes on a life of its own within the play.
The manuscript has been copied and distributed to a new weekly book circle in the apartment building of our narrator, Nick. As discussion progresses, the members of the book club all take an opportunity to plant themselves in the reality of the manuscript to bring that story to our stage and eventually to a close.
It’s a precious metaphysical concept, and the mechanics of characters slipping from one reality to another run smoothly enough, complete with a trip to the concert hall. Lemoine’s taste for setting up odd character ticks and ironic turns shines through in the writing, though I felt some lines didn’t get the air of outright exaggeration they deserved. It’s a more reserved take on comic possibilities.
Marissa Tordoff ’s Sloane and Jill Gamez as Kristen were my favourites along with Morgan McClelland’s Lucette, in a cast that left me thinking.
Roger Levesque
BAD HABITS ★★★★1/2 Stage 37, Auditorium at Campus Saint-Jean
Wacky comedies about nuns would seem a natural for the Fringe and this show from Portland’s A Little Bit Off company was even wackier than expected. Their duet for three characters frequently flaunts that fourth wall with the audience in a way that heightens the spontaneity of it all, but the characters are enough on their own.
It’s mostly about a new postulate (candidate for nun-hood) named Sister Margerine (Amica Hunter), a young bucktoothed woman who’s hip to social media, confused over the vow of chastity, but still ready to devote herself to God.
Her supervisor-mentor in this endeavour is the long-suffering Sister Florence (David Cantor), whose voice sounds like a seasoned gangster though he’s still somehow believable in a nun’s habit.
They dish out a lot of kooky physical comedy including dance routines, even acrobatic dance routines, and much of it on “holy rollers” (electric hoverboards)!
But in the end it’s the naive charm of Sister Margerine that wins you over with her own unpretentious way of worshipping J.C. And once she looks into the bad book you’ll love how she takes on the devil (Cantor’s double), shaming him into submission.
There’s even a weird dream sequence (I think) about the mating habits of penguins before the sisters prepare to serve the audience communion (not what you think).
Nuns have never had so much fun before.
Roger Levesque
AL LAFRANCE: I THINK I’M DEAD ★★★★★ Stage 26, The Almanac
There are moments during his storytelling piece I Think I’m Dead, when he talks about consuming copious amounts of energy drinks. He also talks of having a panic attack so severe he thinks he’s having a heart attack.
There were also moments during I Think I’m Dead when I wondered how many energy drinks he had before he came out on stage or whether he was about to have a heart attack.
I Think I’m Dead is a machinegun rapid-fire monologue about, well, I assume it’s about Al, but he also said that our brain helps deconstruct memories, so now I’m really not too sure.
But it is a wonderful exploration of the unconscious, insomnia, depression, anxiety, horrible pain, Fight Club, and whether there are indeed infinite alternate timelines, and how we may all well be dead in other versions of this life.
When he took the stage, and started running his mouth faster than Rory and Lorelei Gilmore, I wondered whether he could keep up the pace, but the audience got sucked into that wild-eyed, fasttalking delivery. The jokes come fast, and when he slows down, it’s for great emphasis.
LaFrance is open and vulnerable and funny and inspiring in the way he discusses relationships, failings therein, mental health struggles and the greatness of Fight Club (the flyer had me hooked with aping the movie poster’s infamous soap).
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more captivating solo performer at the Fringe.
Dave Breakenridge
DOG’S MISERY SWAMP
★★1/2
Stage 10, Have Mercy Acacia Hall
Is there an editor in the house?
Dog ’s Misery Swamp starts strong in what initially seems like a series of unrelated scenes dealing with life in a failing New England town.
We meet one-armed Second World War vet Uncle Jack, his worshipful nephew Little Jack, birdwatching auditor Gordo and many more residents skilfully portrayed by playwright David Jacobson. The characters start to tie together, along such themes as industrial pollution and the wonders of micro-organisms.
Things are looking good — and then what had been a quirky little comedy falls into the quicksand.
Jacobson takes an interesting little story and gloms on the local mouthwash billionaire’s collection of foul breath samples from female celebrities, a dogsled ride into a swampy area contaminated with ultra-slippery chemicals and conjoined twin bodyguards.
Don’t forget the priceless vial of Helen Keller’s breath (saved from a one-night stand with the famed deaf-blind activist), a swamp monster and a snowmobile rescue by the billionaire’s stuttering daughter.
It’s just ridiculous, making a scripted show feel like it was taken over by a third-rate improv team and extended 20 minutes too long. And what’s with the stutter — haven’t we progressed to a time when characters with gratuitous speech impediments aren’t funny anymore?
By the end of this production it feels like we’re all stuck in the quicksand.
Gordon Kent
THE BRICK ★★★ Stage 7, Chianti Yardbird Suite
Billy’s mom was dead to begin with. His relationship with his mother, a woman who drank too much and who had too little love to show to her family, was rocky at best.
Now, years after her passing, Billy has come to deliver her final death. It’s said that a person’s first death comes when their heart stops, the second when they are put in the ground. The third death comes when someone says your name for the last time. It’s this final death that Billy has come for, to talk to his mother for the last time.
His impetus: he’s met someone and they are talking about having a family. Billy wants to be a better parent than his mother. He’s decided to be a good person … out of spite and contempt for a dead relative. Billy takes us through his upbringing with the magic of song, regaling the audience with tales such as She Gave Me the Crabs and The Piano Tuner with the Lazy Eye. Bill Berry is a delight on the guitar. His songs are a mix of campy fun and folksy tunes; a troubadour for the bluecollar worker.
At 90 minutes, the show feels a touch long. Berry could drop a musical number or two to get it down to 75 or even 60 minutes, telling the same story without quite so many musical interludes. The Brick is ultimately a story of hope and redemption, about how death doesn’t have to be the end of our memory of a family member or loved one. For that, I commend its beauty.
Justin Bell