Show offers a musical toast to Prohibition
Six Journal reviewers will be covering nearly 50 plays at this year's festival, Together We Fringe. You'll find all of our reviews posted as they come in at edmontonjournal.com/fringe.
A TOAST TO PROHIBITION ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ out of 5 Stage M, La Cite Auditorium
Irony, in its broadest sense, is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or event in which what on the surface appears to be the case or to be expected differs radically from what is actually the case (source: Wikipedia).
The irony here is in the title, A Toast to Prohibition. You see, prohibition outlawed the production, transportation and sale of alcohol, while a toast is generally given while holding a glass of alcohol.
Don't worry, singer and actress extraordinaire Melanie Gall will explain everything, working her way through America's experiment with forced sobriety from the comfort of The Sparrow. A Toast to Prohibition is one-part history lesson, one-part musical and one-part wink and nod to the heavy drinking of the Roaring '20s.
Gall sings about the ups and downs, the unintended consequences and the heroes of the prohibition era. For 13 years starting in 1920 it was illegal to sell or consume alcohol; as you might imagine, that didn't stop people from partying. They partied at home, they partied on boats, they partied behind green doors with secret passwords.
But a Toast to Prohibition is more than just a history lesson. It's a one-woman singing extravaganza performed by one of the most talented vocalists at this year's Fringe. Gall has impressive range and isn't afraid to show it off.
I wouldn't have turned down drink service to my seat. But maybe that's going a bit too far — this is, after all, the age of temperance and prohibition.
— Mark Morris
MI HABANA QUERIDA ★ ★ ★ 1/2 out of 5 Stage C, Westbury Theatre
Mi Habana Querida (`My Dear Havana') is Edmonton's Cuban Movements Dance Academy's first foray into the Fringe, and I hope not the last.
Billed as a `dance musical,' it's a grand excuse for dancing Cuban-style — rather, in two styles, Cuban-latin, and the much more traditional Afro-cuban. The former is all style and glitter and rhythm and energy and sensuousness, from the chacha to the mamba — the dances of the Havana nightclubs. The latter, presented here as a series of dances by four old gods of Cuba, is African drums and vocal call and chant, earthiness — the elemental dances of the forest.
It's heady and exciting, like the music, with some marvellous dancing, especially from the two male dancers, Leo Gonzales (who conceived the production) and Raydel Martinez Portuondo, and the female lead Amalía Cameron.
The theatrical frame, with a story so thin as to be non-existent, and with recent historical video of Cuba, is much less successful — these are dancers, not actors, and it really wasn't necessary.
Inevitably, the political appears at the conclusion with the suggestion of a new life for Cuba after the end of the Castro period. But the last music video — a male-aggressive video rap — and the finale, which ironically reminded me of the finales of almost all Communist operas, simply suggested a continuation of Cuba's political circle.
Ultimately, and perhaps unintentionally, this show is about the nostalgia and yearning of the exile, but it matters not. Go for the wonderful dancing.
— Mark Morris
DIE-NASTY ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ out of 5 Stage G, Varscona Theatre
Die-nasty, that ever-erupting narrative force of nature reviewers happily pay to see, was in fine form the other night, as ever.
I cry-laughed at least three times during this improv metasoap about the Fringe itself, including masterful caricatures of its shaggy-groovy artistic director Murray Utas by Matt Schuurman; Kristi Hanson's loving, ridiculously dead-on echo of unmatchable theatre-review matriarch Liz Nicholls; and even a writhing wild man by the name of Fisher T. Johnson — a twist on Mark Meer's life role Hunter S. Thompson … also a Fringe reviewer in the context, he and Nicholls talking through every play.
Threaded through all of this, Jacob Banigan's Spiro Gerussi, son-of-a-bruno star of One Man: The Beachcombers, Fringe psychiatrist Dr. Grimshaw played by Stephanie Wolfe and cowboy playwright Cooter James prancing about on actor Tom Edwards' nimble legs.
It's juicy chaos, and I haven't even listed all the characters yet (and, indeed, we spend the first five minutes of the invented-onthe-spot show meeting them, Ron Pedersen in his dungeon master role directing from the front row).
Outbursts into group song, references to boat hobo Relic, and Utas obsessively trying to wrap everything with fences during this awkward-as-all-hell pandemic Fringe abound.
The whispered plays going on in the background of Nicholls' and Johnson' rising relationship were brilliant, too, as #YEG realtor Bart Gold (Wayne Jones) strode around staking claims.
Full of in-jokes? Oh yeah.
But the “in” here is wider than the Fringe: it's Edmonton itself. Thus, I can't recommend Die-nasty enough, it's the most reliably funny thing running — if you can actually find the Varscona behind all that fencing.
— Fish Griwkowsky
THE DISNEY DELUSION ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2 out of 5 Stage I, Grindstone — Comedy Theatre
In his 45-minute confessional standup routine, Leif OlesonCormack shows how two things — storytelling skill and pure fearlessness — can make for truly captivating theatre.
With the conversational ease of your funniest friend telling the craziest story of their life, Oleson-cormack returns to the early days of his coming out as bisexual and his hare-brained, naively romantic plan to pin down and capture a sexual free-range steed of a man named Arthur, who we instantly recognize will never allow himself to be fenced.
This embarrassing true story finds Oleson-cormack trying to ride Machiavelli's methods into the bone zone as he orchestrates a trip he and Arthur go on to Disneyland, schemed down to the second the scheduled fireworks go off as they have their first kiss.
Things quickly derail his creepier than Chasing Amy plan, and he and Arthur end up in West Hollywood with a horny, paper-dropping sugar daddy doctor and a Frank Sinatra impersonator, both on the hunt for young flesh, making schemes of their own.
“As someone who's now gone through therapy ...” Oleson-cormack says to a big laugh, but it really is his rawness and willingness to reveal things very few people would ever admit out loud, never mind in front of an audience, that makes this the best thing I've seen so far at the Fringe.
Serious warning, though: There's no social distancing at this show, and if it got much fuller I would have bounced — but truly glad I stayed.
— Tom Murray
WAT E R ★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2 out of 5 Stage C, ATB Westbury Theatre
It's both a necessity and a primal force for terrible destruction, so it makes sense that water has been a constant feature in our art through the centuries.
Viva Dance Company's multimedia rumination on the life-giving and taking liquid that makes up 60 per cent of our bodies explores both the dark and hopeful side of water, using voice-overs, sound effects, rock songs and video in a 45-minute dance piece that will leave you feeling refreshed by the end.
Contemporary dance isn't everyone's cup of tea, but the seven performers in Viva keep things moving in a whirlwind of solo to full ensemble pieces that hypnotize like waves lapping on the beach. There's an eclectic range of dance, from slow, lithe movement to hip-hop, the performers (led by Viva Dance artistic director Stephanie Lilley) occasionally breaking into impressive gymnastic routines.
The mood changes often, from gentle rainfall to tears, tsunamis to floods, hooked as much on the music of artists like M83 and
Wax Tailor as the graceful turns of Lilley's crew.
It needs to be said that Water would be an impressive piece even if you didn't know the story of Lilley, who up until very recently wasn't expected to perform ever again after a double hip replacement in 2020. You can try to pick her out on stage based on this knowledge, but unless you know what she looks like there's little chance you'll be able to distinguish her dancing from the others.
— Tom Murray
THE ADHD PROJECT ★★★★ 1/2 out of 5 Stage M, La Cite Auditorium
One of the more unusual shows at this year's Fringe must also be among the most heartwarming. Hamilton-based Carlyn Rhamey's one-woman show The ADHD Project is not new — it's won accolades across Canada, and was seen at the 2018 Fringe, where it received four stars from the Journal.
But Sunday's performance was the first time she has presented it since the pandemic started, and she says it's developed over that time.
Part storytelling, part standup comedy, part informative talk, and all the time it is entirely from the heart. Using photos and videos from her childhood, stories of her family, and reminiscences both good and bad from school, she tells us what it's like to have attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
It's funny, poignant, sometimes sad, but decidedly uplifting, and in spite of the occasional theatrical rustiness from the long layoff, there wasn't a moment in the 70 minutes that didn't completely hold the audience's attention.
Everyone knows someone with ADHD, and every schoolchild has fellow students with the disorder. Rhamey reminded us that with the struggles also comes the successes — Simone Biles and Michael Phelps both have ADHD, not to mention Justin Timberlake.
Who is this show for? Teachers, parents, and especially parents with ADHD children, and those ADHD children themselves. But it's also for all of us, a wonderfully sincere woman telling us with humour and great stories what life is like with such a disorder, and in doing so, affirming all life.