SEX, SCIENCE AND SAMURAI AT THE FRINGE
Because women still occupy only the fringes of power, it makes sense that so many Fringe Festival shows highlight female empowerment. Three productions at this year’s Fringe illustrate how different theatrical paths lead to similar ends.
SOUL SAMURAI AT THE CULTCH VANCITY CULTURE LAB
Almost every year I stumble on a Fringe show so accomplished that I wonder how I could not have known of the writer or performers before.
In the case of Soul Samurai, I’d been tipped off that Vietnamese American playwright Qui Nguyen was hot stuff, but I knew nothing about him or the Vancouver producing company, Affair of Honor.
Talk about hot. This is a spectacular queer mash-up of martial arts and blaxploitation theatre and film with vampires thrown in for good measure. Nathania Bernabe stars and directs a cast whose movement and combat skills are right off the wow! scale. And these kids can act.
In a post-apocalyptic New York ruled by brutal gangs, Filipina lesbian Dewdrop (Bernabe) and her goofy b-boy sidekick Cert (Lou Ticson) have to fight their way through the badlands of Brooklyn to take revenge on the Long Tooths who killed Dewdrop’s girlfriend, Sally December (Jackie Hanlin).
The show features a dozen major fights, each sensationally choreographed, with Jarelle Hepburn, Eryka Alanna and Jordan Svenkeson playing various baddies. They fight with swords, sticks, hands and feet. It’s breathtaking to watch them up close, and amazing that no one gets hurt.
Bernabe is fabulous, riveting in both her physical work and Dewdrop’s journey from weak girl to Samurai superwoman. Ticson’s Cert is a riot.
The filmed flashbacks are as impressive as the stage work, and the hip hop soundtrack is mesmerizing.
A smart, crazy, engaging script with remarkable production values, superbly performed and directed, this must-see show deserves a regular season run at the Cultch.
DISTRACTINGLY SEXY AT STUDIO 16
Mily Mumford opens her solo show portraying Nobel laureate Tim Hunt, whose online dissing of women in science labs led to a Twitter storm of women scientists posting “distractingly sexy”
photos of themselves at work.
For her part, Mumford strips down to her underwear and delivers a series of sexy lessons on the mostly unknown history of women in science from ancient Greek Hypatia to the Bletchley Park codebreakers and beyond.
She also draws on her own experience working in IT, doing a master’s in science and competing to be one of Canada’s next astronauts, describing how she has to deal not only with neanderthals like Hunt but with “the sexist bully in the back of my head mansplaining that I’m not smart enough.”
Mumford illustrates her points with songs, slides, puppets, quiz shows and burlesque humour. Her performance was surprisingly sloppy the night I saw it. Though she cleverly improvised her way around the glitches, a sharper presentation would be more sexy, less distracting.
SECHS AT THE FIREHALL ARTS CENTRE
Mispronounce the German word for six and it sounds like sex. Devon Simmons Mackinlay’s new play with music follows six young characters into bedrooms and bars where they have sex or talk about sex in graphically frank ways.
They also discuss dance, naval training and the condition of Canadian First Nations. But mostly sex.
The characters struggle with monogamy and promiscuity, jealousy and long-distance relationships while taking turns being with each other.
They’re specified by name but not gender so any (or every) character could be male, female or whatever. This production features four women (Melodie Corbett, Maira Hassan, Caitlin Hill, Jayka Mayne) and two men (Thelonius Kim-Marriott and Oliver Spilsbury, who also take turns on guitar).
Coincidentally or not, the women play the sexually aggressive characters, the dominators, the leavers.
Even in a post-gendered world girl power rules at the Fringe.