A FRINGE FULL OF REVELATIONS
VANCOUVER FRINGE FESTIVAL When: To Sept. 16
Where: Various venues
Tickets & Info: $15; vancouverfringe.com
Where else but at the Fringe can you see every kind of off-the-wall, self-penned, hour-long solo show, as well as the kind of substantial full-length work you might see on Broadway or at the Arts Club, but done on a shoestring ?
FORGET ME NOT — THE ALZHEIMER’S WHODUNNIT
Where: The Revue Stage, Granville Island
The U.K.’s Rob Gee is a psychiatric nurse, accomplished actor and storyteller whose murdermystery, set in a hospital ward for late-stage Alzheimer’s patients, is one of the best shows at the Fringe. When an elderly female patient dies on the ward under mysterious circumstances, her retired police detective husband, himself showing early Alzheimer’s symptoms, decides to investigate.
Gee introduces us to various other patients and nurses, a nasty administrator and a chief detective specializing in mixed metaphors. One male nurse in particular, good-humouredly matter-of-fact about changing the patients’ diapers and keeping them under control, provides a ghoulishly chilling perspective on the reality of these kinds of wards. “No one cares until someone without Alzheimer’s is killed.”
Silly, entertaining and eyeopening, this is terrific theatre, even though you can spot the killer early on.
RABBIT HOLE
Where: The Cultch Vancity Culture Lab
American playwright David Lindsay-Abaire won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Rabbit Hole, a realist drama about a suburban couple whose four-year-old only child was hit by a car and killed eight months earlier. It’s a beautifully written, surprisingly funny, intensely human play about excruciating loss and the gradual possibility of dawning recovery.
Vancouver’s Frolicking Divas — an unlikely name for a company doing this kind of work — has put together a near-perfect production, my must-see pick of this year’s Fringe. The superb ensemble comprises Lori Watt and Chris Nowland as the couple, Becca and Howie, Lesli Brownlee as Becca’s ditzy pregnant sister, Linda Darlow as their pushy mother who has also lost a child, and Braden Lock as the teen who was driving the car. Nicky Anderton directs with unobtrusive subtlety.
It’s a strangely exhilarating story of how decent people learn to bear the unbearable, and I’d love to see it get a longer run.
BIG SISTER
Where: Revue Stage, Granville Island
Autobiographical solo shows are the Fringe’s bread-and-butter, but Big Sister applies a unique twist to the form. Performer Naomi Vogt is the older sister of Deborah Vogt, who wrote the script, and also the bigger sister who grew up 75 pounds heavier than she is now. In a deceptively casual chat with the audience, Naomi describes what it was like to be fat and now thinner like Deborah.
The twist: Deborah sits in the front row and Naomi addresses her directly. She also reads letters Deborah has written for each performance, which Naomi claims to be seeing for the first time. How much of the show is actually scripted, how much improvised?
Deborah remains silent but is, obviously, actively Naomi’s foil, competition, nemesis and double. Their complex relationship is as much the crux of this fascinating piece as the fat shaming and female attractiveness that Naomi addresses.