CAPTAIN AURORA SOARS AGAIN AS FRINGE TAKES OFF
Superhero musical sequel, absurdist lecture among early highlights of annual event
Our first roundup from this year’s Montreal Fringe festival necessarily focuses on the off-Fringe shows — the ones that didn’t get the lottery prize of full festival status but nevertheless were first out of the gate.
Many of these are playing at Théâtre Sainte-Catherine (264 Ste-Catherine St. E.), beginning with the Toronto-based troupe Sex T-Rex, which follows last year’s sublimely funny swashbuckling spoof SwordPlay with
Wasteland, an affectionate dig at post-apocalyptic actioners. There are some characteristically delirious and inventive moments of physical comedy, mostly riffing on the crazed car chases of the Mad Max reboot. But this time around, there seemed to be fewer oases of charm, and too often frazzled tumbleweeds blew through long stretches between effective gags. Hopefully things will tighten up as the show settles in. The No Bull$#!% History of Invention is the latest slice of silly but genuinely informative edification from Kyle Allatt. Fashioned as a lecture with brilliantly absurdist PowerPointing, it counts down 10 of humanity’s greatest hits of ingenuity, including sliced bread, the brassiere and, of course, the light bulb. It’s whip-smart and endlessly entertaining.
Love and Pasties, Miss S. sees the return of Holly GauthierFrankel’s burlesque creation Miss Sugarpuss. This time she’s sashaying around the boho haunts of ‘60s Paris, still looking for fame, fortune and existential reassurance. It’s a promising premise, but neither GauthierFrankel’s meta script nor her coperformer (and real-life amour), Amir Sám Nakhjavani, really catch fire. Thankfully, GauthierFrankel’s performance does. She’s truly mesmerizing as Miss Sugarpuss: playful, sweet, silly and, yes, very sexy.
Théâtre Sainte-Catherine’s resident company, led by Alain Mercieca, is renowned for its seemingly ramshackle but somehow sublime ensemble pieces. Mercieca’s ATM: The Musical, which premièred last year, follows the house style of flinging everything at the wall and not really minding if not much sticks. Which makes this love story between a one- and a 99-percenter all the more entertaining. Chris Sandiford and Maïté Sinave make for an engaging, Annie Hall-ish couple, and there’s fabulously grotesque support from Sandi Armstrong as a filthy rich Manhattan mogul named, with not too much subtlety, Donna Lump.
Ms. Lump’s inspiration would be appalled by La Fille du Laitier’s business model. This new company, which operates from a converted food truck, is giving 40 performances alternating
between French and English, all for free (though with some post-show tin-rattling). Caisse
606 / Checkout 606 is an enjoyable, Beckettian slice of physical comedy about two bored supermarket clerks who tire of making synchronized pleasantries to customers and start fooling around with items in stock, creating imaginative worlds rich in food puns. It’s family friendly and can be seen near the Fringe Park at St-Laurent Blvd. and Rachel St.
Atomic City (Freestanding Room, 4324 St-Laurent Blvd.) is a brisk wartime romantic comedy, written and performed by Jeff Gandell and Mariana Vial. It’s set in Oak Ridge, a secret city built to facilitate America’s race for nuclear power during the Second World War. Gandell and Vial play two boffins whose office romance might ignite or douse the war effort. The script seems slight but sneaks up on you, winding up as a kind of light variation on the alternative realities of that more weighty nuclear drama, Copenhagen. It’s all quite delightful, and Gandell and Vial’s ever so slightly tongue-in-cheek performances enhance its oldfashioned charm.
The first fully official Fringe production I caught was the much-anticipated sequel to last year’s hit superhero musical
Captain Aurora, playing at La Chapelle (3700 St-Dominique St.). Thankfully, it doesn’t disappoint, being more Dark Knight than Thor: The Dark World. Initially there are a few too many bewildering, even messy epic brawling scenes as the SkyGuard good guys take on the fiendish alien bad guys. But once things settle down, Trevor Barrette’s playful and witty script and songs offer much to enjoy, with the 15 cast members all getting their chance to shine. Special mention to Zachary Creatchman as a boy-next-door turned kick-ass cyborg, and the marvellous Kendall Savage, again giving a loopy, show-stopping performance as the good girl possessed by an evil empress.