Fringe Festival Web Report #11
Sunday, July 15th

By JON KAPLAN

The 13th annual Fringe of Toronto is over, and this time the number 13 turned out to be anything but unlucky.

It was the largest Fringe ever – 105 companies presenting shows all over the city, from the Tarragon Theatre in the north to Factory Theatre in the south, east to venues at the U of T and west to the KidsVenue at the Palmerston Library Theatre.

Even by the end of the first weekend, the festival was setting records. From July 5 to July 8, attendance was up 27 per cent from the previous year. Among the big sellers over the course of the 11 days were Da Kink In My Hair, The Dick’s A Dame, Lilia!, Betrayal, Black Jack Justice, Christian Values, The Contract, I. and Splice.

For a non-curated festival – except for the winner of the best new play contest, The Root Of All Squares, all the entrants were chosen by lottery or on a first-come, first-served basis – the overall quality of this year’s Fringe was high. Of the 49 shows that I saw, there was only one in which I didn’t find at least something worthwhile. The Fringe is a time for experimenting, for switching artistic gears, for getting audience reaction to ideas and material, so I have no problem with watching a show that has a good performance or two, a germ of an idea that needs further exploration or a novice playwright or director with some talent spreading his or her wings.

I don’t think I could have found a more perfect Fringe show, though, than Tuesdays And Sundays, written and performed by Daniel Arnold and Medina Hahn. These two young Albertans offered their hearts as well as their talents in the story of a pair of young lovers who meet a tragic end. It’d already won several awards in Edmonton, where the show originated last summer, and if we had Fringe awards for "best of show" or if Doras were given for Fringe productions, I’d put them right up there for more prizes. There’s a rumour that a Toronto high school has invited Hahn and Arnold back next year to do workshops with drama students, and another whisper that a local company is trying to bring Tuesdays And Sundays back for a longer run. Hope they’re both true.

The winner of this year’s 24-Hour Playwrighting Contest is Carolyn Hay, whose show Prints Charming received a staged reading at the Fringe Club on the last night of the festival. As usual, the event was SRO, with Kate Lynch directing a group that included Fiona Highet, Mark Brownell, Liza Balkan, John Blackwood, Catherine Fitch, Tony Munch, Janet Laine Green and Derek Boyes.

Winners of the contest’s second and third prizes are no Fringe strangers. Mike McPhaden – who took second place with Counterintuitive – performed in the Fringe production Black Jack Justice and has his second SummerWorks show going up in a few weeks, while Matt Toner (third place for The End Of The World – Convenient Travel Size) was co-writer and performer in this year’s BYOV show Shakespeare’s Rugby Wars.

This is the year that the Fringe introduced the 90-minute shows, and while it made scheduling more difficult, there are some legitimate reasons for adding the longer performances. Many other Fringe across the country already have slots for shows over an hour, and companies with longer shows haven’t been able to apply to the Toronto Fringe until now. That’s especially important for non-Canadian troupes, who skip over us to travel elsewhere on the Fringe circuit, and it’s been our loss.

On the other hand, I saw few newly written shows – ’Da Kink In My Hair was an exception – that warranted a full hour and a half. Most had a padded feeling and would be better shows if the scripts were tighter. You could also argue, of course – and I do – that the Fringe is the place to try out a new piece and see what works and what doesn’t.

One problem seemed ever-present this year – latecomers. The Fringe has always had a policy of no latercomers, and the house managers have to enforce the policy. Despite a clear statement in the Fringe guide and by staff when people buy tickets, at least once a day someone saunters up to the venue a few minutes after a show, or leaves during a performance and can’t get back in. Some wicked fights ensue, and the police were called at least once by an irate patron.

I walked by one venue a few minutes after a show started and saw three guys run up to the house manager. "Hey," said one of them, "I wrote this show and these two friends of mine just drove in from Montreal. They HAVE to see the show today, so please let them in."

"No," said the house manager, "I can’t."

The author pleaded for five minutes, trying every tactic he knew. Nope. They didn’t get in.

After they left, the house manager said to me, "That was a useless exercise. He’s been at every one of his performances and knows what the policy is."

That kind of craziness mixed with some wonderful artistic energy during the past 11 days.

Now we all – staff, performers, audience – have a chance to recharge our batteries before next year’s festival.