Fringe Festival Web Report #4
Sunday, July 8th

By JON KAPLAN

Audiences worry about some things at the Fringe - not getting to a show on time and having the door closed in your face, going to an outdoor BYOV and having it rain, circling a venue with your car as you look for a parking space.

But electrical outages? That never crosses anyone's mind.

Or at least it didn't until Friday, when the power snapped and sent several performances into limbo. I witnessed the start of one and was a victim of another.

At the Glen Morris Theatre, dancer/choreographer Jackie Latendresse had just finished her performance of 3 and was taking her curtain call. She started to thank those who'd helped her when a loud pop sent the theatre into darkness, except for a worklight at the back of the house. Lucky she finished. As I left to go to another venue, I noticed that traffic lights were out on Spadina, a block away, and I hoped that the problem would be fixed before the next show in the venue.

Nope. What To Do With Jack Perdue didn't open at all that day, and audiences were sent away. The power was back on that evening, and the company has added a performance on July 15 at 8 pm to make up for the missed show.

If I was lucky once - able to see what I'd scheduled - my fortune didn't hold twice. I turned up at Trinity College Chapel to find the house manager and technician sitting on the ground and cables running out of the chapel. "Here for the show?" I was asked. "Sorry," they explained, "the electricity's off and won't be on for several hours."

I apologized to the cast - who'd hung around to ask people to come to another performance - and explained that I wouldn't be able to see the piece over the weekend and, because of deadlines, couldn't review the production. Too bad. I was looking forward to The Lark, Jean Anouilh take on the Saint Joan story. Some good actors in the piece, including Robert Tsonos, and the high-rising, stained-glass glory of the chapel suits the tale of ecstatic spirit versus conniving temporal force. I think it's worth checking out - I'll get there later in the week.

I quickly scanned the day's remaining Fringe shows. Some had started minutes before, others were too far away to reach. Then my eyes lit on Pure Hoopal, featuring two zany Brits, Chris Gibbs and Peter Mielniczek. They were one of my (and others' ) Fringe discoveries last year - artists whose work I didn't know but who really turned me on - and they came into this year's festival at the last minute. Zipped over to the Royal St. George's College - thankfully not the airless cafetorium that's been used in the past but the music room in another building - and saw them with a woefully small audience. Still, we all ate it up - the physical comedy, the great camaraderie, the clownish playing with the audience.

The guys are like an updated Beyond The Fringe troupe - that remarkable 60s company with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett - with a touch of the Monty Python crew thrown in. Probably only they could bring together a stuffed rabbit named Benny, a werewolf, songs from the musical Oliver and black-tape beards and eyebrows and give the show a logical coherence. Even their flubs and corny jokes are funny.

If Pure Hoopal is a show to be sure to see, you can pass on The Grind, an ill-conceived, predictable piece about the politics and seductions of the corporate world. If climbing the ladder of success were this dull, everyone would stay on the ground. Labelled a dark comedy, it yields only one risible line, though perhaps not laughable as authors Matt Di Paola and Manny Jose intend. After the workaholic central figure Jack kills his boss, he says to a supposed ally, "You've got to help me - this will murder my career." The play's just as dead as the boss.