Singing the praises of fringe shows that dare to take risks

In the sweltering heat, after a couple of beers, conversation in the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival queues this year could turn saucy.

There’s a wholesomeness to so much of the fringe, one of the great local festivals, but we all know people talk smack. Sometimes, it’s about the shows. Other times — it’s easy to overhear — it’s about the reviews.

The second sort of smack-talk is my favourite. I relish it just as I do the bad reviews emailed to me of my bad (as in negative) reviews.

Reviewees, and their outspoken fans, understandably sometimes feel that reviewers get things wrong. That was echoed in last year’s Reviewing the Free Press 2 by comedian Benji Rothman, which razzed the paper for its perceived biases and inconsistencies.

But the truth is, on the whole, the Free Press reviews this year were very positive. Of 160 reviews, we handed out only one lower than two stars. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests our reviews average closer to 3 1/2 stars.

Were reviewers pulling their punches? Or is the quality of DIY theatre just getting that much better?

I freely admit to having a soft spot for certain types of blatantly amateur shows. A 45-minute play (I’m inventing here) with a name like Star Wars: The Neck-bearded Musical Improv sounds like a dorky delight to me.

I also noticed or saw far too many “memoir-style” shows this year, in which ordinary people with oh-so-ordinary lives insisted on treating theatre as public therapy. I have less patience for these, but it takes tact to convey this without seeming to dismiss a performer’s personal struggles.

But I was also a little disappointed by the lack of truly preposterous shows this year, the sort bound to polarize audiences and critics — shows like Ian Mozdzen’s infamous Viennese actionist-inspired 2013 Hollywood Hen Pit, which featured not one, not two, but three mayonnaise enemas and which was give zero stars by Free Press reviewer Wendy King.

Or a pilloried 2006 “variety show” that invited audience members up to perform, but without offering them instruments, backing tracks or anything beyond a blank stage. The host spent most of the show pleading in vain for audience members to come onstage.

There’s a saying I heard at this year’s fringe that’s stuck with me: “See a five-star show, and you’ll talk about it for a few weeks. See a one-star show and you’ll talk about it forever.”

The five- and the one-star shows indeed share a spiritual affinity. Both tend to be shows where a performer has taken a big creative risk, knowingly or not — and failed or succeeded dramatically.

One such show is Jean-François, plus que parfait, by Winnipeg playwright Daniela Smith-Fernandez. There’s no elevator pitch that can possibly capture its essence, but its bonkers elements include an X-rated French grammar book, a magic penis with the power to transform anglophones into francophones, and a sex cult that works for L’Académie français.

This parody of government bureaucracy and Franco-Canadian linguistic puritanism won’t resonate with everyone, even with its English subtitles. But its concept stood out as one of the most original I’ve ever seen at the fringe, and I awarded it 4 1/2 stars. I strongly hope a Canadian theatre further develops it.

Another show I wish I’d seen was Dan’s Inferno. It really didn’t work for the assigned Free Press reviewer, but it sounds to be made of the same absurd stuff that piques my interest: an asexual straight man travelling through the nine circles of Gender Hell, a “hate crime” fight between Batman and a non-binary ghost, and an incel convention.

Whatever else might be said about them, all the shows described are non-conformist. The economy of fringe, especially for touring acts, can be unforgiving and this may create a strong temptation toward safer, more middle-brow work. That’s fine, but the most memorable shows usually buck this.

At the same time, reviewers need the courage to risk unpopularity by firmly, and without being a jerk, saying when the results don’t work for them. And, thankfully, as Hollywood Hen Pit or last year’s Shit: the Musical’s cult status and polarized responses remind us, a bad review is not the kiss of death.

More likely faint praise is.

conrad.sweatman@winnipegfreepress.com