{"id":23048,"date":"2022-09-15T15:18:36","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T22:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=23048"},"modified":"2022-09-15T15:18:36","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T22:18:36","slug":"victoria-fringe-festival-roaring-success-of-indie-performances-yet-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2022\/09\/15\/victoria-fringe-festival-roaring-success-of-indie-performances-yet-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria Fringe Festival roaring success of indie performances yet again"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Sunday, September 4, the 35th annual Victoria Fringe Festival came to a close after 12 days of indie performances. I checked out five of the 28 shows, and I was surprised, engaged, and entertained with what I saw.<\/p>\n

I started out with Outpost 31\u2019s The Sci-Fi Sampler<\/i>. This is presented in an interesting format, featuring several standalone science-fiction stories entwined within one another. The tone and quality of the skits is, admittedly, all over the place, and while there were a couple I just did not enjoy, there were also two dramatic pieces which were thought provoking, well written, and well acted. Overall, whether the pieces were strange and wacky or deep and serious, the collection is certainly reminiscent of pulp fiction sci-fi magazines from the \u201850s up until modern day, and this is absolutely an effective sci-fi sampler.<\/p>\n

After that, I watched Eleanor\u2019s Story: An American Girl in Hitler\u2019s Germany<\/i> by Ingrid Garner, who enacts the true story of her grandmother enduring the horrors of WWII. Garner skillfully portrays the complex emotions of a developing girl entrapped in wartime, with heartfelt, genuine moments of humour and emotion, interspersed with heart-wrenching depictions of horrific traumas.<\/p>\n

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The Sci-Fi Sampler<\/em> was one of the performances at this year\u2019s Fringe.(photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The show uses multimedia elements to great effect to engulf the viewer, and Garner is able to make creative use of very minimalistic props to convey the rapidly changing world within which her grandmother lived. With riveting stage presence and the graceful movements of a dancer, Garner gripped the audience from the first minute to the last.<\/p>\n

Bookmarks<\/i> by Corin Raymond blends stand-up comedy with eloquent spoken-word narration as Raymond invites the audience on a journey through his life and his extremely complex relationship with books. Throughout the piece, Raymond shows the audience an intimate portrayal of his internal self, seamlessly transitioning from side-splitting satire and effective improv to deeply emotional moments where he lays bare his humanity to the listener.<\/p>\n

Flippant jokes sown early in the show are reaped far later, with payoffs that reveal deep and serious meaning within them. By the end, what initially seemed to be a silly story about someone who loves books with a nearly inappropriate intensity had blossomed into the sincere portrayal of a person whose intense relationship with the written word is a way to process loss and heartbreak, and become a stronger, better man.<\/p>\n

Next up was Gangland Productions\u2019 In Search of Cruise Control<\/i>, where stand-up comedian James Gangl takes the audience on a NSFW romp through his tragically hilarious sexual history and misadventures. Gangl is the quintessential comedian, using nothing but a chair, a microphone, and an endless reservoir of energy and charisma to keep the audience howling.<\/p>\n

I did find, however, that at about the halfway mark, the show took on a far darker tone, discussing Gangl\u2019s experience as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. Although, like Raymond in Bookmarks<\/i>, Gangl sets up serious discussion with seemingly irreverent comedy that is paid off later, something about the delivery didn\u2019t work for me. Whereas Raymond\u2019s comedy is candid and subtle, Gangl\u2019s comedy is so explosively crass and over-the-top that the distance between the bombastic high of sarcastic wit and the unexpectedly mood-shattering crater of life-ruining trauma is too great. While Raymond\u2019s reflection on his existential void appeared heartfelt and genuine, Gangl\u2019s delivery of his message seemed forced and overacted, and he didn\u2019t manage to pull out of the tonal nosedive well enough to completely rescue his blindsided audience from the sombre abyss.<\/p>\n

Finally, I ended the festival with Domesticated Disputes<\/i> by Material Theatre. This is a hugely satirical solo performance lamenting the crazy-making life of a stay-at-home mother and housewife in the \u201950s, but its themes and observations are timeless, and the ridiculous, often raunchy, humour depicts the absolute desperation and tragic mundanity of a life consisting only of endless laundry, chores, and childrearing.<\/p>\n

Marya Folinsbee slays the stage with hilarious high-energy physical comedy, which is cleverly belied by the show\u2019s opening, where she stands completely still in one place for a full 15 minutes, monologuing with little expression. This tacitly inflicts upon the audience an unconscious tension, an irritable boredom, a desire for some movement, engagement, action, anything to stir up the monotony, and just as soon as we begin squirming in our seats, Folinsbee erupts into the tragically comedic exertions of a bored housewife on the edge of her sanity.<\/p>\n

Once again, the Fringe Festival provided an impressive array of performing talent within a series of intimate, low-frills venues. This tradition has been going strong for longer than most Camosun students have even been alive, and I, for one, am already eagerly awaiting next year\u2019s lineup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Sunday, September 4, the 35th annual Victoria Fringe Festival came to a close after 12 days of indie performances. I checked out five of the 28 shows, and I was surprised, engaged, and entertained with what I saw. I started out with Outpost 31\u2019s The Sci-Fi Sampler. This is presented in an interesting format, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23048"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23049,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23048\/revisions\/23049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}