Toronto Fringe Festival 2011 - Second Week

In my writeup of our first week at the Fringe, I described how difficult it was to determine which shows we would enjoy. For our second week's picks, in order to improve our odds, we went with external reviews from Now Magazine as well as recommendations from other Fringe goers.  We did not get the results we were hoping for. 

Now Magazine gave 4 stars and a rave review to Bursting in Flames which we did not like at all, while it gave 3 stars and a luke warm review to Love Virtually, which ended up being our second favourite show.

We switched our last show to go to a "Patrons' Pick" called Breaking News (another 4 star Now Magazine rating) and ended up hating that one too.  The Patron's Pick is determined by the show that sold the most tickets per venue.  Either all the shows of this venue were really bad, or everyone kept their opinions quiet so that more people could be bamboozled as well!

We were told to buy our tickets early for Patron's Picks, so the first clue that we were in trouble should have been showing up and finding there was no lineup. 

Breaking News again had an excellent premise - How do residents in a fictional small town in Illionois react when they think that Orson Welles' War of the World radio broadcast about an alien attack is real? 

The staging of the show was also intriguing.  Actors on stage played town mayor, his wife and staff, holding a townhall meeting. The audience was actually scattered with actors that were part of the show.  It was surprising when people all around us started to jump up and shout at each other and alot of the action happened in the aisles as opposed to on stage (which made the number of paying patrons even smaller).  Other than a lot of yelling and histrionics, there was not much plot and the ultimate insult (or blessing) was that the show was over in about 25 minutes.  

The worse part of seeing a bad show is not the waste of time and money, but the lost opportunities of watching better shows.  However the joy of stumbling unexpectedly on a great show so outweigh the disappointments of the bad ones that it makes it all worthwhile.

This is what happened when after getting out of one show, we decided to rejoin the lineup for "Love, Virtually", without knowing anything about it, other than the offer of free ice coffees from Big Smoke Coffee for all ticket holders.  "Love, Virtually" deals with internet dating and most of the action and dates happen within a coffee shop (serving Big Smoke Coffee - the cross promotion was brilliant!).


The dialogue was hilarious, especially when the main character, Lauren, reads out the profiles for her potential dates.  As she does this, the men parade out to the front of the stage and complete the descriptions of their goals and hobbies, representing all the typical stereotypes - the nerd, the nature loving sports enthusiast, the pretentious cultural sophisticate, the hockey fanatic and so on.

There is a deeper plot also about getting over a lost past love that plays out as a bit of a mystery, with a flashback scene repeating several times throughout the show, each time revealing a bit more about the situation.  The play also makes so good observations about the impact of the online social networking phenomenon on personal interactions.  And on top of all that, there are some good songs that are blended naturally into the plot, as the cafe has open mike nights and Lauren is a singer by profession.

Our pick of "Tiki Bikini Beach Paradise Party A-Go-Go" was a good safe pick.  This was a musical spoof of the Frankie Avalon/Annette Funicello beach movies, and was every bit the frothy light, entertaining show that it aims to be.  The talented, intentionally over the top actors sang and danced their way through the traditionally paper thin plot of a gang of kids wanting to hold one last beach party before heading back home to school and reality.

There was a mix of old summer beach songs such as "I Think You Think" from Beach Blanket Bingo, as well as a few specifically written for the play including the title song, which was catchy and fun.  There were some original uses of props and staging including a raunchy sight gag with a surf board, a dance with hula hoops, and the simulation of palm trees.

Another pick which was right up my alley was "Mickey and Judy", a one man show where a very talented Michael Hughes sings Broadway tunes as he tells amusing anecdotes about his childhood about growing up with a love for musicals and Judy Garland.  He weaves in songs like "Dressing them Up" from Kiss of the Spider Woman to describe his predilection for cross-dressing, which landed him in the psych ward, and "Make 'Em Laugh" from Singing in the Rain, where he talks about trying to use humour to avoid getting beaten up because he was different.

Michael Hughes has a beautiful singing voice and an engaging, endearing manner of speaking that made you want to run up and hug him as he talks so earnestly and humorously about persevering and following his dreams of reaching Broadway, and how his admiration of Judy Garland helped him through it all.  He sings a medley of Judy Garland songs as a tribute and ends appropriately with her most famous song, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".

Now that the Fringe Festival is over, the shows voted to be "Best of Fringe" will be playing encore performances at the Toronto Centre for the Arts (formerly the Ford Centre in in North York), so if you missed it, there's another opportunity.  Given that all 5 of the shows that we really enjoyed (Kim's Convenience, Love Virtually, Living with Henry, Mickey and Judy, Tiki Beach Bikini..) all made the cut.   Our final tally was 5 out of 8.  In baseball terms, we'd be all stars, so I think we did OK in our picks this year.. looking forward to next year.