Fringe 2015 - Part 2

After our first set of shows, I was questioning the wisdom of picking musicals to watch at Fringe, since the sound quality is so often hit and miss, making it difficult to hear  the singing.  Today, after attending the stellar production of the musical Summerland, my faith has been restored and I have been reminded that the exuberant feeling which occurs when you strike gold at Fringe makes it worthwhile to sit through a few duds.  The adage "You can't win if you don't play" comes to mind.

 

The plot of Summerland starts off as a musical version of The Breakfast Club, when eight students ranging from cool kids to nerds are sent to the principal's office for various infractions including cheating on exams, pulling a fire alarm, posting a sex tape on the internet  and bullying a classmate.  Instead of detention, they are sent via bus to a week-long boot camp called Building Our Own Bridges (the acronym BOOB played for a joke) which is meant to rehabilitate them.  Surprisingly, the victimized student is also sent on the excursion as a means to find out why he is always getting picked upon. The camp is a mere plot device to get the kids on the bus, since they never arrive at it.  At a rest stop, the students highjack the bus and go cruising down the highway, leading to a crash.  The staging and choreography of the bus crash is reminiscent of the musical "Ride the Cyclone" which features  a rollercoaster accident.  As a result of the crash, the group is transported to a magical realm called "Summerland", a  Neverland-like refuge for runaways, full of nature and beauty, where the sun always shines and it is always summer.   Here, the students discover truths about themselves and each other, until an incident turns the utopia into a Lord of the Flies scenario of fear, mistrust and anarchy.

Summerland is written by composers Anika Johnson and Barbara Johnston, whose previous musical Blood Ties was featured on an episode of the Sci-Fi hit Orphan Black.  Along with singer/composer Suzy Wilde, they were commissioned to create an original work specifically for the students of Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts.  Perhaps as a way to provide roles for the entire arts program, the cast list is unusually large.  Between the twelve featured roles, most assigned to a principal actor and an understudy, and the huge ensemble, the cast includes over 100 young performers.  The musical was first performed by the Wexford students in 2014.  For Fringe 2015, a new cast was formed by amalgamating Wexford actors with members from three other arts schools, including Etobicoke School for the Arts, Randolph Academy of the Performing Arts, and Sheridan College.

Summerland is by far one of the most professionally polished and well executed musicals that has ever graced the Fringe Festival.  Sitting through it, you felt like you were watching a major Mirvish production.  Everything was top notch, from the beautiful score and songs, to the amazing singing, dancing and acting performances of the young actors, to the elaborate sets and gorgeous costumes, to the staging, sound quality and lighting.  There was even some aerial acrobatics on display when the mythical Summerland first appeared.

In order to accommodate the enormous cast and intricate staging, a new venue has been added to Fringe for the first time—the large auditorium of  Harbord Collegiate Institute.  The production takes advantage of all spare space in the venue to hold the numerous performers, including the large stage, centre and side aisles and upper balcony.  Setting the opening school scenes in an actual high school gave them an added sense of authenticity.  For me, it was extra surreal since Harbord Collegiate was my old high school and the last time I sat in that auditorium was 30 years ago.  Suddenly, the words to our old school fight song came flooding back to me—"Onward Harbord .. On to Victory!"

Every  year,  I consider which play might be good enough to attract the attention of and be swooped up by a professional theatre organization like Mirvish (e.g My Mother's Lesbian Jewish  Wiccan Wedding) or Soulpepper  (e.g. Kim's Convenience).  Summerland definitely qualifies in terms of quality and entertainment but its huge cast and staging would be too unwieldy and expensive to reproduce on a commercial basis.  With some cuts of peripheral cast members and a tightening of the storyline, this show would definitely be good to go.

The running time of the comedy Meet Cute is short at only 45 minutes and yet, the premise is so clever and so well executed that you leave thoroughly satisfied from having watched a good show.  The same scene and exact same dialogue is delivered three times consecutively by the same actors, with the only difference being point of view.  In each case, John and Jane encounter each other while waiting for bus and enter into a conversation with each other.  

In the first scenario, John has engineered the meeting by deliberately letting other buses go by while he waits for Jane to arrive.  As she distractedly sits down on the bench next to him, he places his palm down so that she accidentally sits on it, triggering their interaction.  They make small talk as they wait for the bus and Jane becomes more and more uncomfortable as John encroaches in her personal space and his words seem full of creepy subtext.   The scene ends with Jane calling out for a taxi to get away from John.

In the next scenario, it is Jane who manipulates the meeting and is the aggressor in the conversation.  It was fascinating to watch the exact same dialogue being spoken, but taking on an entire new meaning in this new context.  Occasionally, John and Jane swap lines to make the scenario play properly, but for the most part they carry on the same conversation.  This time, it is John who is made to feel uncomfortable and eventually tries to get away.

The final scenario involves a chance meeting where Jane and John are mutually attracted to each other.  Suddenly the icky come-on lines become awkward, endearing and even romantic.  All that has changed in each case are the mannerisms, facial expressions, body language and the tone of delivery of the words.  This time, the call for a taxi is mutual as the two go off together to get to know each other better.   The playwright Erin Norah Thompson, who also plays Jane, summed it up best in the programme notes when she muses that "the difference between romantic and creepy is consent".

The physicality and comedic timing of the actors have to be perfect in order for this premise to play out properly and the two performers accomplish this in spades.  As an additional visual cue, the bench that John and Jane sit on is skewed towards him in the first scene, then moved to angle towards her in the second scene.  In the final scene where they come as equals, the bench is straightened to be parallel with the stage.   The use of Radiohead's "Creep" is the perfect song choice for the brief interludes between each scene.

By contrast to Meet Cute, the 50 minute long song cycle I'm Right Here felt too short and inconsequential, probably because there was no real plot or story arc.  The series of songs share the common theme of the dehumanizing dangers of the Internet and the need to renew personal contact and interactions.  The songs were pleasant enough with a few containing nuggets of wisdom to take to heart, and the actors all had excellent voices.  But there were not enough of them and we left the show feeling unsatisfied.  The best singer, Lana Carillo, befittingly had the best number.  Belting out "Guess What?  We have a Problem!", she goes on to lament how she can't understand what the kids are saying and that we are losing our grasp of the English language with all the Tweeting and Facebooking.  That she had such a powerhouse voice was amusing when compared to her diminutive stature.  Even in heels, she seemed a good foot shorter than the three other cast members, including the other female lead who wore flats.  I enjoyed what there was of this musical.  I just wish there had been more.

 We originally intended to watch the comedy "A Man Walks Into A Bar" tonight but we did not realize that the Fringe no longer keeps half the tickets for each show to sell at the door one hour before the show.  They actually changed this rule last year, but because we missed the festival, we were not aware of this.  So our intent to use our value pass to purchase two tickets at the door was thwarted when the show sold out the day before.  Luckily we were able to get tickets for another performance of the show, but we will have to rethink how we use our value pass in the future.  Starting this year, you can pay an extra $2 per ticket in conjunction with the value pass make advance ticket purchases for popular shows.  We will keep this in mind for next year.