The Great Gatsby

Illustrium Creations—Red River College Polytechnic

The classic, compressed down into an hour and reimagined with modern sensibilities and interpretations made explicit.

Some early Fringe jitters and verbal missteps definitely created confusion, with lines missed and occasionally under-enunciated. As well, some of the presentation decisions were a bit muddled (The way that characters getting shot was represented being the one that sticks out the most in my mind).

All in all, if the idea of a modernized version of the Great Gatsby on stage appeals to you, the flaws definitely do not overshadow the core of what’s being presented.

Josh Fidelak

All Hail Mrs. Satan

Still Your Friend—Creative Manitoba

Adam Bailey is in great form, as always, keeping up with his specialty in fast paced historical fiction. Following Victoria Woodhull’s life from a kaleidoscope of different perspectives and jumping throughout her life, from feminist activist to stockbroker to magnetic healer to presidential nominee, Adam keeps the energy up and ties together the threads into a coherent and engaging picture of this woman’s life.

Great for fans of historical storytelling and the uninitiated as well, this is definitely a wonderful way to start engaging with the work of a long term Fringe staple.

Josh Fidelak

R-G Productions

The Savannah Sipping Society—One88

The weather forecast at the Winnipeg Fringe for the next couple of weeks is sunny and hot with a humidex of viscous. To avoid melting away, you should keep hydrated and cool.

The best way to do that is to head over to Randa’s Verandah at One 88 (Venue 23), to join the Savannah Sipping Society, and discover how there’s no limit to what you can do when you have friends at your side… and one of them is a liquor rep.

Cagey Productions

Buying Bacon—Dave Barber Cinematheque

Do you know how to spend your money wisely? Do you have a decent belt? Is your chicken’s bead convex or concave?

On their YouTube show, Happy Hour Shenanigans, Chuck and Nick are ready to answer these questions over at Venue 7 in Cagey Productions’ Buying Bacon.

Math will save us all!!!!

1 Family Friendly Comedy Show, Please!

Happy Capybara Productions—Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame

The audience for this show kind of speaks for itself, which is you, if you’ve ever wanted to bring your kids to a stand-up show but you don’t want to wait until they’ve learnt most of the fun curses. As it turns out, kids are a tough crowd, and especially between the ages of 5 to 8, which was the entire audience (plus caregivers(and me)).

For adults with or without children, I would say that there was an unintentional Always Sunny in Philadelphia-esque atmosphere to the whole thing. Jokes that went over the youngests’ heads, crowd work falling flat in the face of resistant kids, and disruption from young ones wandering or shouting about all kinda came together to make this wildly funny in an unintentional but undeniably effective way. I would legitimately recommend people watch based on this, but only to a certain extent, as obviously this dynamic would be destroyed by too many irony poisoned adults. C’est la vie.

Josh Fidelak

Verbal Tapas

Rob Gee—Planetarium

The always personable Rob Gee goes back to his poetry roots in this performance. The self-described “Stand-up Poet” provides the audience with a menu of 20 poems to choose from as you come into the theatre. Some are older favourites of his, some are from his experiences working as a Mental Health Nurse, and some are newer creations, including a few created in his poetry workshops with varying groups of people.

Rob gives a little background on each of the poems selected and then tells the poem. His use of rhyme and meter are spectacular and always generates a laugh. We got to sample 13 of the selections in our performance. You can tell how much he loves entertaining people and everyone has a great time.

Murray Hunter

El Diablo Of The Cards 2.0

Ewerton Martins—Son of Warehouse

Fantastic card tricks and fantastic comedy, what’s not to love?

If you’re daring and a fan of magic, I would definitely both recommend this show, and also agreeing to sit on stage and being subjected to the tricks and mania of the Brazilian magician Ewerton Martins, as due to the nature of the card tricks he performs, most of them require assistants (or victims). Notably, there’s one magic trick that only one attendee can experience fully (the rest of the audience being rewarded with a strong comedy bit. If you saw him during his first visit to the Fringe, it’s essentially the same material as before, but even then, it was absolutely fantastic the second time around.

Josh Fidelak

1nce Upon a Lie: Paul Strickland

Paul Strickland Presents—Planetarium

Professional storyteller Paul Strickland returns with another collection of fictional stories and a couple of songs. Anyone who has seen his previous story telling shows will know that he can spin a yarn with the best of them. He puts in the work to find the varying sources of some of the tales he tells, and then puts them together while adding in his own charming parts.

He starts off with the title song, whose lyrics show his excellent talents at word play, and then we are off into the stories. Uncle False also makes an appearance and we learn why Paul likes fictional stories the best.

Murray Hunter

A One Human Being, Potentially Comedic Performance of The Nightmare Before Christmas

Living the Dream—Son of Warehouse

Are you a fan of the classic 1993 Tim Burton animated stop motion film, The Nightmare Before Christmas? If so, you’ll have a great time. A ton of audience participation, including singing the songs from the film and helping act out the parts, definitely makes this a great experience for anyone coming of age in the 90s, or someone who has ever haunted the Winnipeg hot topic.

While I think it’s legally required for all the shows in this genre to disclaim that they’re for everyone and not just fans of the media being adopted, this is one I would definitely say benefits from familiarity with the material. We had someone in our showing decked out in fan merchandise just absolutely sending it when called upon to fill out the backing vocals, and they definitely had an amazing time.

Josh Fidelak

Curtain Call Collective presents Dark Horse Theatre’s “The Social”

Curtain Call Collective—CCFM Salle Pauline-Boutal

The show is set in the coat room of a Wedding Social, with scenes of various characters coming in and out and having interactions with each other. The entry and exit of people through an unseen door to the main social hall is simulated by a rising level of background music, which then fades away again. All the music was various well known songs from a social playlist which are readily identifiable though you only hear them for a short time. It really sets the stage.

The large cast give good performances as we learn of all the dysfunction between the various relationships of the characters behind the scenes of this wedding social that is going off the rails. A lot of the guests are pretty common character tropes, such as ‘The Wise Bartender’ or ‘Heart Broken Bridesmaid’, but they all fit in well. The story moves along nicely with a lot of great comedy as we see just how the various situations will all work out.

Murray Hunter