More Montreal Fringe Fest: Peg-Ass-Us, Zombie parties, faux kraut rock ...Nicole Gluckstern reports from the Montreal Fringe Festival. You can read part one here.
It's Monday morning, three am. In the last week I've eaten my way through a pound of chocolate-covered espresso beans, a bottle of Excedrin, and countless bowls of $2 chow mein, and now find myself uttering the unlikeliest phrase of all: "I'll almost be glad when the party is over."
The plays, the pleasure, the poster. Photo by Barry Smith
Not that the party is ever truly over in Montreal in June. Montreal in June, like Madrid eleven months a year, is like an endurance marathon of frenetic activity. Sure -- the Fringe Festival has come to an end, but tomorrow is Saint-Jean Baptiste -- Quebec's largest and proudest festival day of all, the one day a year that even the dépanneurs (beer stores) don't stay open. Also happening as I type: the Suoni per il Popolo Music Festival, the First Peoples' Festival, the Free Jazz Festival, a Baroque Music fest, and the Infringement. And it ain't free--but I've still somehow managed to score myself a ticket to Leonard Cohen's sold out concert on Wednesday. No, there's no end to the party around here, but the Fringe, at least, c'est fini. Since last night was the official awards ceremony, I feel obliged to offer my own shortlist of totally subjective, unofficial awards, in no particular order, to celebrate my personal top ten favourite moments of the Montreal Fringe, 2008.
1) Best passionate dissertation in musicology: Led Zeppelin was a Cover Band, by Stéfan Cédilot. Not a play so much as an exploration of the musical path leading from old beloved blues tunes to 70's rock-and-roll, Cédilot's love for his subject is evident in every anecdote and every rarity spun. His air guitar skills could use some polishing, but his enthusiasm couldn't be better.
2) Best off-venue set design and use of space: The Beekeepers. Built into a tiny corner of a tiny cafe, The Beekeepers set is claustrophobic, spare, and entirely apt. Boarded up doors, a solitary bee box, wood floors, and a single suspended picture frame to serve as a window somehow conjure up the vision of an old wreckage of a farmhouse, barricaded against the rioting starving on the outside. We, the captive audience, are not even granted the cover of darkness, and the effect is as if we are watching an uncomfortable fight between a couple struck with cabin fever while sitting in their living room.
Fucking Zombie Party! Photo by Barry Smith
3) Best reason to stay up until 4 a.m. on a Monday (and a Tuesday, and a Wednesday....): The 13'th Hour. This Montreal Fringe variety show, which starts at one am.m every night of the Fringe, is a cornucopia of spontaneous hilarity and a showcase of the best (and worst) performers on the circuit. Suavely hosted by members of local improv troupe, Uncalled For, the hour often lasts two, punctuated by spins of the "money wheel" which leads to prizes the whole room can enjoy. Plus they threw a Zombie-themed party this year which somehow managed to surpass even last year's Mass Wedding party in terms of sheers debaucherous entertainment.
4) Best compressed, booty-shaking, body-slamming, adrenaline-fueled dance party ever: Eleven Second Dance Party. This signature prize on the money wheel cues the opening eleven seconds of Le Tigre's "Decepticon" which brings the entire room to its feet to dance with the sort of wild abandon normally reserved for coked-up club kids at some warehouse party in the boonies. Every eleven second dance party ever is worth every penny of airfare I spent to get here, and in the course of ten days, there've been an awful lot of eleven second dance parties to be had.
5) Best reason to not go see a Fringe show in a Theatre: Fringe Pop in the Parc. This outdoor showcase of homegrown Montreal bands ranges from overly earnest college kid "projects" to seasoned favourite sons. Though there are a few misses and a last minute cancellation of the Handsome Furs (a Wolf Parade side project), Fringe Pop redeems itself on Saturday with a slamming double bill of the Zeroes and Wintersleep, plus a great early evening set on Sunday from Francophone psychedelic pop rockers, Delaplage.
Les Néos's Spectacle pour Emporter. Photo by Cindy Lopez
6) Best local Neo-surrealistic theatre troupe: Les Néos. Oh yes, I know what you're thinking, you mean ther're more than ONE neo-surrealistic theatre company in Montreal, how cool! Well, Les Néos might be the only ones, but lack of competition doesn't make them lazy. Their high-energy show Spectacle pour Emporter, set (conveniently) in a cafe, offered menus of a repertoire of 33 two-minute plays, performed to order. As I suspected, a deep knowledge of French was not required to enjoy this madcap production which shifted in tone from serious to silly to surreal second by timed second.
7) Most useful show flyer: Peg-Ass-Us, by Pack of Others. The first rule of Fringing might well be, "don't refuse anyone's flyer." But still, emptying one's pockets of the detritus day after day can get wearying. All that useless beauty! But Pack of Others have very kindly provided their show info on pocket-sized packets of personal lubricant, which seems eminently appropriate for a heart-warming, coming-of-age story on the joys of pegging. They'll be performing off-venue in the SF Fringe this fall, so get ready to get lubed.
Barry Smith plays the blues. Photo by Cindy Lopez.
8) Best alternative to psychedelic drugs that is not Will Franken: The Cody Rivers Show. If you took Will Franken, and split him into two people, and taught him how to dance, he might well resemble the Cody Rivers Show, and they him. What they all share a highly attuned sense of the absurd and a sense of story that transcends mere linear constructs yet never falls apart. The symbiotic energy that crackles between performers Mike Mathieu and Andrew Connor and their total commitment to their hilarious craft elevates them way above the sketch comedy pack in ways I can't even begin to describe. But hey, here's their website to do it for me: http://www.codyrivers.com.
9) Best use of the word "chartreuse": Barry Smith's parody rhyming dictionary blues. "A whole lot of words rhyme with blues," he sings from the 13'th Hour stage, as he strums his steel-string guitar, "so you might want to sit back and get comfortable."
Die Roten Punkte rocking out. Photo by Cindy Lopez
10) Best totally rocking refrain of the Fringe: this bound-to-be-a-classic tune from faux-kraut rock stars Die Roten Punkte: "Drink, drink, drink while you can, leave all your troubles behind. Don't be pains in the asses, just fill up your glasses, you'll be dead for a very long time." A close runner up, is a totally shameless, yet utterly infectious fringe anthem penned by improv troupe Without Annette: "Oh the Fringe in Montreal, is the best Fringe of them all, and the best Fringe of them all, is the Fringe in Montreal." The best? That's a pretty subjective category of course--but at moments like these, it can be hard not to agree. Vive la Fringe! Let's do this again sometime....
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