Halifax Fringe Day #3

Are there more shows about mothers, parental loss, and grief this year at Halifax Fringe than usual, or am I just seeing everything through the lens of the recent loss of my own mom? Regardless, it has been a traumatic past three and a half years for all of us, and without any official avenues for collective grieving, it makes sense to me that many of us are finding community, support, and space to share our thoughts, feelings, and experiences through the arts. 

My Day #3 began with A Side of Rice by Nicholas Rice at the Bus Stop Theatre Community Rom. I love autobiographical Fringe shows, and I especially love really beautifully crafted autobiographical Fringe shows, and that’s exactly what you get here. Rice brings over 35 years of experience as a performer to his masterful storytelling. In fact, although he is originally from Winnipeg and now based in Toronto, Rice performed here at Neptune Theatre in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat in the 1986-87 Season. 

A Side of Rice tells the story of how a young and shy Jewish boy from Winnipeg grew up to become first an actor, and then a father. Young Nicholas was raised by Merle, a single parent who had lived through A Great War, a Pandemic, The Roaring Twenties, A Great Depression, the sharp rise in Anti-Semitism and Fascism, and then the Second World War, all before Nicholas was born, and the play is very much about her story as well. What is interesting is that Rice maps out this chronology of the historic backdrop of his mother’s life, and then shares with us a series of anecdotes that give us a vivid portrait of what she was like at home and at work, with her son, with his friends, and with her own friends. He doesn’t draw any clear links between her behaviour and her past experiences, but the play seems to encourage the audience to discover inferences of their own, especially in the moments when our instinct may be to judge Merle. The context creates the possibility for empathy, but we have to piece it together for ourselves. As children, we always have to do a little bit of piecing together of the lives our parents once had before we joined them. 

A Side of Rice is also very much about the legacy of story. We are given the opportunity as audience members to make a real-life connection with Nicholas Rice, who stands before us sharing stories from his past, but we are also able to make a connection with Merle, despite the fact that she died decades ago. The audience today in Halifax met Merle for the very first time, and we will carry the stories we heard about her into our tomorrows. That is the power of storytelling, it can bring our loved ones into the present with us, and we can spread our memories of them like seeds carried in the wind, in the hopes that something new and beautiful will grow from them, perhaps somewhere entirely unexpected. 

TWISI Fringe Rating: Two Thumbs Jump

A Side of Rice plays at the Bus Stop Theatre Community Room (2268 Maitland Street, Halifax) at the following times:

September 3: 3:45PM

September 4: 7:00PM

September 6: 7:15PM

If you like very Fringey Performance Art, I definitely recommend that you check out Coral Maloney’s Spine + Socket Kiss the World at the Bus Stop Community Room. It is a short experimental piece. I found myself marvelling over the fact that if Maloney was performing most of the same actions, but as any kind of a clown character, the audience, I think, would have had a more unified experience laughing at the absurd and sort of arbitrary exercises the performer was going through. Yet, with Maloney remaining in sort of a solemn neutral, the experience is much more individualized and cerebral. There are still funny moments, but the audience isn’t sure whether the humour is intended. For me the vibe seemed more serious, perhaps indicative of the past few years we have been having, there is one overt allusion to folks who are unhoused and the ways in which local governments can be intentionally malicious and oppressive. Perhaps we are all tinfoil hat wearing fools nuking our own world, at the mercy of authority figures drunk on what little power they have. Or perhaps not. Certainly, it’s up to you to decide for yourself!

Spine + Socket Kiss the World plays at the Bus Stop Theatre Community Room (2268 Maitland Street, Halifax) at the following times:

 September 3: 8:15PM

September 4: 5:00PM

Debbie Bridge’s Cabaret play performance Shirley Knot a Siren also plays at the Bus Stop Community Room, and largely features Bridge’s character Shirley, the reluctant Siren, singing a series of marine-adjacent songs and lamenting that fact that, like humans, once a female identifying mermaid or a siren reaches a certain age society sends her a barrage of obvert hints to suggest that she is all washed up. The scripted elements of the show are really secondary to Bridge’s hugely powerful singing voice. She studied opera in Germany, and it’s a treat just listening to her mastery of her chosen music. 

Bridge also has a good rapport and ability to banter with her audience, which gives the show an exciting energy, that at any moment they may throw Shirley an interesting curveball. My favourite moment was her rendition of “Memory” from Cats; she changed most of the lyrics so it became about either perimenopausal forgetfulness or forgetfulness with aging in general. The rhyming in the lyric changes is very tight, and the song works really well to directly express Shirley’s main grievance with her life under the sea. Some of the other songs had minor lyric changes; it might be fun to play around with some more of the other lyrics to see if the theme of aging can be explored even more thoroughly in the music. 

Overall, Bridge has a captivating warmth, a dynamite voice, and she is packed to the gills with puns. 

Shirley Knot a Siren plays at the Bus Stop Community Room (2268 Maitland Street, Halifax) at the following times:

September 3: 5:15PM

September 4: 2:00PM

September 4: 11:15PM

September 5: 8:30PM

September 6: 8:45PM

September 8: 10PM

September 9: 8:30PM

September 10: 6:45PM

Mad Butterfly Creative’s play Thank u, Ex is an exploration of the cliché of the “crazy ex-girlfriend.” It is written by Kelly Taylor and Melly Magrath, and Taylor plays Violet, a young woman who takes us through her unfortunate dating experiences with boys and men beginning in Grade Three and going well into her early adulthood. Taylor is an extremely captivating actor and her boundless energy in bringing these various dating shenanigans to life really roots the audience firmly on her side. I really liked the heightened absurdity surrounding each of the dudes, they were both immediately recognizable in some ways, but also funny and ridiculous in others. I think there might be room to give them even more specificity, even within the ridiculousness. For example, Boy Next Door leaves when Violet’s mom comes home. I’m curious about exactly how he leaves. Is it a dramatic exit? Is it a sneaky exit? Is he literally falling over himself to get out of there? I think there is room to mine the scenarios for even more comic potential. 

It can be really difficult to direct one person plays on stages that are longer than they are deep, like the one at the Bus Stop Community Room, without resorting to having the character pace back and forth the whole time. Madelaine Rose does a good job of finding different avenues for Violet to move that still feel natural. 

I was a bit confused about the Millennial timeframe. At the beginning of the play it seemed like Violet and I were about the same age, but then later there seemed to be some anachronisms, which I found distracting, so it might be worth reviewing the exact timeline and double checking that everything being referenced existed in the time the scene is set. 

Overall, Thank u, Ex is very charming, and I think validating, in the way that it explores the confusing mixed signals that men can send to women before gaslighting her into thinking that she’s the one who is behaving irrationally. At one point an audience member yelled out “Preach!,” so Mad Butterfly Creative is obviously onto something true. 

Thank u, Ex plays at the Bus Stop Community Room (2268 Maitland Street, Halifax) at the following times:

 September 3: 6:45PM

September 4: 9:45PM

September 5: 7:00PM

I was excited to see the reading of Tara Thorne’s new screenplay Jo & Frankie, which is described as a Queer Romantic Comedy, and it absolutely lived up to its hype. 

The story centres on Frankie, played by Izra Fitch, who is married to Cal, played by Liam Fair, and they have recently decided to open up their marriage. Frankie meets Jo, played by Kathryn McCormack, by chance one day and they have an immediate connection. The universe then conspires to throw them into one another’s orbit, which wreaks some havoc on Jo’s marriage to Mick, played by Stephanie MacDonald. 

Thorne’s dialogue in this screenplay is absolutely excellent. Especially in the hands of this cast these characters burst to vivid life, even from behind music stands, They are all rooted in deep realism and the vernacular of this moment in time, but their language is just heightened enough to make everything they say just a little bit funnier than it would be in real life. Thorne’s stage directions, as read by Sue Goyette, are also delightful. It will be a bit of pity when they are not read in the feature film. Similarly, I assume when (and I say when and not if) this film is made, it likely won’t have this exact cast, which makes me glad I made it to this reading, because this cast was so terrific. 

Stephanie MacDonald and Kathryn McCormack are two of Halifax’s best actors, and watching them play together, even in a reading, was magical. Izra Fitch’s performance as Frankie was so beautifully nuanced. I found I oscillated so much between really liking her and empathizing with her, and not liking her at all, and then rooting for her again. Liam Fair’s performance as Cal was chock full of Kenergy; who knew we had our very own Ryan Gosling? 

I don’t see very many films, although I do like when I can catch the locally made ones, but I am waiting for this one expectantly already. 

TWISI Fringe Rating: Two Thumbs Jump

Jo & Frankie: A Live Read has closed. Keep a lookout for more information about future iterations of this work.

I wasn’t expecting to cry at DragKing Manny Dingo’s One Man Manny Dingo Show, which was my last show of the evening at The Bus Stop Theatre. Manny shared the stage with his grandfather, musician Herbert Terry Smith, and both talked a lot about the recent loss of Terry’s wife and Manny’s grandmother, and many moments during the show were dedicated to her, and it sounds like, made possible by her love and her support of her family, especially of her Queer grandchild, Manny. 

The evening was divided into a few different sections, there was Manny’s drag performances, which are very impressive with lots of different gymnastics, and an infectious 1970s vibe. There was also quite a few musical interludes from his grandfather, Terry, who has a new CD for sale, and then a few sections where Manny spoke to us from the heart about his experience being Queer, being Black, finding Drag, and how he chooses to represent masculinity, specifically Black masculinity, in his performance, and the ways in which this honours the Black men who have been pillars in his life. All these elements came together to create a really sweet and beautiful evening that celebrated family and Intersectionality, and the way we love one another and ourselves through growth. Mike Hunt also made a guest appearance and absolutely brought the house down with a rendition of “A Change is Gonna Come.” Wherever Mike is singing in this city, I will happily follow along. I’m officially obsessed. 

TWISI Fringe Rating: Two Thumbs Up

The One Man Manny Dingo Show has Closed.

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Halifax Fringe runs from August 31st to September 10th, 2023 in a myriad of venues throughout the Downtown and the North End of Halifax. For more information and to purchase all your tickets please visit this website. Masks are mandatory again this year inside all Halifax Fringe spaces. For more information about accessibility at the various venues please check out the 2023 Program Guide here.

You can follow Halifax Fringe on Facebook. Instagram. TikTok.

A Note On TWISI Fringe Ratings:

I have never liked rating Fringe shows, or any shows, using the 5 Star system as I have done in the past, so this year I’m doing something new. From now on I will just be highlighting what I think are 4 or 5 Star Fringe Shows. A Two Thumbs Up Rating equals roughly to 4 Stars, while A Two Thumbs Jump Rating equals 5 Stars. I have stolen (with permission) “Two Thumbs Jump” from my friend Lenny Clayton, who is awesome, as she has used it in her film reviews in the past.