Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 22

C2 The Edmonton Journal. Saturday, August 21, 1999 0 Jow rssuid Marty Chan's The Bone House one of many great plays to catch before they're gone 7i -7 I "0. I I 'V. File Photo Escher's Hands Edmonton Then? was an out-of-body moment at the Fringe this week when I knew I'd entered another state of consciousness. It was in a seminar room (BYOV K), where a lecturer was crisply, logically explaining his hypothesis about the reappearance of a serial killer last active in the '70s.

One thing led to another in creepy crescendo in Marty Chan's excellent The Ikme House, and people were screaming. And I suddenly realized that one of them was me. I haven't quite been the same since. But that's the Fringe for you, the buzz that satisfies and scares, in roughly equal measure. That The Bone House also makes you distrust the people sitting next to you is, of course, another side-effect.

But we won't get into that, since theatre is a communal experience and the Fringe is the biggest, juiciest living proof you can find. My advice is to assemble a Fringe weekend from the following ingredients: 1A gut-wrencher of an experience: why go fringing in pastels? The festival is full of quirky stuff; the English Suitcase Company production of Sara Kane's Crave (Stage 11) is a rare chance to see a powerhouse. Four superb actors on a bare stage who toss a fragmented text unerringly between them, in a volley of rage and disappointment. Unmissable. See below, No.

2 Something as light and delightful as a sherbet: Try Fatty Goes Wild (Stage 3), the latest installment of the Stewart Lemoine series of daffy '40s screwball comedies. Ron Pederson, who stars, knows everything about the style. Or try Prom Queens (Stage 8) a hip, funny, stylish off-centre musical about high school in the '50s from the Grant MacEwan forces. A unique combo of "domestic prom-icide," anti-Red paranoia, aliens, and young love; 3 Something touching, poignant, magical and quite hew from a talent you thought you knew: Fever-Land (Stage 3), the latest from Stewart Lemoine, explores in the strangest, lightest way the pain behind the ordinary surfaces of an Photo: Ian Jackson Adam Henderson and Chris Fassbender in the chilling play, The Bone House affair in Winnipeg, of all places. With interventions from Goethe's Erlking (the actual guy).

See below. No. 4 Some wonderful actors at work, in a festival that's an intimate relationship with the audience: That kick-butt cast of Crave, including Ron Jenkins, in a show that relies exclusively on its actors and text for white-hot intensity. Messing With Medea (Stage 8) is an superbly acted English two-hander that takes the Greek tragedy into the labyrinthine mind of the mother who kills her children. Fever-Land is beautifully acted all round, too, with exquisite performances from Barbara Gates Wilson as a mousey teacher and Cathy Derkach as a bossy, braying wife betrayed.

You won't find a funnier performance at the Fringe than Jeff Page as the flamboyant ref in Piledriver! (BYOV R). See below, No. 5 Something experimental: Try Scott Sharplin's The Garden of Forking Paths (BYOV G), which attempts to recreate the maze of Borges' short story in a theatrical form that takes you into two rooms, where a murky spy story about betrayal, loyalty and honours is happening simultaneously from multiple perspectives. Not entirely successful, but gutsy For a more successful and funnier Fringe experiment, try Beau Coleman's production of The Swan (BYOV R), a love triangle with feathers, plus a sax; 6 Something polished: not easy to find at the Fringe. Try Escher 's Hands (Stage 3), a Seattle production that unleashes film noir characters back on their confused creators.

Or try Sancho 's Revenge (Stage 9), which lets Don Quixote loose in a nuthouse with agit-prop quacks; 7 Something exuberantly wacky, fun, and Fringey: You'll love Piledriver! (BYOV M) for its glee, its insurrectionist spirit, and its heart. Its characters are gay professional wrestlers on the prairie circuit, inspired by a true story and it takes place in the ring, on the tour bus, and in a variety of Bible Belt bars. Men Are Stoopid, Women are Crazy (BYOV N) is fun, too. And though TRIPpin'(BYOV J) doesn't have that kind of execution (not everyone can sing, for example), the premise of a pop music retelling of The Odyssey, the sublimely cheesy costumes, and the actors are a hoot; 8 Something that will redeem the term "multimedia:" check out Minotaur (Stage 3). It's sexy, funny, and satirical.

JA File Photo Joe Bird, left, Wes Borg and Darrin Hagen in PileDriver Getting Slightly Bent and resting my head My first Fringe a stunning array of duds and vivid memories to last till the millennial edition debuts I (t V. k. v- i ijpfe, pi's Edmonton If the Fringe festival was a wedding, I was the girl who didn't catch the bride's bouquet. As the junior member of The Journal's entertainment department, I seemed to get the lion's share of duds at this year's Bride of Frankenfringe: a scary children's play, a dull puppet show and a sketch comedy without the comedy (At least I didn't have to sit through The Rape of Lucrece.) My lineup wasn't planned that way just the luck of the draw. (Well, that's what my colleagues tell me.) Or perhaps the theatre gods were punishing me for giving my first show, Slightly Bent only three-and-a-half stars when everyone else was giving it five.

Here are some of the "highlights" of my Fringe experience. Not all are ones I want to remember, but I'm sure they'll stick with me for a long time. At least until next year's festival. Best Unscripted Moment: Outside the Cobra Girl tent. "I thought all women were snakes," one jaded Fringe-goer remarked as he passed by her boudoir.

Ouch. Most Tasteless Moment: The ladyfingers scene in Losing Glory. Let's just say they weren't made of chocolate. Worst Musical Moment: Listening to the same bad cover bands, day after day We had no choice the music filtered from the band shell into the media room. As long as I live, I never want to hear another Natalie Imbruglia tune again, cover or not.

Best Use of a Projector Screen: Rick Miller in Slightly Bent. Through the magic of video, he's able to give the impression that his "mom" is giving birth to him on the floor of Stage 3. While his video "mom" is grunting away a live and buck-naked Miller pops out from behind the screen. Best Venue: Stage 3 in the Bus Barns or Stage 7 at the Royal Canadian Legion. Both had tables to rest your head on.

Worst Venue: Stage 2 (Acacia Masonic Hall) and Stage 11 (Academy at Prince Edward.) Both had less air flow than a submarine. As for the Bring Your Own Venues, the Urban Lounge was probably the worst as the bar noise distracted from the productions. Best Prop: The walking, tail-wiggling toy pig in Bald Faced Lie or the spider marionette in The Princess and the Pomegranate. They were also the best part of each production. But that's the Fringe for ya you have to wade through a lot of stinkers before finding that treasured truffle of a play Scariest Moment: Wasn't found in Marty Chan's chilling new play The Bone House.

I was more spooked out by a children's production, BeeBee and the Big Question. It was supposed to be a play about a singing clown who wanted to be a fairy godmother, but she seemed more like the Wicked Witch of the West. "All I have to do is find something to kill!" BeeBee shouted with delight upon discovering how to win her fairy wings. I always knew clowns were scary Best Musical Moment: An Irish rendition of Rock and Roll All Nite by Kiss as performed by the sketch comedy troupe, Urban Myth. Priceless.

File Photo Rick Miller, here in surgical garb, stages his own birth in Slightly Bent Reviews Martha Suet fries up a mess of one-liners in Home Cookin' dimensions to these two. They're both conflicted and afflicted when it comes to their adolescent sexuality and their by-the-book upbringing. Their mutual curiosity leads to some sweet and funny moments of intimacy particularly in the first act, that Simpson and Bergquist pull off with impressive fearlessness. The thunderclouds open up in the second act, washing our two protagonists towards some uncomfortable truths. The question is posed: Can you know happiness without knowing unhappiness, feel pleasure without feeling pain? Drop in on Stonewater Rapture and sample a little bit of both.

Richard Helm even talk about the mousse. Nothing is going right and the clock keeps ticking. To steel her nerves, Martha nips regularly from a measuring cup of white wine. Disaster! Or is it? There are some comic possibilities here, to be sure. Bowering, a Walterdale vet, has a nice, clear confident delivery and could teach some of the professional Fringe mumblers a thing or two about projection and enunciation.

There are other talented people involved, including Judy Unwin and Heather D. Swain. But a series of strung-together naughty double-entendres doesn't make a play, even at the Fringe. And Bowering, whose character sports massive falsies under those frills, That seems to be the fate that's befallen this poignant two-hander from the Rosebud School of the Arts, produced by Sara Simpson, who also stars alongside Clayton Bergquist. There were 16 people splayed out in this spacious venue for Thursday's show.

The production deserves better for its final performance Sunday afternoon. Rosebud is a Christian-based theatrical program and this Doug Wright play opens with portents of your standard thumper's morality tale. Whitney (Bergquist) is a step away from seminary school and his platonic gal pal Carlyle is a bit of a horror, an 18-year-old prude quick to quote Leviticus. Turns out, though, there are deserves some kind of ultimate Fringe booby prize for inserting more big-breast one-liners don't want to toot my own horns," "I've always been well-equipped" etc. etc.) per page of dialogue in history Still, like the other Martha, who has her detractors but remains on top, Ms.

Suet sold out her house, and had the audience hooting it up for lines like "the yolk's on you." So it goes, in cooking as in life. Alan Kellogg The Stonewater Rapture Stage 4 (Cosmopolitan Music Society) of five It happens every Fringe, some little play comes and goes without the attention it truly deserves. Home Cookin' with Martha Suet Stage 2 (Acacia Hall) y2Qf five Studio 3-B, at cable station CHOW Meet Martha Suet (Elizabeth Bowering), contestant No. 13 in the station's live, 30-minute competition to name a new host for its cooking Show. Things begin badly Randy, her no-good co-vivant for the past eight years, phones just before airtime, rattling our chef, whose day job is a "consumer edibles evaluator" at Costco.

They get worse. The electric frypan won't heat up properly and the smothered chicken and zucchini bloody and festering is reduced to a potential toxic dump site. Let's not.