I went into A Year of Winter not really knowing what I was getting into. I went largely on the basis of the author, Scott Sharplin. I have not seen a lot of his plays, but I have found it fascinating to follow his career since I found his blogs about touring his show, Inferno Sonata, on the Fringe circuit last summer. Although these two plays (the only of his I have seen as far as I know) have been quite cryptic, Scott's openness in talking about the process behind the plays he writes (even the ones I haven't seen) has been absolutely fascinating and enhanced my experience as a theatre-goer. I wish there was more of this out there. Maybe there is and I just haven't found it.

A Year of Winter worked really well for me. It's set up in two very clearly delineated Acts, a year apart from each other. A particular mental breakdown sets the two acts apart and it is almost as if it was two short plays rather than one long play. It's hard not to point out that I preferred the first act to the second, for its bare, no punches pulled, portrayal of mental illness and its inextricable relationship to the act of creation in the form of art. But I also don't think it would have been complete without the second act to give us perspective on the insanity. To show us the schizophrenic break that precipitated act 1.

Two devices were used in the play to facilitate hiding the truth the play draws towards. First, the masks. In his blog, Scott Sharplin seemed very worried that the masks would seem pretentious or draw people out of the play. But I think in the end, the way he brings them into the story long before their use helps avoid either of those pitfalls. It also helps that the first use of a mask to denote a character shift is an over-the-top caricature of a radio personality. It's hard to worry about the mask when such a flamboyant character is on the stage. And by the time a more reasonable, understated character is on the stage using a mask, it doesn't matter anymore.

The other device is portmanteaus. The characters in the play have their own little language made of joining words together into new or existing words. It's a code that only they understand and that the audience is forced to learn as the characters rediscover their lost meanings. It also lends a realistic playfulness to their relationship that, in moments of clarity, contrasts the starkness of their illness.

Although the ending was touching and very powerful to me, I think it could have been improved. The first act has us looking at the inside of this relationship. From the point of view of the people inextricably entwined in schizophrenia, one way or another. Act two starts off by giving us an outside perspective, showing us the view from outside. Through the masks we finally see characters who were only presented off stage left, never seen, only occasionally heard or heard of. But in the final part of the second act, we seem to shift back to the insane point of view, and the shift is jarring.

The other downside to this play, from my point of view, was that while it seems well researched (mentions of an actual modern drug for treatment of schizophrenia in addition to the believable presentation of paranoia help lend credibility to the research) it does seem to skate the edge of an age-old misunderstanding of the disease that I won't explain here (as it would be a bit of a spoiler). I do not think this is intentional, but it could be taken that way.

The acting was all around quite good. Garett Ross as Terry and all of the masked characters pulled off the switching of characters well, doing each of them convincingly even if a couple of them were (necessarily) a little over the top. Tracy Penner as Alice did a good job as well, though in moments of non-lucidity had a tendency to play things a little over the top. She also seemed very familiar, though I can't remember where from. I didn't recognize any of the plays listed to her credit in the program, but perhaps she was in a fringe play I've seen.

Overall, I was quite impressed. The play ran the gamut of emotional responses, hitting the funny bone and plucking the heartstrings equally and appropriately. It kept its secrets well until the 11th hour and then revealed them with resonance. I anticipate Scott's next play, about Louis Riel and the Northwest Rebellion (the name escapes me at the moment).

So, tonight Nancy and I went to one of the sets of the New Works Festival's plays at the UofA. It was only $5 each, which is a pretty amazing price for four plays. Given the price, and the fact that it was student-run, my expectations weren't very high. But I was actually blown away by them. I would have easily been happy with paying Fringe rates ($10-14) for each of them (except the short one at the start, but that's not because it was bad but because a 5 minute play can't stand alone).

The first short one was called Vin-Oh by Anna Paquin. It was basically about a guy who like home-cooked traditional desserts like his mom makes, and his girlfriend who prides herself on making fancy chef-style desserts. When she finds out, she's disturbed that he goes elsewhere for his desserts. It packed a lot of innuendo and funny into a short package.

The second one, Pomplemoussy was by Elena Belyea. It was about a girl who's questioning her sexuality when she suddenly finds a boy she kind of likes at a gay party. In a lot of ways, it's a lot like Chasing Amy told from the girl's point of view. It had some pretty funny moments (like her first viewing of a penis "It's really funny looking, isn't it?"), and was overall very good. The only complaint I'd have is they were too ambitious with their set design. Too much shuffling things around before the show and between scenes. It really broke up the play and killed the flow. Overall it was pretty good.

The third play, All Matters by Peter Takach, was absurdity personified. The message seemed to be something along the lines of that words are more important than money, no matter what they are. I'm not sure I really 'got' it, but it was fun anyways. It reminded me incredibly of old LucasArts adventure games (made even more glaring by my recent playthrough of Day of the Tentacle). To the point that I think whoever wrote it could probably write a damn good absurdist adventure game centered around a Janitorial Administrator at a major company with big office. Damnit, no more new projects!

And last but not least, Electra by Morgan Smith was a modern retelling of the part of the greek epic cycle that concerns the various insanities of the Atreidai family after Agamemnon's return from Troy. It's a fairly loose adaptation, if I remember the story right, but interesting none-the-less. Interesting to see this kind of Greek story modernized, actually. Seems like the ones that involve family-sex, rape, and patri/matricide are left in their original greek form, or ignored altogether. It was easily the most well produced of the four, with a distinct intensity to all the performances that kept the audience rapt. The gunshots were a bit loud, but that may have been a really good thing. One should probably jump when one hears a gunshot. They also didn't always go off at the right time, but I imagine timing pre-recorded sudden sounds to a live performance is fairly difficult.

Overall, very impressed. Impressed enough to be seriously considering going to see the other four that are on tomorrow. I'm quite pleased. So far, what little off-season fringing I've done has been very successful.

So we finally saw the play we'd been meaning to see all fringe last night. Man 1, Bank 0. This is a one man show about the man who acts in it, who cashed a $95000 junk mail cheque to his bank, and through various wranglings with his bank found that the money legally became his (mostly due to the bank's stupidity).

But the initial catalyst for all of it was the fact that the cheque met all the criteria for a valid cheque. It had "Pay to the order of," it had a date, it had a signature, it had a bank with an address, his name and address, and an account number. The only thing it had that made it questionable was the words "Non-negotiable" written along the top.

Which apparently serves for most forms of 'negotiable instruments,' but NOT cheques. So the cheque was a valid cheque. But the real fun comes when the bank discovers that it bounced. And it was definitely fun. One of the best plays I saw all Fringe, for sure.

If you ever get a chance to see this (and it won't be today, at it's last showing, because that's apparently already sold out as of last night's show. The audience was directed to say "neener-neener" at all the people we know who won't get to see it), do so. It's hilarious. You can also read the whole story if you want on his website.

Maybe he'll be at next year's Fringe. But then the one show I keep hoping does another Fringe performance every year never does, so I wouldn't hold my breath.

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So to recap, my favorite Fringe Shows this year were probably the following, in no particular order:

• The Aleatory Project


• Get Off The Cross, Mary


• Man 1, Bank 0

We saw 15 plays total. I'd say about 5 of them were bad, 5 good, and 5 really good (three of which are my favorites above). That's not a bad ratio for an unjuried play festival, heh.

We didn't do the Fringe on Thursday or Friday, but we went yesterday and today. Yesterday we saw Beyond Therapy, 52 Pickup, and Jem Rolls Off The Tongue. And today we saw How Not to Suck. And now the fringe is over.

Beyond Therapy is about a man and a woman who's therapists have suggested that they place a personal ad and respond to a personal ad respectively. The man is bisexual and involved with a guy at the time, but his therapist never knows who he is and is completely unaware of the fact that he's not straight, let alone in a relationship with a man, hence the bizarre advice. In fact, everything about his therapist is strange. She has a snoopy doll that she talks to, she barks to encourage when she thinks her patient (or porpoise) is doing something positive, and she mixes up words (like dirigible for her secretary, or porpoise for patient). She also has no files in her briefcase, only slinkies, spam, and other toys.

Of course, the woman has slept with her therapist. And he's always trying to get her to do it again. Yet she always comes back.

Anyways, they meet at a restaurant that appears to have no waiters (in fact, they never get service at this place until pretty much the climax), and proceed to flirt in strange ways. Whether each thinks the other is independent, protective, or vulnerable seems to change with the wind, and they go quickly from taking everything too far (ie. marriage proposals) to being painfully aware of how strange they seem to the other. Which reminds me of some interactions in my recent life.

The play sort of goes on in this strange way for the whole thing. It is bizarre, but also really funny. If the Fringe weren't over I'd recommend it. I was especially fond of the way that it dealt with alternative relationship structures, because there seems to be so painfully little of that out there, even in the lowercase-eff-fringe of culture.

52 Pickup was the play I meant to see when I saw The Aleatory Project, which we saw on our second day and I really liked. Unfortunately, I wasn't quite as fond of 52 Pickup as I hoped. Where The Aleatory Project tells a random story in linear order, 52 Pickup tells a linear story in random order. This was more like Memento, but where Memento tells a story that is in itself interesting (if not surprising) if you put it the right way around, this one tells only a relatively dull story.

The main plus to 52 Pickup is that the actors, when doing intimate scenes, had by far the best chemistry I've seen all Fringe. This may be because they're very much into each other, or it may be they're just good at it. But compared to the utterly laughable intimacy in Identity (man yanking himself up onto a table that the girl is sitting on), for example, it was very very well done.

Also, I totally have the hots for the woman in this play. She's adorable.

Jem Rolls Off The Tongue was spoken word/slam poetry, and as such not really my cup of tea. Rhythmic and rhyming poetry tends to lull my brain to sleep. It was ok for what it was, but it wasn't as good as Bold and Spiky (or at least not Bold). Not much more to say about that. I think there was something I wanted to quote here, but I can't remember it now.

How Not To Suck was sketch-comedy that was described, by Vue I believe, as being like early Kids In The Hall or SCTV, but it also said that doesn't do it justice. Well, I'm pretty sure that doesn't do KitH justice. It is much like the zany, bizarre, and bitter KitH sketches that nobody really gets, so I can see the resemblance. But it is nothing at all like their best work.

It had its moments, though. Just not really enough of them.

And that's it for the Fringe. We're going to see Man 1, Bank 0 on the holdover showing if we can, but otherwise it's all over. We saw 14 plays and the ratio of good to bad was actually pretty good.

So yeah, there'll be one more of these next weekend when we see the holdover.