Sean Power - Reviews & Interviews

Stuck
22 Jul 1996 - Variety:
"Toronto fest puts the Fringe on top" (by Mira Friedlander)

Toronto fest puts the Fringe on top

By MIRA FRIEDLANDER

TORONT0 Is Canada's premiere theater festival for edgy, emerging talent poised to go beyond the fringe audience? Attendance at the Fringe of Toronto, the two-week festival that ended July 14, hit 30,000, an all-time high and a remarkable 25% increase over last year. The 82 productions - including eight from Japan, Poland and other foreign shores - brought in record revenue of C$130,072 ($94,888).

Crowds lined up to see such offbeat fare as playwright Jonathan Wilson's comic elegy for an AIDS casualty and Heathcote Williams' magnificent treatise on, of all things, whales.

"I think we've moved to another level of audience this year," says Nancy Webster, fest producer. "We had lots of broadcast media attention, and there were phone calls on our Fringe Hotline complaining that people couldn't find information. What that means is that they're starting to think about the Fringe as the equivalent of the (Toronto) Film Festival, and they expect billboards and radio ads."

Mainstream in-Fringe-ing?

That's not likely to happen on a budget of $328,275, with only 10% allocated to marketing. Hardcore Fringe fans don't seem bothered. They equate even the suggestion of mainstreaming with abandoning the very principle of "fringing": jumping into the unknown and finding the buzz before the buzz finds itself.

This year's fest, for example, included three productions that might well see life beyond Toronto's fringes. David Rubinoff's "Stuck," his new one-man show starring Sean Power, displays maturity and depth only hint at in the playwright's previous Fringe pieces. The character, Jack, is a struggling actor awash in Kerouac-style romanticism, his poetic fancies, drugged-out reality and dark soul struggling with life in downtown Toronto.

"Stuck" is alternately humorous and pathetic. Power turns in a physically and vocally powerful performance under the crisp direction of Chad Dembski.

"Stuck's" seamless partnership of acting, directing and writing is repeated in "My Own Private Oshawa," another one-man show that stands out for its eloquent writing and compelling performance by Jonathan Wilson, under the fluid direction of Ed Sahely. As in "Stuck," the character is gay, the references solidly Toronto (or, in the latter case, Oshawa, a suburb of the city), and the story's implications resoundingly universal.

Wilson's tale focuses on his high school friendship with a flamboyant young man whose lifestyle in the pre-AIDS era has led to his death; Wilson shares his memories on the way to his old friend's funeral.

Audience cheers

Both engaging works feature twisting narrative structures and unexpected revelations rich in poetry, wit and humanity. A smart producer could make a first-rate evening by pairing these two plays.

Another festival regular, Toronto's Brenda McFarlane, has used the Fringe to good advantage, producing lively and engaging scripts that she then develops elsewhere. This year's "I Love You So Much I Wish You Were Dead" deserves just such a second go-round: It's a perceptive, funny and angstridden series of sketches about the emotional traps that spring up to ensnare even the best-intentioned lovers.

Other popular favorites at this year's Fringe included Michael Healey's "Kicked," an investigation into the sexual assault and death of a young girl as seen through the eyes of the school bus driver who saw her last. "The Other Psvchodramas," written by Edmonton's king of Gothic camp, Stewvart Lemoine; and, in a welcome Surprise from overseas, "Whale Nation," Heathcote Williams' study of the sea creatures, presented by the U .K.'s English Suitcase Theater. Audiences stood and cheered this tribute to the '"50-million-year-old brain with a smile."

Sharing the wealth

And this year there seem to I be more shows doing well, rather than a few dragging in all the crowds, says Webster. "It's more spread out, which is exactly how we were hoping it would develop."

Spread out, indeed. Canada's fringe circuit has expanded to such a degree that there's now a Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals. Two of the more established events, Summer Works (late summer) and Under the Umbrella (winter), began with companies who didn't make the Fringe of Toronto draw. The circuit has contributed to Toronto's growth as a theater city over the last half-dozen years by exposing new artists to producers and audiences.