Author: Peter

I had the privilege to see Andrew Zadel’s play The Body, starring his sister Lydia, for a fourth and final time this afternoon, in the company of talented, beautiful, and (as of about two hours ago) multiple Fringe award-winning Amber. Lydia Zadel has been no less than marvelous in the one-woman show during the week, but today she was absolutely mesmerizing. As she said her final line I felt my eyes stinging, as they have each time, but it wasn’t until a shared glance where Amber and I saw each other’s eyes welling up that we were both finally done in.

(Dammit, I’m tearing up even as I type this six hours later.)

Look, I know I’m a softie. The end of The Natural gets me every time. I get it from my mom. But this was something entirely different, an overwhelming, cathartic reaction to Lydia’s performance and Andrew’s words. So we did the only thing we could: sit there in the front row, two friends trying to comfort and console each other, as the rest of the audience filed out behind us.

Thank you, Lydia and Andrew, for bringing your phenomenal production to the Fringe Festival, and for your friendship during the roller coaster that’s been the last ten days. And thank you, Amber, for sharing the experience and literally being a shoulder to cry on.

Thirty-three ticketed performances later, my 2005 London Fringe Festival experience is over. In roughly chronological order, some memories, notes and impressions:

• Meeting a couple of regular guys, Jorn-Bjorn Fuller-Gee and Iain Ormsby-Knox, at the Peanut Butter Picnic and learning they were staging a performance of The Strange History of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, before they became the stars of the festival.
• Starting the festival by seeing You Kiss By the Book, and subsequently praising it to a woman who then informed me that she was the director.
• Kathy Navackas, Alison Challis, the young woman originally from Winnipeg whose name I never did get Jacqui Vandale, Susan Smith-Goddard, and the rest of the Fringe troupers.
• The Body.
• Lydia Zadel, the gifted and gorgeous star of The Body.
• Andrew Zadel, the masterful playwright of The Body.
• Rosalind and Geneviève; Lil; Leah and Marcey; Jen; Heather, Jonathan, Diana and John; Anne and Peter; Tarah, Jason, Stefania and Caralin; Joshua, Amber and Jeff; Fenulla and Dawn; Colette.
• Talking to Trevor Thompson, a nice guy from Ottawa whose first play is anything but disappointing.
• The Body.
• Being petrified by Tippi Seagram despite being in the very back row at The Arts Project.
• The Body.
• Aerial Angels’ Naughty No-No Show, late and way over time but impressively done; and coming to the realization that the seven pieces of clothing I was wearing weren’t nearly enough.
• Quick-marching home and back between Saturday-evening shows to create and print my own promotional posters for The Body.
• The Body with Amber.
• Andrew’s parody at the Fringe Fried party.

A hearty nice work! to everyone involved in P&J, which was named yesterday as the Impresario show at The Arts Project.

This outdoor production is ambitious and very enjoyable, even though after reading the blurb in the festival program I have a nagging suspicion that I left before it was over. If there is indeed an intermission and a second act, the show certainly doesn’t need them: the first act is self-contained and loops back on itself cleverly to finish up.

Brian Malow’s Not Available in Stores is aptly titled, but only because it’s really a workshop for a show that isn’t ready for prime time. He’s got a good family reminiscence to tell, some funny observations (belying his standup roots) and a few interesting points to make about politics, consumerism and other topics, but there’s no real thread to tie them together. If you’re expecting the Brian Malow who performs his own brand of intelligent, science-flavored stand up you’ll be disappointed; you’re going to see a work in progress that’s currently unfocused, changing from night to night as he rewrites and edits on the fly.

This is a cute, funny snack of a show that’s also sort of touching at times. It’s one of the shortest performances in the Fringe, but that’s because it’s just the right length. Jen Frankel is immediately believable and endearing in the title (and only) role. The flashback and fantasy scenes are cleverly written and performed, particularly the job montage and—not a spoiler, given the title—stripping routines. (Kudos on the non-nudity nudity, which is saucy yet tasteful.) The music is well-chosen, and edited better than most of the other productions I’ve seen that use it incidentally. I’ve only two quibbles:

• The music and sound cues this evening were a little too loud; Frankel’s character is enthusiastic by nature (as is the actress herself) but she seemed to be on the verge of shouting her lines just to be heard.
• Being one, I take (mock) offense at the portrayal of the geek. 🙂

Even though I knew what to expect from The Body from seeing it earlier in the Fringe, catching the nuances and details I’d missed the first time—a lighting cue here, a sentence there—made it even better the second time around. My previous glowing review (mistakenly posted to the Fringe forums as “Guest”) doesn’t come close to being a sufficient appreciation of Lydia Zadel’s performance or Andrew Zadel’s writing.

The highlight of this mock musical is, of course, the music. Since I saw Pish Posh extracted at last Friday’s showcase it’s been a real earworm, popping into my head at the most random times (like during a blackout in Yes, We Have No Bananas tonight). It’s the strangest thing to see Jeff Culbert blond and pyjamaed and singing and dancing around the stage, but you know, it works. Amber Cunningham is just cartoony enough as the very blond, almost-squeaky Cindy, and breaks your heart with her expressive, crystal voice. Playwright/songsmith/star Joshua Richardson plays the angry young man in short pants right to the edge. Tyson Bree’s a handsome yet geeky sidekick with the voice of a villain, and Kara Evelyn is entertaining tellin’ things like they are when her friends get caught up in their P&J predicament.

The nuances of the plot haven’t really stuck with me, and the recorded music was a little overpowering at points, but both are minor quibbles in an otherwise nicely done parody.

I was asked after the show tonight if I’d recommend it… and my answer was (and is) a qualified “yes”. (The person who asked, a director and producer, didn’t seem amused by that response.) For better or for worse, it’s not a performance for everyone, and that I’m selective about who I’d suggest it to probably says more about me than the show itself. But for me, tonight, it was the sort of high-calibre, high-energy, highly abstract thing I was in the mood for.

To Craig Scorgie’s review from this evening’s show I’ll add that I was one of those (mostly) silent audience members, but just because I wasn’t hungry doesn’t mean I didn’t have fun. 🙂