The power of theatre on full display
Promo Image via Intrepid Theatre.
With the school year beginning anew, another year of the Victoria Fringe Festival comes to a close. This year’s festival was a huge success, and if you’re around for the last two weeks of August next year, the Fringe is a spectacle that never deserves to be missed.
This unique festival offers all sorts of performances to entice theatre lovers and curious onlookers. There are traditional plays, one act shows, comedy acts, dancing, experimental art pieces, magic, puppets, clowns, works in progress, returning performers, brand new performers, and more. And they’re all roughly sixty minutes or less!
According to the festival’s program, “The flavour for this year’s Fringe [was] change.” said The Martlet sat down with Producer Emmett MacMillen to discuss the theme and the changes to the festival this year. With the Victoria Fringe in its 37th year, Emmett says the goal was to keep in regular communication with the community, artists, and volunteers and to bring something new after lockdown, while expanding and diversifying the audience. This year the Fringe also took steps to be more accessible, with such features as the Fringe on the House Program, which offered low barrier tickets with no questions asked for those who couldn’t afford the regular prices.
“Theatre is its own magical space … where you’re able to tell stories in unique and interesting ways,” said MacMillen. “I think theatre and live performance facilitates a lot of community building. You’re going out to a location with other people and you have the opportunity to meet new people and performers, and actually have conversations about what you’re witnessing.”
And this sentiment of theatre as a community-building tool was shared by the artists as well.
“Everyone in the community benefits from the arts, it’s really what helps keep us together, especially in times like [these],” said Jayne Walling, who performed The Big Wail, a clown show about a bottom feeder fish. “When we have these huge changes going on, art is going to be the thing . . . that people need the most to help keep them afloat.”
Half of the fun of the Fringe is going out to see a bunch of shows you normally wouldn’t. A personal favourite was Carpet, an absurd comedy about a world made of carpet and a family dealing with the grief of losing a family member to a vacuum. Another unique show from the Fringe this year was Bad Dog, which followed a pandemic puppy trying to find a better owner, and won Best Comedy and Best Ensemble piece.
“That’s the magic of theatre, and that’s the magic of doing fringe festivals,” said Roderick Glanville, who starred in a one-man adaptation of Moby Dick. “You’ve got an audience that wants to experience what you’re sharing, you want to share with them.” Despite taking a truly massive book and condensing it into an hour, Glanville found the heart of the conflict with Captain Ahab and Starbuck, delivering a truly harrowing performance.
“I love that feeling of leaving a [theatre] and thinking ‘All of us, who don’t know each other, we all just shared something together,’” echoed UVic Alumni, Lou Laurence of Love, Sharks, and Frenching. Laurence went on to explain that a performance is a way of creating a space of public intimacy.
The Fringe allows artists and audience members alike to connect over a shared love of theatre. And with programs such as the Artist Spotlight series, Indigenous Artist Program, and the Fringe on the House, more and more people have the chance to both see and make live art.
At the Fringe, you’ll always find something a little off the beaten path. Be it traditional, experimental, old theatre professionals, or emerging artists, there will be something to enjoy.
