Let the Edmonton SUN shine...

Ahhh fellas. The fringe. Always full of ups and downs.
I had four reviewers at the show on Saturday night and over a hundred folks. I thought "This is going to be the BEST FRINGE EVER!"

Then on Sunday night (the "coveted" MIDNIGHT SLOT)I had 10 people - one of whom was Liz Nicholls from the Journal... It was a fabulous show that night - really really good. But still - 10 people. I thought "This is going to be the WORST FRINGE EVER! What was I thinking?!"

Then I hear that other shows have been having trouble with their late night slots too - playing to houses of 6 or 10 people. "Yay! It's not just me!"

Then my first and only review as of yesterday comes out - in the SEE supplement where they review EVERY fringe show. Two and a half stars. The reviewer is like, "she's good and she talks a lot and stuff, but in the end I didn't get it." I'm like, "I KNOW - there are IRREPERABLE flaws in the script. I could fix them all but what's the point, I should probably just burn it. Hey I've got a great idea for another show..."

Then I see another show which I know for a fact is cringeingly bad (I know this because I saw it) Two and a half stars in SEE - same as my show.

That actually made me feel better. That sort of proved that reviews are pretty subjective. I read all the other reviews written by my reviewer and she said the SAME THING ABOUT EACH OF THEM. The only shows she liked were the kids' shows. "This one had a great moral - sometimes fear is the only thing you're afraid of! Wow! What a great message!" Okay. I see where you're at now. I feel better.

And then this morning, THIS review comes out, page one of the fringe section of the SUN. Ahhhh, boys and girls - I just hope it sells tickets! Oh God let this article sell tickets!!! And if I meet this Steve guy I may have to kiss him on the face.

Love to you all,
- Falcon.


Fringe Festival ReviewsTue, August 23, 2005

Carrying the torch
By STEVE TILLEY, EDMONTON SUN

EFFABLE - Stage 7

There's no better place than the Fringe to fall in love. It's a perfect Petri-dish mix of summer sun, edgy theatre, happy throngs and a communally shared experience, just waiting for infatuation to take root and spread across it like ... uh, bacteria. Wow, that analogy kind of fell on its ass, dinnit?

If you're really lucky, you'll fall in love with a particular Fringe performance. One that so excites or provokes you that you leave the theatre wanting to change the world or better your life or, at the very least, tip the cab driver his due for shuttling your drunk and over-rambunctious butt home after too many hoisted cups of Big Rock in the beer tent.

FATHOMS MORE SHALLOW

Being several fathoms more shallow than that, though, I tend to fall in love every year with a particular performer.

One year the object of my fleeting Fringe affection was Amber Bissonnette in Cheerleader! Another year it was the devastatingly cute little brunette in A Boy's Own Jedi Handbook. Cheerleaders and Star Wars - maybe the subject matter has something to do with it.

Yet another year, it was Shannan Calcutt as her clown alter-ego Izzy in It's Me, Only Better, which must say something about the strength of Calcutt's performance, because normally clowns frighten and confuse me. Hey, just like women!

This year I'm carrying my Fringe torch for Calgary's Nicole Zylstra and her show EFFable, playing at the Royal Canadian Legion, a.k.a. Stage 7. I was a little apprehensive going in, as one-woman Fringe shows are often like the theatrical version of lobster bisque: either really, really good, or so bad that you feel a bit nauseous afterwards and need to go lie down.

EFFable is nothing but delicious. It's not Zylstra's first appearance at our Fringe - my comrade-in-arms Jenny Feniak raved about her show Firebird: 220 Horses of the Apocalypse last year - but it's the first time I've seen her. And I was smitten.

Well, smitten with her character. How much of EFFable's darling Nikki is drawn from Zylstra's own experiences is only for her to know. But over the course of an hour, she paints such an engaging, amusing, touching and arousing (no, not in the sexual sense) (well, not entirely) portrait of this woman that it's impossible not to adore her.

Like many girls, Nikki has crushes. Unlike most, her crushes are on Jesus, and also the devil. And boys, ranging from saints to sinners, preacher's sons to atheists, Star Trek's Capt. Kirk to Fantasy Island's Mr. Roarke.

Religion and sex are not as strange bedfellows as they seem, though a three-way with early '80s pop culture is a little out of the ordinary. In a good, kinky way.

And while EFFable has messages, they're not the kind that conk you over the head. First and foremost, this is a tale of a romantic misfit making the hole fit the peg and occasionally swapping pen-pal letters with the devil, who it turns out is female. No surprise there.

It's also one of those rare one-human shows that is very writerly, yet never feels recited. Zylstra has an ear for the English language and an ability to deftly turn a phrase that makes hacks like yours truly hang his head in shame and envy.

Even the title is a clever play on words, meaning both that which can be easily uttered or explained (effable) and that which you would like to schtup (eff-able.)

A caveat, though: EFFable is not a show for those who need to be spoken at instead of to. There are no sets, no props - real or mimed - no pratfalls and no fart jokes, at least that I recall. Just a girl on a stage, telling you about herself, not because she wants to impress or amuse you, but just because she wants to share.

Occasionally the creaking of the Legion's folding chairs would signal that the audience was losing the thread of the performance, and a few of Zylstra's zingilicious religious/sexual/pop-culture references seemed to inexplicably coast over their heads. Come ON, people!

FICTIONAL DREAM GIRL

But Nikki is my fictional dream girl, funny and smart, introspective yet extroverted, and, if I understood her timeline right, born the same year I was, though Zylstra herself looks significantly younger. The long red hair and cute little overbite don't hurt, either. The torch has been lit.

Whether that's also your bag is only for you, Joe and Jane Fringe, to decide. But hey, if all else fails, the venue serves beer. Just remember to give the cab driver a good tip on the way home. Chances are you'll want to anyway.

4 1/2 SUNS (OUT OF 5)