How to Spend your Last Day at the Fringe

An actor once told me that if a play started well but ended poorly, the audience would say “It wasn’t that good after all”; on the other hand, if it had a rough start but ended well, the audience would say “It wasn’t so bad after all!” So, in that spirit, I will do my best to make sure you end your Fringe experience on a good note.

I have to admit that my experience at the Fringe this year has been seemingly more painful than that of many of my Indyish peers. I have seen about fifteen shows: few genuinely bad ones, but also few particularly good. It seemed that every show I was seeing managed to be more average than the previous one. I was also reminded of film critic Matthew Hays, who once said that he’d rather see a really bad film than an average one because the latter is more painful to sit through. After this year’s Fringe, I understand what he means like never before.

So, if I were you, how would I spend my last day at the Fringe?

I would GO SEE Lancer du nain/Throwing Gnomes at 2:30pm at Tangente (840 Cherrier East). It’s easily the best dance show at this year’s Fringe along with Fonction phatique, which unfortunately is not playing on this last day. I would THEN HEAD OVER TO the Just For Laughs Studio (2109 Saint-Laurent) before 5:15pm to catch Uncalled For’s Blastback Babyzap, the tightest, funniest show I have seen at the Fringe this year.

On the other hand, I would seriously AVOID Barbie World, the worst dance show at this year’s Fringe, and Apnée, a show that I got to see last year at Studio 303 and that still haunts me, but for all the wrong reasons. Apnée is almost so bad it’s good (in retrospect, anyway; it certainly doesn’t feel that way when you’re watching it), if only it wasn’t taking itself so seriously. It has all the worst clichés about actors (they’re attention whores who just want to be loved) wrapped in one big ball of self-importance and self-victimization. Both these shows are also at Tangente, the first at 4:15pm and the second 7:15pm, which I am letting you know on the off chance that you’re a masochist or hate me so much that you want to go see them just to spite me.

And on this note, have a great summer and see you in September!