goestoshow

The Fringe is coming up in a few weeks, and I’m super excited about it (more on that in a few paragraphs). Recently someone on an chat channel I sit in mentioned that he saw Philip Glass today.

To which I answered, “did he buy a loaf of bread?”

Explaining this strange response requires going back to August 1997 or so (might have been 1998). You see, my father worked in Edmonton while our family lived in Red Deer. One thing that could always be counted on in those days is that my father would be out experiencing the Fringe Festival in late August. His claimed record stands, as I understand it, somewhere north of 30 plays in one season. This is a lot of plays to take in in one week. I thought it was a strange habit and didn’t really get it at the time.

Well, I was up in Edmonton visiting him and at the same time getting my first taste of the Fringe experience myself. One of the plays I saw was this one, as part of a series of shorts (don’t worry, it’s not long — just 5 minutes. Stick with it to the end):

This play, and all the other David Ives’ plays that were performed as part of this set entranced me. It was probably my first real experience with stage performance, and it was love at first sight. I’ve since seen a lot of plays, both at the Fringe and outside of it, and my love of stage theater has only increased since that experience. Especially small, short, quirky plays like this one. This play makes words dance in a way I’d never thought possible, and that is very powerful to an avid reader like me. It’s like interpretive dance (which I can’t get into at all) but for book nerds.

I’ve been back to the Fringe at least 5 of the intervening years, seeing anywhere from one play to my record of somewhere around 20 a couple years ago. Every year when I get my grubby hands on the Fringe guide, the first thing I do is search through it for any sign of a David Ives’ set. Someday, someone will do it again, and I’ll be there day one to see it.

But this leads to the really interesting thing I’ve learned about the Fringe, as well as myself, in all these years. I should explain that in the printed form, this play is very vague. There’s little stage direction, mostly just words. This leaves it highly open to interpretation. I suspect that every performance of this play is quite different, and looking at all the different youtube videos that suspicion seems to be the case. The one linked above is the closest to my fragile memory of what is to me the original of this play, but others may find other versions superior.

What I’ve learned is this: The beauty of the Fringe is the unique experience. No other entertainment venue I’ve ever experienced is so thoroughly dedicated to providing new, fresh, and unique experiences. Films are mass created for a mass market pretty much by nature. Music is likewise generally created always with the goal of the mass market in mind, and festivals around music are generally designed to pick out the next piece of the collective unconscious and give it wider voice.

But not the Fringe. Although I’m sure fame and glory are in the minds of more than a few of the playwrights, performers, etc. at the Fringe, it seems there’s an effort to create something special and unique, often deliberately designed to not function well as a mass market piece. The actors and playwrights may go on to bigger and better things, but their little Fringe plays rarely seem to. In that sense, it’s a venue for talent and not so much for product.

And that’s what I love about it. That’s what gets me back every year. It is my little rebellion against the collective consciousness, seeing things very few other people will ever see. Even fellow fringe lovers are unlikely to have seen the same segment of the hundreds of plays on offer as I did.

I’m gonna warn readers of my blog now: In a couple of weeks, there’ll be a lot of posts about plays I’m seeing. I do it every year, and this year will be no exception.

Tags: David Ives, Philip Glass