Theatre Forms: Life on the Fringe

by Patrick McDonagh

“Canadian theatre” is a big, sprawling dog’s breakfast of a concept. Among its many ingredients, it can boast something unique: the fringe circuit, a grassroots series of summer festivals taking place from St. John’s to Victoria. Fringe festivals exist abroad: half a dozen each in the US and Australia; a couple in New Zealand; another couple in England; and of course, the grand-daddy of them all, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, founded in 1947. But only in Canada can actors jump a bus and travel from one event to the next, performing half a dozen shows each time. The Edmonton Fringe Festival was established in 1982; today there are nineteen festivals from the large events in Winnipeg, Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, to tiny newcomers in places such as Port Alberni. The fringe is an incubator for young talent; a laboratory for developing original material; an exhausting exercise of love for organizers, volunteers, and performers; and a smorgasbord of performances, from the brilliant to the cringe-inducing, for the audiences.

“The Fringe gives artists the chance to try something new, which allows a lot of artistic creativity. And it is bringing forward our next wave of major theatre artists,” asserts Chuck McEwan, who has logged four years as the President of the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals, and is now the CAFF treasurer. As evidence, he lists Daniel McIvor, Jason Sherman, James O’Reilly, and Michael Healey, all of whom worked the fringe. Indeed, close to 1,000 fringe plays are presented each year, mostly original pieces that might never be mounted otherwise. For an entry fee of around $500, fringe organizers provide a venue, technical support, and publicity. The only official “fringe” requirements are that the festivals be unjuried — most conduct a selection lottery — and that all box office receipts be returned to the performers.

Alex Dallas is a fringe veteran who went solo several years ago after 18 years with alternative theatre pioneers Sensible Footwear. The troupe was formed in London, England, in 1982, and immediately hit the Edinburgh Fringe; in 1989, they were invited to the Vancouver Comedy Festival, discovered the Canadian circuit, and became a fixture, staging “must-see” shows for audiences in the know. Dallas, now based in Toronto, calls the fringe “a fantastic opportunity” for new performers to develop their craft. “You won’t discover if your work is good, bad or indifferent if it’s sitting in a drawer in your desk. It has to be out there on stage,” she says.

The “script-in-the-drawer” phenomenon was haunting Montreal-based Keir Cutler (Playwriting, 1982), who had been receiving positive feedback but no production commitments from artistic directors. So he created a short piece based on impersonations of bad Shakespeare professors that he had developed to amuse friends. Teaching Shakespeare became a hit, and two follow-up shows, Teaching Detroit and Is Shakespeare Dead, consolidated his position as a fringe favourite. “On the fringe, you don’t have to fit time or genre constraints,” he says. “You have tremendous creative freedom, and can really develop ideas.”

No one represents a better case for the fringe as a talent hothouse than T J Dawe, a 28-year-old actor from Vancouver, whom Cutler calls “the god of the fringe.” Dawe toured his first circuit in 1994, as a cast member in Daniel McIvor’s Never Swim Alone, and has returned many times since. The experience has helped him mature as an artist. “I’ve performed my plays Labrador, Tired Clichés, and Slipknot a hundred times each, and each show grows in about 25-performance increments,” he explains. Dawe earns enough money fringing to support himself — “I don’t have to scurry back to a day job, and can work on new material.” This summer, the circuit features seven shows either written, performed or directed by him, including one new solo piece for himself.

And the audiences can’t seem to get enough. Says Cutler, “Every year in Winnipeg, shows are sold out hours beforehand, and people are fighting for tickets. They run up and hug you on the street.” Notes Dawe, “Audiences at the fringe pay less than $10, so they’re willing to take a chance. They want shows to be experimental, and they want to see something new — where else do you find an audience like that?”

The fringe isn’t for the risk-averse, though. The festivals are, after all, unjuried, so there is no quality control. In addition, artists often try out material and styles they might be reluctant to present elsewhere. “In all great art, failure is part of the process,” McEwan points out. But the risks to both artists and audiences are minimized, he adds, by small production budgets and low ticket prices. “If a show wasn’t all that great, people are willing to let it slide and try another one.”

The careers of Dallas, Dawe, and Cutler all indicate life after, or in addition to, the fringe. Cutler has regular work in film and TV, and has performed his original material in mainstream venues such as Montreal’s Centaur Theatre. Dawe has played the Edmonton comedy festival, had a one-night booking in Whistler, and opened Calgary’s new Solocentric Festival, a series of one-person shows — all on the basis of his fringe work. “Fringing is becoming slightly more accepted by mainstream theatre people,” concludes Dallas. Last year, when Sir Ian McKellan was filming in Vancouver and wanted to see a show, he took in her Nymphomania at the Vancouver fringe; the same piece recently enjoyed a two-week run in Los Angeles as a result of a producer catching it at the Toronto Fringe. “Generally, the fringe is not a place where you will be discovered,” she says, “but people are realizing that there is talent out there. Things can happen. And for young artists in Canada, I can’t think of anything better than to become a fringer — can you?”

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