Fringe Character

TJ Dawe mugging for the camera at the Saskatoon Fringe Festival.

One of the country’s best-known theatre personalities, TJ Dawe has authored six shows (including Labrador, The Doctor Is Sick and The Curse of the Trickster) and a handful of adaptations of literary works. The script to his original show The Slip-Knot was recently nominated for a Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour.

In addition to being a prolific writer, Dawe is also a tireless performer — he devotes a good chunk of every year touring his plays. He’s been on stage at everything from the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal to the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina and is a mainstay of the Canadian Fringe theatre festivals. Dawe is currently on a cross-Canada tour of the Fringe circuit, which takes him to Toronto (July 6-16), Winnipeg (July 20-30), Saskatoon (August 5-14), Victoria (August 25-September 5) and Vancouver (September 8-18). His diary of this year’s Fringe circuit will be updated throughout the summer.

Part 4

Another late-night entry written after a cabaret. Tired again, and yet exhilarated. It went better than I had hoped it might.

So it was Spoof Night at the Fringe. The organization of it was pretty haphazard, because the person responsible isn’t much of an organizer. That person is me. The performers hadn’t been told where they could change, where they should sit when they’re not on, how to coordinate whatever tech support they wanted with the booth, where they could keep their props. A ticket seller was drafted at the last minute. Could performers who weren’t in the show get in free? How about staff? I say, let everyone figure all that out themselves.

I had a 10:30 show, which lasted 90 minutes. The cabaret started at midnight. I showed up and it was just getting going. The audience looked big. The performers had figured out where to change, where to keep their props, where to sit when they weren’t on, etc., etc… They’re smart.

People stuck to the three-minute rule. Only a few had to be gonged, and they were gonged gently, the audience saying “awwww” — sorry to see them cut off.

The acts ran the gamut. Some people did a straightforward send-up of their subject — condensing it and exaggerating the key elements. Some satirized what was happening at the Fringe. Some poked fun at who the cast members were outside their shows.

Cara Yeates from Knee Deep in Muck did Girl’s Guide, in which she crumpled up the local newspaper’s bad review of the show, the prudish critic having said she wished it had been more PG. Cara brought on the two dancing girls from A Brief History of Warfare and surpassed Girl’s Guide’s raunchiness with pride.

Emily Pearlman from Radio Collar did Michael Walsh from Between Takeoff and Landing, envisioning Newfoundland as the perfect subject for a heartwarming one-man show that would bring in older audiences. Which it does.

Michael Walsh (of Between Takeoff and Landing) then did Radio Collar, integrating The Big Funk, which Emily Pearlman’s also in, and had a cameo of characters from his own show.

Jonah Von Spreecken cast the Gothic schoolmaster character from his own show Gloomology in the play he was sending up: The Jewish Princess Diaries.

Chris Caswell from Maudlin Dementia changed Knee Deep in Muck’s subject from treeplanting to a Fringe tour. Somehow, she had full multimedia elements, which she had yoked together in just a few days.

I was spoofed by Rob Appleby from Everything Falls Apart and More. Rob’s a guy who’s even taller and skinnier than I am. With sideburns, too. He had my mannerisms down. People laughed. I laughed.

New Zealand stand-up Benjamin Crellin from Gags 4 the Masses did Dreamscape — a dance show in which he and Jonno Katz from Jolly Roger squirmed around each other zipped up in sleeping bags, while the music of Enya played in the background.

Those are only seven of the acts. There were thirty.

Everyone rose to the occasion. The audience got it. It did go into overtime, but no one seemed to mind. No feelings were hurt. A good time was had by all.

People agreed Saskatoon’s is the perfect Fringe for this idea. The performers are close here.

Damn, it’s good to blow off steam. Here’s hoping it happens again next year.