Fringe Character

TJ Dawe with his Winnipeg billets, the Johnsons.

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 1

I’m in Winnipeg. Flew in yesterday on a cruelly early flight after a measly three hours’ sleep. My Fringe rhythm isn’t conducive to waking up at 5 a.m. But earlier flights are cheaper. The festival starts on a Wednesday here. Should have come in on Monday. But Tuesday flights are cheaper. You save fifty bucks here, thirty there.

I got into my billets’ place and slept most of the afternoon. I’m staying with the Johnsons, a retired couple with a daughter in theatre. It’s my fourth year at their place. I’ve got my own room and my own bathroom. In the basement. Nice and dark, for sleeping in. They’re good billets. They give me rides in to the Fringe. They usually loan me a bike. They’ve got high-speed internet access. If you find a good billet, hang on to ’em.

The Johnsons told me it’s the same from their perspective. The first year they took someone in, he expected free accommodation for the rest of the summer. They eventually had to drive him to a motel. They like having me, they said. They can go to their cabin on Lake Winnipeg for the weekend and not worry about leaving the house in my hands.

The downside is they’re not close to the Fringe. It’s a half-hour bike ride, in a city that’s not exactly bike-friendly. Everyone drives. The winter hacks the pavement to pieces. Potholes. Dips. Bumps. Cracks. Jagged pieces missing from the curbs. Rebar exposed like broken bone. No bike lanes. Buses that hug the side of the road. Exhaust blasting in your face. Endless flatness. High winds. And I’m riding on a highway. Well, it’s cheaper than cabbing. Faster than transit. And I’ve had my funds drained on past tours traveling in a car or a van that needed endless repairs. And gas. Now I fly and bike. Hope I don’t die, though.

Had a media call at the venue last night. Two TV cameras showed up. I did a short monologue from the show. Hope it stands up on its own. Theatre can look so bad out of context. But you have to do whatever you can to let the public know about your play.

I haven’t done a run of this show, A Canadian Bartender at Butlin’s, in two years. It’s about a working holiday I had when I was 18 in a crappy British resort. I tell the story and go off on odd pseudo-philosophical tangents. It’s hard to remember which bit comes next.

Did my tech rehearsal this morning. This show has more light and sound cues than my stuff usually does. It took us two and a half hours to go through everything. Then I ran through the script, stomping through all the words, just to dust it off. I’m still rusty on this one. It’ll warm up after a show or two. Maybe the critics won’t come till then. I hope so. I don’t have any say in the matter. I open tonight, 10:30 p.m. on a Wednesday. Ninety minutes, too! No mention in the Winnipeg Free Press’ Fringe preview article this morning. Hmm. Let’s see how much Winnipeg remembers me.