Fringe World 2014

Welcome to the city on the Fringe of the World. Here's the Perth Fringe Festival happenings (at least those parts of this many-headed monster that happen to me!) day-by-day from curtain up on January 24 until it collapsed on February 23. 
There are spot reviews of all the shows I see, with links to full reviews of those that appeared in The West.. 
This year followed The West's (and, indeed, most people who cover fringes') lead and give nasty star ratings for the shows I see. 
It's not my natural inclination to treat performance like Olympic diving,  but it seems it's a useful tool, especially for companies and producers looking to get to other events, so there you go.
Feel free to disregard them (or anything else I say) because, in the end, fringe is all about trusting your instincts, keeping your ear to the ground and your finger on your mouse and unearthing those little nuggets of genius for yourself.  
I can tell you, for example, that the three shows I really should have seen, Lost and Found's La Voix Humaine, Gillian Cosgriff's This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things and Holland Street's Point and Shoot, all of which garnered piles of 5-star ratings and Fringe World awards, I passed over or only found out about too late.
(Incidentally, they're examples of why the so-called Fringe Encore in the Urban Orchard should actually include "by popular demand" return performances of shows like this, instead of what amounts to a two-week piss up that only disrupts other traders, including PIAF, and runs the risk of damaging Fringe World's well-deserved reputation.)  

So, just click the "Read more" tag below, and let's get cracking!

Opera: The Old Maid and the Thief

By Gian Carlo Menotti
Love Opera!
For Fringe World 2014
Musical director Lochlan Brown
Director Kathryn Osborne
Set and Costume design Philippa Nilant and Sally Phipps
With Nola Formentin, Michael Heap, Jenna Robertson and Alexandra Bak
Perth Town Hall
Until February 22

 
I’m no opera buff. I went to the splendid Perth Town Hall for Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief mainly to see how Kathryn Osborne, one of our best young theatre directors, would approach her opera debut.
The answer is very well. And that’s only one of the pleasures of this fun tale of lust and larceny in small-town, early 20th century America.

Theatre: These Guys

Variegated Productions

Created by Libby Klysz, Brent Hill, Ben Sutton, St John Cowcher and Michelle Nussey

Directed by Libby Klysz

Performed by Ben Russell, St John Cowcher and Michelle Nussey, with Alwyn-Nixon Lloyd 

For Fringe World

PICA until Feb 22

There’s only one thing wrong with this gem of a Fringe show: it leaves you wanting more, but the bastards won’t give it to you.

Theatre: Second Hands

Little y Theatre
Written and directed by Jeffrey Jay Fowler
Developed and performed by Austin Castiglione, Nick Maclaine, Holly Garvey, Georgia King and Renee Newman-Storen
For Fringe World
PICA until Feb 22

I suggested to some people who had just seen Jeffrey Jay Fowler’s ghoulish suburban comedy, Second Hands, that he could be the next David Williamson.
They were horrified that I would consign such an adventurous young writer to the remainder bin of Australian theatre, trotting out middlebrow current affairs dramas to pad out the subscription brochures of the state theatre companies, but they rather missed the point.
Which is that Fowler has the rare gift of writing genuinely funny, genuinely sharp dinner-table dialogue, and the ability to ratchet it up and down the emotional scale from banter to desperation at will. Only time will tell how Fowler chooses to use his ability; what’s indisputable is that he’s got it, and in spades.

Theatre: First Day Off in a Long Time

Written and performed by Brian Finkelstein
For Fringe World
Blue Room until Feb 22
 
There can’t be a tougher gig in comedy than writing for US talk shows; every line is genetically modified, every set up is massaged like Kobe beef, every punch line goes under an electron microscope. If you haven’t got it, every time, your career can be nasty, brutish and short.
Brian Finkelstein swims in those shark-infested waters (The Moth, Ellen DeGeneres, Conan O’Brien), and the fact that he’s come out alive, with both his humanity and sense of humour intact, is a testament to the guy.


Link here to the complete review in The West Australian