Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 26, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM ● C3 FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024 BLOODSUCKERS! THE MUSICAL Kiss the Giraffe Productions Tom Hendry Warehouse (Venue 6), to Saturday YOU might be forgiven a little déjà vu when Kiss the Giraffe Productions remounts its hit Bloodsuckers! The Musical, which first premièred at the fringe in 2004. The briskly paced, 75-minute musical, with book, music and lyrics by Joseph Aragon, features many of those original cast members reprising their roles, augmented by KTG alumni. American theme-park developer Jack Astor, performed with brash swagger by Kenneth Jackson, travels to Transylvania with business part- ners, Mary Brown (Lisa Tjaden) and Bill Smith (Sheldon Atts) to establish “Dracula Land.” Enter deliciously campy “king of the vampires,” Vlad (Ray Padua), who attempts to thwart his plans in his lust for blood, just as his sidekick, Natasha (Connie Dimen) plots her own revenge. Aragon’s sharp, clever score of snazzy musical numbers has stood the test of time, with Tjaden in particular belting out her solos for all she’s worth. While it takes a while to adjust to performers singing sans microphones, the flashy Hollywood ending including a kick line caps this bloody blast from the past on a high note. HHHH — Holly Harris CAPTAIN TED: DISABLED PIRATE Strokes of Genius One88 (Venue 23), to Sunday AHOY, mateys! Welcome to a zany hour aboard the Inclusion, an inacces- sible pirate ship helmed by a captain in a wheelchair and his swashbuckling crew. Capt. Ted (Mitch Krohn, a stroke survivor and the show’s creator) is de- termined to improve the convenience of his vessel, but upgrades are expen- sive. Let the plundering begin. This informative local comedy features a cast of 10 multi-talented marauders with a range of real-life disabilities. While the humour hinges on the crew’s quirks, the moral of the story — rehashed during a closing monologue — focuses on acceptance and inclusion. There’s a lot of exposition early on, but the pacing improves as the adven- ture ensues. Highlights include an offstage sex scene requiring ASL inter- pretation, a seeing-eye parrot and veiled digs at Winnipeg’s health-care system. The venue has some tough sightlines, so arrive early to snag a good seat. Despite a misprint in the program, the second-floor room is indeed wheel- chair accessible. HHH1/2 — Eva Wasney FLY THROUGH TIME WITH LEAPIN’ LOUIE Leapin’ Louie Comedy Productions MTYP Mainstage (Kids Venue), to Saturday LEAPIN’ Louie (David Lichtenstein) wings in from Portland, Ore., to show Winnipeg kids the story of how long flight has been a thing on Earth. With a stretched-out lariat rope as a timeline millions of years long, Leapin’ Louie juggles, jumps, unicy- cles, balances and rope twirls through the evolution of flight from the first takeoff by animals to the first lift- off by humans. His comedic cowboy stunts are paired up with each part of the timeline. Some dinosaurs may have “whipped” their tails — a perfect opportunity to demonstrate the whips. For the story of the Moon Bird, the house goes dark and out come the lighted juggling pins. Augmented with some flying puppets and photographic slides, Leapin’ Louie delivers an enthusiastic performance (in spite of a small opening day turn- out). HHH — Wendy King THE GET LAID SHOW The Other V Name Productions Duke of Kent Legion (Venue 13), to Sunday GOING by “V,” Fringe vet Veronica Ternopolski shoots for a wild, raucous fringe experience in the intimate — some might say cramped — confines of the Duke of Kent Legion. V invites con- senting adults to play games designed to open you up to relationships with new people. She employs a whiteboard spelling out the tenets of responsible mating: Participation, Risk, Vulnera- bility, Honesty. If you go in knowing she’ll be polling patrons on their sexual histories, the bold extrovert may be happy to oblige. (All others beware). Indeed, she takes up much of the show sharing her own sexual history, told through the device of an egg collection with each ovum representing a past lover, the best part of the evening. But The Get Laid Show doesn’t mean you’ll get lucky with the overall Fringe experience. Despite Ternopolski’s extensive experience with improv, she spends much too much time reading from a script, throwing her perform- ing rhythm off. And of course, she has no control over the inevitable tipsy jerks in the audience who may have taken the show’s title as a guarantee. HH1/2 — Randall King HAPPY GO LUCKY Shoshinz Le Studio at Theatre Cercle Moliere (Venue 20), to Sunday TOKYO’S Yanomi Shoshinz is the master behind this funny, touching and utterly magical one-woman puppetry show that will stay with you long after the lights come back up. The 60-minute performance is composed of short stories starring charming puppet characters created and operated by Shoshinz: a two-faced woman who teaches us that honesty without tact might be cruelty, but saccharine false faces are also not to be trusted; a little xylophone-play- ing spirit whose head is operated by Shoshinz’s mouth and wee mallet feet are controlled by her hands; and a Lit- tle Red Riding Hood updated for 2024 who declares “I am famous!” by way of introduction when she steps onto her miniature stage. Shoshinz herself is visible for the whole show, but you almost forget she’s there, a testament to her vivid, fully realized characters and her skilled puppetry. But it’s the last character, an elderly woman who quietly honours the memory of a loved one, who will leave you feeling like you just witnessed something truly special. HHHHH — Jen Zoratti THE MIRROR SPHERE: THE SWORN PROTECTOR Kirkatures John Hirsch Mainstage (Venue 1), to Sunday A musical that’s heavy on the mu- sic, The Mirror Sphere follows Boyo (Reynaldo Gomez), an elven warrior, and Star (Amber Westra), the beautiful princess, as they journey across the land of Fafu to defeat a dark wizard. The musical is half Lord of the Rings and half Legend of Zelda with a Rocky Horror soundtrack. Obvious care went into the creation of the lyrics; two standout songs are Akimbo and Myste- rioso’s Revenge. Star Reimer as the dark wizard Mys- terioso is a highlight, moving about the stage like Galadriel played by Frank N. Furter. Sarah Slagerman as Akimbo, the elven warrior, also shines whenev- er she’s onstage. The Mirror Sphere feels like the mid- dle of a trilogy rather than the start of a saga, but the spirit of ambition by its cast and crew make one eager for future works. HHH1/2 — Sonya Ballantyne THE RIVER Slice of Life Productions MTYP Mainstage (Venue 21), to Saturday AT a riveting 80 minutes, The River by British playwright Jez Butterworth (Jerusalem) is a mysterious, deeply moving drama about a man bringing his (supposedly) new girlfriend to his remote cabin above a river on the special moonless night when he hooks a sea trout. After this first intriguing scene, the next gives us a new woman as his girlfriend. There have been many more, or at least it seems so. There is more plot to come, but this is one play where the complex interaction of the obsessed man and the contrasting women isn’t confusing or elusive as the story evolves. A ritual? Perhaps. Even thinking it’s a ghost story isn’t out of line. The production, directed by Winnipeg’s Emma Welham, is incisive, clear and blessedly straightforward, as it should be, letting the mystery of the char- acters’ flawed humanity shine forth. Butterworth is one playwright not to be missed. HHHH — Rory Runnells ROB TEZKA: MAGIC DROPOUT Rob Tezka Magic PTE — Colin Jackson Studio (Venue 17), ends today BRITISH Columbia magician Rob Tezka blends sleight-of-hand and story- telling in this hour-long magic-meets- one-man show about failure. It’s a canny choice to add an over- arching narrative to a straight-ahead magic show, in Tezka’s case, about his defeats as a smart-but-slacking high school student who suddenly finds himself underwater in the world of academia. His stories set up the tricks in a way that is compelling but surface-skimming, and the take-home message about not having to wear your failures — literally, in this case, with personal shortcomings written on lanyards — is a bit heavy-handed. But when it comes to the magic, Magic Dropout is a success. Tezka is an engaging presence, and his tricks are well paced and have enough “How’d he do that?” awe to keep an audience engaged to the very end. HHH1/2 — Jen Zoratti THE SAVANNAH SIPPING SOCIETY R-G Productions One88 (Venue 23), to Sunday THERE’S far too much of a good thing happening on Randa’s verandah. The Savannah Sipping Society — written by a trio of Americans and act- ed by a quartet of Winnipeggers — is a light-hearted comedy about unlikely friends who find common ground in their diverse personal struggles and a stiff drink. The storyline and the acting are en- dearing, but the 90-minute production has too many props, too many costume changes, too many time hops. With five cocktails on the menu, the “sipping” layer of the show brings an excess of bottles and glassware to an already overflowing table. There’s also a set of crutches in use that go entirely unex- plained and unincorporated in the plot. While the actors nail their respective southern drawls, their volume and projection vary, making it difficult to catch the ample dialogue. Pared down and slowed down, this charming pro- duction has plenty of potential. — Eva Wasney SHADOW NECROPOLIS Mochinosha Puppet Company The Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 8), to Sunday KIDS Fringe is all very well, but one could build a case for a Young Adult Fringe for works such as Shadow Necropolis. This puppetry spectacle follows Minerva, a young girl who is a hero in her dreams but a zero in the real world. When a traumatized schoolmate escapes into Minerva’s dreamworld, she must put aside her anxieties to find her new friend. Never talking down to its audience, this play would be a great first-time fringe show for a pre-teen. It’s funny, clever and incredibly sweet. Though there are some initial hiccups at the start where it feels rushed, it falls into a nice rhythm and charms accordingly. This is a show that shamelessly wears its heart on its sleeve: it feels like Spirited Away as directed by Tim Burton. HHHH1/2 — Sonya Ballantyne SUPERNATURAL Gregoire Entertainment CCFM — Antoine Gaborieau Hall (Venue 19), to Sunday WITH its seating at small tables and its curtained stage, the intimate, classy Gaborieau Hall is the perfect venue for this astounding “psychological magic show” by Winnipeg’s Patrick Gregoire. There’s a constant need for audience assistance, so you may be enlisted for roles such as calling out, “I have the Scroll of Destiny!” Gregoire is a polished professional who radiates genuine love for creating wonder. He’s sometimes billed as “The Astonisher.” His feats in the 55-minute show really do astonish, and he gener- ates a delicious aura of mystery with spacey music and the unifying concept that there are no coincidences. Most of the feats involve Gregoire predicting numbers, some of them chosen by audience members from the infinite digits of the irrational number pi. How on earth does he do it? Only Destiny knows, but this trip into the realm of the irrational is a delightful escape. HHHH — Alison Mayes VIEW FROM SUNSET TOWERS Shoestring Players Tom Hendry Warehouse (Venue 6), to Sunday TO the strains of What a Wonderful World, we are introduced to an as- sembly of perspectives as this Winni- peg-based ensemble tackles the harsh realities of aging in 60 minutes. Everything from mother-daughter dynamics and spousal bereavement to mounting health concerns (and hospital bills, natch), and fears of a life lived unfulfilled — these are relatable stories woven with familiar themes of aging, bereavement, separation and fa- milial relationships, told with panache by a mostly senior cast. The study of a daughter who grap- ples with her sense of responsibility and her desire for independence as she puts her life on hold to tend to an infirm parent is a marvellous example of restrained acting from both the players. With emotions kept barely in check, the scene generates a genuine sense of pathos. A couple of outdat- ed observations on foreign food and beggars perpetuates stereotypes that detract from what is a poignant piece of theatre. HHH1/2 — AV Kitching GONE FRINGIN’ 2024 FRINGE FESTIVAL Our team of Free Press writers are reviewing all Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival productions online at winnipegfreepress.com. A selection of those reviews will run in the arts section every day until July 27. Floundering FRINGE FESTIVAL REVIEW RATING Hook, line and stinker Go for the halibut Catch of the day Holy carp! SUPPLIED BLOODSUCKERS! THE MUSICAL ARTS ● LIFE I FRINGE FEST ;