Back in the day when we were keen theatah teens, my friend Padu was the most dedicated Fringer I knew. For each day of the festival, Padu would arrive at the Edmonton Fringe site at 11:00 a.m. and would spend the next 12 to 14 hours there, fueled mainly by his love of theatre and mini-donuts. His Fringe program was a work of organizational art; colour-coded schedules, alternate choices in case he didn't make the line on time, deliberate circles around the show descriptions that pleased him most. I was totally in awe.
The first year I Fringed with Padu, I could only make 7 out of 10 days of the festival, but I still saw nearly 30 shows (Padu saw close to 50). In the days before advance tickets, we would spend up to four hours in line to get tickets for Animal Farm - From Russia! or Clayton Jevne's hilarious One Man Hamlet, or the latest Stewart Lemoine delight. And then another two hours in line to get good seats. We were keen. We had stamina. We had tiny donuts.
We saw a lot of brilliant theatre. Oh, there were mishaps, such as when Padu brought his dad to see Kiss of the Spiderwoman ("Mental note - don't bring Dad to any other plays with ass-fucking.") or when our friend Romu thought the blackout in Beckett's Happy Days was an intermission, left to have a smoke and then pounded on the door throughout the second act trying to get back in, but overall, our Fringe experiences were pure. Because of our Fringe God Appeasement System.
As an offering to the Fringe gods, Padu and I instituted a tradition whereby we would deliberately pick out a show that sounded TERRIBLE, in the hopes that by seeing one really awful show on purpose, we would be rewarded by:
a) not being disappointed by any other show; and
b) having something to laugh about in line for other plays.
Yes, yes - we were mean theatah teens. The system was highly successful and provided us with many hours of amusement for years afterwards. And one Fringe God Appeasement show in particular stood out as the worst we'd ever seen. It was called Strafe.
Oh, if only I had the program description for Strafe. I remember the image in the program was a fuzzy image of a WWII plane dropping bombs but the description in the program made it clear that Strafe was just a metaphor for the sinister happenings in the play. We sat down with about 3 other people in the audience, one of whom happened to be Padu's voice teacher from theatre school.
The play began with one man (let's call him "Strafe") picking up another man (uh . . . "NotStrafe") in the park for some hot man on man action. At first, it seemed like perhaps we'd simply stumbled onto a nice gay love story. But things unraveled quickly. It turns out Strafe wasn't gay at ALL! He was just an intravenous drug user who'd been infected with HIV and he BLAMED the gays for giving him the HIV in the first place. So, naturally, he was cruising (strafing!!) the park to pick up innocent gays and then INFECT THEM.
Ha ha - WHAT??
We were speechless with horror.
Now, I must point out that in the hands of a good writer, this truly awful premise might have had a real impact. But between Strafe's crazy-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth speeches and NotStrafe's rhapsodic waxing over seeing a used condom in the park ("Then the sun hit it and the semen . . . twinkled in the sun . . . twinkle . . . twinkle."), it was merely hideous and insulting. Padu and I gripped hands so hard our nails nearly broke the skin. When the play ended (I believe NotStrafe escapes Strafe's clutches at the 11th hour and vows never to cruise the park again), Padu and I didn't know what to do with ourselves. It was like we'd been Strafed.
While the show was happening, I sneaked a couple of glances at Padu's voice teacher and noted that he too was struck dumb with awe at the awfulness of the whole exercise. Discussing it months later, Padu told me "In class - I couldn't look at him for weeks after. We'd . . . we'd been through too much."
As our opening night at the Toronto Fringe approaches, my thoughts have clearly turned to our Fringe God Appeasement system and I am thinking that perhaps it is time to resurrect it. It might mean a blessing for our own show or it might just save some of you from further Strafe-ing. If you have any particular show suggestions, feel free to pass them on. And never say I don't love you.
