Review: Two fringe plays take actors and audiences on thoughtful journeys

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Attending an alternative festival is always excitement and frustration in equal parts.

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There are 14 productions at this year’s Calgary Fringe Festival and the show’s promotional blurbs are equally intriguing but, more often than not, the ones you consider to be priorities are playing off each other.

On our first day, we thought we could include Caroline Russell-King’s Absinth Bourbon Vodka & Saki at the Alexandra Center and Katie Miller’s Flash at the Lantern Church Sanctuary because there was a 15-minute break between them. It’s not a good plan. We did but with only a minute to spare. Word of advice. Allow at least 30 minutes between shows.

Absinth is the story of Kenny London (Kathryn Kerbes Kerbes), an experienced but jaded playwright who agrees to tutor Parker (EJ Candelaria), the teenage son of a wealthy businessman. In return, his father will allow London to set up a writing program at a halfway house that he helps finance. She has an ulterior motive that gradually comes to light.

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Russell-King extracts a great deal of humor from the initial sessions between Kenny and Parker because the boy is a clean slate. He loves movies and dreams of writing movie scripts, but his father doesn’t know any screenwriters, so he settles for a playwright.

To London’s horror, the boy hasn’t even seen a play. He skipped the school field trip to see Romeo and Juliet and opted to see a movie version instead. Kerbes’ reactions to these revelations are hilarious.

Candelaria has similar opportunities when her character Parker reacts to her new teacher’s eccentricities. On each visit from her, she assumes a different liquor-related persona from the title, revealing just how much she relies on alcohol to drown out her sorrows and guilt.

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When he drinks absinthe, London finds himself in Paris with the great existential writers. Bourbon transports her to the country of Tennessee Williams. Vodka takes her to Prince Edward Island and the memories of her ex-husband. Finally, she turns to Japanese with sake. With these flights of fancy, Russell-King gives Kerbes the opportunity to be quirky that actors love, but only works if the actor is as talented and confident as Kerbes.

Candelaria shows her versatility when she doubles as Jake, the angry and sullen young addict that London trains at the rehab center. It is through Jake that we learn what has destroyed London’s peace of mind and caused her crushing writer’s block. She has a very personal play that she just can’t finish.

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The twist in the Russell-King game occurs when the teacher and student begin to switch roles. Eventually, it’s Parker who can teach London how to exorcise the demons from him if he’ll just listen.

Director Valerie Pearson doesn’t just stage the action of the play. She choreographs it like a ballet and makes excellent use of the space she has been given at the Alexandra Center.

Designer Hal Kerbes has given Pearson and his actors a simple yet highly effective set and costume pieces that help the actors make subtle but necessary character changes.

Absinth was written as a 90-minute play, but was shortened to meet the 60-minute fringe requirement.

In this format, it would be a dynamite piece for the Lunchbox Theater and, as a full-length piece, a gem for any professional theater.

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Flash, a song cycle musical, is the story of a journey interrupted. It’s an excellent and powerful allegory for what happened to so many artists during the pandemic when their livelihood and life purpose was threatened.

Katie Miller and John Dale explore this through the near tragedy of four friends on a road trip whose car swerves to avoid another vehicle or perhaps an animal on a country road. In that second spit that will decide their fate, they share their feelings with the audience.

The characters are named after the elements. Andrea Page is Earth and Jillian Robinson is Air. Katie McMillan is Water and Katie Miller is Fire. There is a great deal of angst in most of their reactions, which means that the singers treat their numbers like powerful songs or arias. Everything is singing at full speed. Miller and Dale need to have at least one soft ballad to counter all the anger and resentment.

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The songs serve to reveal a bit about these women, which helps Flash feel like so much more than a concert. These are characters. There are back stories. Help the audience take care of themselves and their shared destiny.

When Page sings I’m Fine, he implies that people think the Earth is fragile. She insists that she doesn’t need to be pampered, but is just as strong and independent as those who feel sorry for her. It was very clever of the writers to have the entire cast join Page in a breather of this song at the end of the show, bringing new and important meaning to the lyrics.

Fire’s fervor is rooted in his Catholicism. In Fire’s song Try to be Good, Miller criticizes God and asks why he would abandon her at this time when she has been so loving and faithful. It’s almost the same sentiment Miller expresses in Fire’s other solo, Ca n’t Deny, when she feels betrayed by someone who left her.

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In the opening scene, Water is the only one unhappy because she feels nauseous. We assume she’s car sickness, but it could be more than that, giving additional meaning to hers just Pull Me Out of her.

Robinson’s Air seems to be haunted by opposites, which explains his solos, Take Your Pick and Can’t Stop.

These are four exceptional singers who not only know how to hit those high notes, but also how to accentuate the feelings in the lyrics. When they sing harmonies it’s particularly powerful.

Dale and Alex Bullen provide live guitar and percussion backing, which is always superior to recorded music.

Miller also arranged the show to make excellent use of four black boxes. In one formation, they become car seats, but then moving them slightly allows the actors to be observers of each other’s solos. The work never seems static because the singers deliberately move from one place to another.

As Miller and Dale point out, performing at the Lantern Church Sanctuary provides an appropriate spiritual feel to this near-death musical.

The Calgary Fringe Festival takes place at various locations in Inglewood through August 6. Anger calgaryfringefestival.ca for schedules and tickets.