Day 294: Vancouver Fringe Festival

Tonight I went to see two Fringe shows. The Fringe festival is all about alternative theater. Some shows are good and some are bad. You never really know until you watch the shows or read the reviews or hear a review from your friends.

The first show was at the Carousel Theater. It was called The Exquisite Hour. It started at 6pm. We managed to get there just in time. From the write up, it seemed like a very thought provoking play. The play takes place in 1961. There is a man seemingly innocently wanting to enjoy a lemonade in his back yard. Then suddenly a woman shows up in his yard. She eventually tells him that she is selling encyclopedias. As a part of her 'sales' pitch, she gets him to pretend how much information he knows to impress woman. At the end, she reveals that she wasn't really there to sell the encyclopedias!

The show was only an hour long. There was a lull in the middle of the show for me. But it was a surprise ending (that's why I didn't write about it).

The second show was at the Wicked Cafe called Wicked Shorts. The name peaked interest for us. We got there 45mins before the show started. There were two tickets left and we managed to buy them. I was so surprised that 45mins before the show that it would be sold out. We were so lucky to get the last tickets. It was an interesting play. It was actually 4 smaller plays in the one hour time slot. It was performed by two actors (one male and one female). The four plays are totally unrelated to each other. It is a very small cafe and the actors use the counter space and the washroom as part of their play. The first one is about a couple who are one a blind date and it ends bad. The second one is about two servers in a restaurant who watch guests on dates in their restaurant. The third one is about a brother and sister who don't really get along. It was kinda hard to understand. It seemed like they have an incestuous relationship. The fourth one was the funniest and the best one.

I liked the Wicked Shorts better than The Exquisite Hour. Yes, there was alot of swearing, but that was ok. The short plays get to the point quicker. It's interesting to see how the actors become different characters.