Shows I saw at the Edmonton Fringe (5 all together): This Is Uncalled For, Can’t Get Started (Tom X. Chao version), Criteria, The Opposite of Infinity, 40 Needles
Flyered, flyered, and flyered all day Thursday, trying to make up for lost time. If someone jokingly asked for a sample of the show, I would put down my bag and sing a verse from “Pirates.” They loved it! I even put together a whole speech promoting the show, focusing on the fact that I play so many characters. “I’m a British guy, a pirate, a cat…”
It worked out pretty well for me because I had a decent house with thirty-three paying customers that night at 9:45pm. Right on!
For my Friday 5pm show, I didn’t fare as well. I flyered that day, but only eight people attended. For some reason they weren’t playing my house music before the show, and while I was standing in the wings I could hear what the audience was saying. This is an exact transcript because I wrote it down immediately after my show:
“This is the first show I’ve seen at the festival.”
“Usually there are more people at these shows.”
“This is a bad sign!”
“Maybe everyone else knows something we don’t!”
“Well, it is near dinner time. Maybe that’s why.”
Now, remember, this is about five minutes before I’m starting the show, and I’m hearing this conversation of encouragement! I almost stepped on stage early and said, “I hear what you’re saying!”
They were quiet for about the first fifteen minutes of the actual show, but once I made them laugh, they pretty much laughed throughout the whole show. It was actually a fun show to do. I told them afterwards, “I did this show as if I were performing for two-hundred people. Remember that when I come back next year.”
Edmonton was a rough time for me, what with getting sick and all. Plus the Journal review cost me quite a bit. They labelled my show a two-star show and then reprinted a handy-dandy list of shows in order of their star rating every single day. The Journal was a sponsor of the festival and was available for free at many locations throughout the Fringe area every single day. I saw people holding their handy-dandy list while looking at the schedule and trying to decide what they were going to see that day. You know they weren’t going to be seeing Rebel Without a Niche.
Most people are nice, but some people hate you if you get a bad review. This fascinates me. What is wrong with these people? I was handing out flyers to a line waiting to go into a show, and one crotchety old man snarled at me and wouldn’t take my flyer. “How did you decide to go see this show?” I asked. “This got five stars in the Sun and four and a half in the Journal. Your show got zero stars!” “No, it didn’t,” I said. “Then how many did it get?” he asked.
“Well, sir, it doesn’t matter. i don’t read reviews to see what shows I’m going to go see. I’m actually a smart person and I can think for myself. Those are two good qualities to have.”
The old coot had no response to that one. In contrast, there was a guy in the same line named Gerald who told me how much he enjoyed my show, was sorry I didn’t have any sell-outs here, and asked me to please come back next year.
Yes, no sell-outs in Edmonton. It should have happened. I think I got swallowed up by all the other shows that got better reviews. Is Rebel Without a Niche the Pootie Tang of Fringe ‘06? Discuss. Maybe I should see myself as having a cult following.
On Friday I more than made up for my lack of Fringing by seeing four shows and being out all hours of the night taking pictures of myself posing with other performers and having late late Chinese food with Tania and Dave Dawson. Then I went home to pack and it was off to the train station in the morning.
The train left Saturday morning and rode through the Canadian Rockies, a beautiful sight indeed. I stopped briefly at Jasper, a town I would like to revisit. I slept on and off throughout the ride, always waking up to see some beautiful scenery.
The train rode all night and arrived in downtown Vancouver in the morning. From there I took a bus that went on the Ferry, then the Ferry goes over to the Island, then the bus drives off the Ferry and goes to downtown Victoria. I get to get off the bus and walk around the deck, by the way. They even have a cafeteria-style restaurant on the Ferry. From there I took a city bus, and walked the rest of the way.
I am staying in a house with a bunch of transitory twenty-somethings. They are nice, as transitory twenty-somethings usually are. The soap by the bathroom sink is made of hemp, as it should be. My palms have the munchies.
Ah, Victoria, I’m yours! Gone is the obnoxious carnival of Edmonton with its crappy overpriced food, gazillion shows that swallow me whole, Scorpion girls, and throngs of people. This is so much more mellow, and more my style. The ocean is nearby, and I have never seen so many cats. I love cats, and there are three in the house where I’m staying. All I have to do is walk down the street, and a fluffy critter with a bell will hop out to meow “hello.”
I had my tech rehearsal this morning, and I have my first female tech of the tour! And she thinks I’m funny! These are all good signs. Could she be the female Jon Alexander?
They key word here in this blog is mellow. I like that word right now. Mellow. What is your favorite word? Mellow.
