How I stopped worrying and learned to love the Fringe
The festival may be an artistic echo chamber, but there are gems, writes Globe and Mail theatre critic J. Kelly Nestruck
J. KELLY NESTRUCK
June 28, 2008
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080628.FRINGE28/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Theatre/Celebrating its 20th birthday this year, the Toronto Fringe Festival usually bills itself as "unjuried, unexpected and unforgettable." The second of those adjectives, however, is no longer correct.
Though the Toronto Fringe's 148 shows are selected by random lottery, the majority of the theatre, comedy and dance festival's programming has become quite predictable.
You can always count on at least one Something Unlikely: The Musical! (this year's edition includes Fart Factory, Hockey and Floozy: The Musicals!), a feminist twist on Shakespeare (this year: 'Beth), a couple of plays about the jobs actors work in between gigs (The Reservation, set in a restaurant, and Silver and Stinky, about bike couriers), as well as more autobiographical solo shows than you can shake a microphone stand at.
