ON THE FRINGE

Anna Jax has tucked away her media pass to reflect on the Kelowna Fringe Festival.

She was able to see six of 23 shows over the past few days, but didn’t have any regrets on what she chose to attend: The Pink Unicorn, A Musical Romance. Maybe, and The Daily Walk took her from Lake Country to West Kelowna.

As the 2021 Kelowna Fringe Festival stages across the various event locations go dark, and my proof-of-entry Bear Button and media lanyard get tucked in a drawer, I can sit and reflect what the last week had to offer.

For those who attended the festival, let’s compare notes, and those who refrained from attending, I hope you develop FOMO (fear of missing out) and get excited about supporting future festival of events like these. I was only able to see six out of 23 choices, but I feel I chose well.

The first show I attended was The Pink Unicorn, a solo show performed by Kendra Hesketh who interpreted her character, Trisha Lee, as a pristine mother in a pink dress and the highest of heels. With a quaint southern accent, she spoke of her small town of Godfearing Texans while unveiling that the gap between fear and god was where she naively sits as she dissected the announcement that her young pre-teen daughter would now like to be identified as ‘they.’

From beginning to end, Hesketh stayed in character with good ol’ southern hospitality, she even greeted patrons upon arrival to the small studio space inside the Rotary Centre for the Arts with a glass of juice and a fancy French cookie called a

Madeleine, as they took their seats. The one hour and 10 minute emotional journey of her own self discovery made the time fly by because Hesketh showed depth and contrast of emotion while she chatted to us about the hardships trying to understand her daughter Jolene’s changes in wardrobe; choosing only black clothes to shield and defend the changes her heart and mind are experiencing.

Searching the internet on “how to make the gay go away” she came to the final understanding that “gay is like going bald or having hammer toe” and that sexuality inside of us is just as “similar as Baskin Robbins having 31 flavours. I cried, laughed, and discovered some realizations of my own thinking by watching this play. I was totally absorbed by good acting and great writing. This play was the inspiration of Vancouver born playwright; Elise Forier, and her own experience with her child’s similar announcement at the age of 12.

An hour later I drove across the bridge to West Kelowna’s Grizzli Winery to catch the last show of the day, “A Musical Romance. Maybe.” The show starred Neville Bowman and Lyndsey Wong who each sat behind their own electric keyboard and microphone. A real-life couple, both wellknown local entertainers, they don’t normally wear their personal heart on their sleeve, but when they do, referring to this show, its fantastic!

The premise of this one-hour musical revue is based on a first date or cutemeet. With the participation of the audience, the story unfolds around song choices that tell the tale. Upon arrival, ticket holders were given a two-sided coloured card to hold up at certain points of the story to either derail the relationship or let it flourish.

Green for Go On and red for Stop/Break up. Each colour choice created a decision as to what song was next. Some choices were funny, some sad, some reflective but all were sung to perfection along with amusing banter between the aspiring couple to be, or not to be — that was the question. 10 out of 10!

Next on my list to was Rock Bottom, a new and original play by Carly Fawcett based on her real-life story as she takes inventory of her being sober since she was 18.

Yup, that’s right, she got clean at 18. A self-confessed alcoholic, drug addict bulimic and attention seeker. Carly took us through ADHD, being bullied and being overweight. She wanted to be famous like Janis Joplin, but instead just got the addictions part perfected.

Fawcett is an attractive blond with a fabulous body so its hard to imagine that this beautiful woman went down a path of drugs and parties to be happy. It’s hard to review a play like this based on real life. Her story is compelling but sad. Fawcett gave herself wholeheartedly to her audience when revealing her truth, but as a listener, I would have hoped for a more emotional contrast, some cooling-off time between bombshells when she spoke of rape, taking that E pill and feeling that high.

I needed to reset my thoughts between scenarios and wished for a dose of lightness at times. Perhaps instead of facts, she might have surmised those decisions with heart-felt hindsight to balance the facts.

The Tingle 2 performed at the RCA by Delphine Litke was fun to watch. Written by Angela Lavender, who collected stories from evenings spent giving ladies wine and letting them just talk as she took notes. As a result, you have amusing anecdotes about dating during COVID and real life tales with a song as the punchline. She chose rock and pop songs as her genre, Her strong voice and sweet demeanour left us wanting more stories and a few more songs.

The Daily Walk at the Creekside Theatre, created by ballet dancer Kurt Werner, was a beautiful well thought out piece of dance. The show began with a verbal explanation of his struggles with being alone during lockdown, and then improvisational dance to fight the isolation. The audience saw video beautifully set to music of a collage of dancing throughout areas in Kelowna, during the day and night. His dancing was mesmerizing. He finished everything with a Q&A. It was professional and intimate at the same time.

The last show I went to was part of the Late-Night Fringe, Monkey With a Button. Four local improvisational actors — Mark Reinelt, Bonnie Esson, Travis Dubois and Ben McLean —sat on stage and asked the audience to give them a scenario, which they ran with. Not scripted, totally in the moment and so funny I laughed out loud along with everyone else for most of the show. The genius of it all was that every other scene made reference to the first scenario and they magically threaded the story to almost a complete thought. Love, love, loved it.

Overall, the Fringe was a success and hats off to the New Vintage Theatre for their organizational skills, their strong team, the fabulous posters, festival schedules, online ticket purchase, all of that made it easy to attend.

I look forward to 2022 and the raised bar that keeps the quality of talent high.