шш in review DISCOURSE OF THE OTHER - University of British ...

BOOKS IN REVIEWsales have surpassed expectations everyyear, from 7,500 for the First FringeTheatre Event to 135,000 for Fringe theFifth ; each year it has doubled the numberof tickets sold the previous year.The loose organization and warm welcometo any theatre group accounts forthe festival's attraction. There is no settheme or grand design, and groups areaccepted on a first-come, first-servedbasis; they pay a small registration fee,are provided with a technician, and keepthe money they take in at the box office.Such an open policy has attracted performersand companies from across Canadaand abroad, and has featured playsthat have gone on to play far beyond theborders of Alberta: Charles Tidler'sStraight Ahead I Blind Dancers, MichaelBurrell's Hess, and Janet Feindel's AParticular Class of Women.This success has prompted NeWestPress to publish the collection of one-actplays, Five from the Fringe. The shortestand the best — One Beautiful Eveningby Edmonton's Small Change Theatre— is from the first Fringe. It is a simpleand heart-warming story about an elderlywoman and man who meet at a communitybingo hall; though they neverwin a game, they do win each other andgo off arm-in-arm at the end of thenight. The inherent sentimentality ofsuch a tale is blunted by the humourand distanced by the masks and mime inthe play; the only characters who speakare the announcer and some of thosewho do win. Life After Hockey is a onemanplay by Kenneth Brown dealingwith an enduring element in the experienceof Canadian boys and men. RinkRat Brown, a husband and father overthirty years of age, relives his boyhooddays on the rink and fantasizes abouttaking Mike Bossy's place to score theovertime goal in the 1984 Canada Cupfinal against the U.S.S.R. But the playdoes not probe deeply enough into theCanadian psyche and is undercut by thegimmickry of inserting the voice ofWayne Gretzky, "a godlike voice fromabove," and the Red Army chorus, andby a silly ending that has Guy Lafleurmaking a comeback with the MapleLeafs and inviting Brown to play on hisline. Cut! by Lyle Victor Albert is aneven sillier play, whose title the editorsmight well have applied to the play itself.Based on the premise of bringingtogether characters rejected from wellknownplays, it might have sparkled likeStoppard's Rosencrantz and GuildensternAre Dead, but it does not. The rejectedcharacters — Clyde, Prince of Denmarkand Hamlet's brother; Fiddleditch, anelderly Victorian butler; Nippletitus, thesister of Oedipus; Mrs. Kowalski, themother of Stanley; and Joey, a rejectfrom a modern musical, Hey, Dud!!!(with all three exclamation marks) —have some clever and witty exchanges,but too many are predictable and derivative.The final flat joke is the appearanceof Godot — an old man in baggy pyjamaswho has been moaning in thewings throughout — when all the othershave left the stage. Eating a cucumbersandwich, the remnant from anotherplay, he looks out at the audience andsays, "Where is everybody?" If the audiencewere wise, he would be referring tothem.Plays with greater possibilities thanthese two fantasies are two realisticdramas about the plight of the Métisand native Indians respectively. The Betrayalby Laurier Gareau concerns a confrontationbetween Gabriel Dumont andthe parish priest at Batoche, Julien Moulin,O.M.I., in 1905, the year before Dumont'sdeath. Told from Dumont's pointof view, it condemns the role of thepriests at the battle of Batoche, and supportsDumont's questionable belief thatbut for the betrayal of the clergy theMétis would have won the battle. The236