Experiencing Fringe - July 9, 2010

With work during the day, Present Laughter rehearsals on Tues and Thurs and a "fun" visit to the dentist on Wed, I've had three days of withdraw from Fringing. It was nice to get back into it tonight with a 9:30pm performance of ONEymoon at 918 Bathurst Culture, Arts, Media & Education Centre.

ONEymoon (A Honeymoon For One)
by Christel Bartelse & Jimmy Hogg

From the Fringe Program:
From the creator of the hit show CHAOTICA, a new comedy about a woman who marries herself.

If you marry yourself then sleep with someone else, should you feel cheated or was it like a threesome?

Seventh new show and seventh new space...quite a fitting one too as the interior looked like a church with a high peaked ceiling and an alter-like stage. A woman in line mentioned to me that it used to be a Buddhist temple, so it all kinda made sense.

This one woman show started out just like a wedding. We, the wedding guests, were asked to stand and watch in awe as the beautiful bride walked down the aisle to her waiting groom...wait...there's no groom! She married herself and even took a honeymoon!

This show had it all: a wedding, a tropical honeymoon, rapping in a wedding dress, drunken karaoke, fluent Dutch, a purple dildo named Eric (if I remember correctly) tap dancing, audience participation and even lap dances. No the audience participation and lap dances did not go together. A few audience members did participate in simple answer and question periods as well as pretending to be father-of-the-bride, step-father-of-the-bride and ex-boyfriend-of-the-bride; wedding speeches and all!

Christel Bartelse, who sort of reminded me of a cross between my theatre friend Elisha "Red" West and Molly Shannon, was a non-stop ball of energy and laugh-inducing entertainment. Some parts lagged or were over-done, but those were so few and far between. When you weren't laugh (or snorting as one audience member did oh so well) you were wiping away the laugh-induced tears.

My seventh show of Fringe 2010 and my seventh recommendation. Me thinks we are on a roll people!

P.S. If you haven't seen it, try and get your hands on a copy of the made-for-TV-movie I Me Wed which has a similar story line to ONEymoon.