What a summer finale: during the span of 11 days, the Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival will bring spoken-word poetry, dance performances, and fully-produced shows to nine different venues around town.
One of the interesting things about Fringe, which is now in its 29th year, is that it gives young companies (from all over the world) the ability to showcase their new material to a wider audience than they would normally have.
“It is encouraging for new artists,” says Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival guest producer Heather Jarvie. “They can try something that may be considered weird or out of the box and someone will love it. Victoria audiences are excited to see unusual things.”
Given that the Fringe fest has over 300 shows in 11 days at nine venues, including two site-specific pieces, it’s no wonder it is the “biggest beast” Jarvie has scheduled.
“We had two companies approach Intrepid Theatre expressing their desire to bring their own venue and do something different,” says Jarvie. The site-specific pieces have landscapes incorporated into the performances; one location is in Macaulay Point Park in Esquimalt, and the other is at the Congregation Emanu-El, Canada’s oldest synagogue.
One of the site-specific performances is Lieutenant Nun, produced by Theatre SKAM and performed at the Fringe Festival in 2002 and 2004. As part of Theatre SKAM’s 20th anniversary, they invited artists to reimagine their past work.
“There are some pretty contemporary themes in it,” says co-artistic director Kathleen Greenfield. “It’s about a nun who escapes the convent and runs away as a conquistador in the new world as a male: the contemporary version of Mulan. We are really exploring the character’s gender and their self-identification. It’s less Joan of Arc and more about the internal struggle within her own body.”
In fact, Lieutenant Nun is more relevant today than it was when it was first launched, according to playwright Elaine Avila.
“We are much more aware of transgender and indigenous rights and accepting of multiple languages in plays than we were in 2003 and 2004,” says Avila.
Meanwhile, the performance of For Body and Light focuses on “a search for the heart of winter, whenever and whatever that may be,” says scriptwriter Ian Ferrier.
Jarvie says that the connection the Fringe Festival participants share after 11 days is amazing.
“It’s incredible how much of a family we are,” she says. “The staff, the volunteers, the artists. They are long days; it’s exhausting. You come to the end of the festival and you feel like you should be burned out, but you’re not, because of the community’s support.”
The support the volunteers give does not go unnoticed. Ferrier says that he doesn’t think this project would happen without volunteers and he adds that he loves that the volunteers offer their homes to the artists during the 11 days of the fest.
“It’s the best,” he says.
The Fringe Festival itself has travelled across Canada, giving artists the ability to witness each other’s work.
“The kinship of fellow artists going across the country together,” says Greenfield, “is extraordinary.”
Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival
Thursday, August 27 to Sunday, September 6
Various prices and venues
victoriafringe.com