I’ve been working with Bluemouth Inc these last few weeks on the first breath of a new immersive performance project – so far a kind of hallucinatory take on ‘summer camp’ – through a short residency at the Gibraltar Point Center for the Arts, Toronto Island. I think the last time I worked on an art project here was with electroacoustic composer Darren Copeland (New Adventures in Sound Art). We were making a radio documentary about the history of Toronto’s soundscape, on the island, in the dead of winter, 1999. The island is an insanely beautiful place to come to work to every day. Everything about it – the constant surf crashing against the shore, the expansive blue sky, the wind that rushes through everything – it all insists that you leave what’s past behind you and move forward. Although a lot of the things we experimented with during this residency reminded me (perhaps too much) of many past (and in some cases very early) projects, the island itself  insists that I am only as good as my last work and so would I please mind moving forward and not repeat myself?

Book cover mockup I designed using a few found objects and a scanner. It's a starting point, largely out of the need to distill and concretize a bunch of title ideas and concepts being bandied about by the rest of the company for a last-ditch grant application. This is only a first sketch inevitably leading to more sketches and momentary appropriations. Keywords: 'disposable', 'prototype'

There is no funding for the next Bluemouth project. Yet how else does one begin to make something for its audience to experience? To find funding and support you need a brilliant vision, a seductive pitch, a way into people’s imaginations, something they can hold onto, become inspired with. An act of faith or an act of foolishness? There’s no money and hey I really need a paying job, but…so…hey…

How do you do it?
How do YOU do it?

It may seem  a little disingenuous for me to offer my thoughts on a Fringe when, like most mortals, holding down a day job makes  it hard to see as many shows as the legion of professional critics get to see – and not to mention the fact that I was effectively staging my own production (as Chairman of FCT who put on ten exhilarating performances of The Chess Game).

But, if I was to use complete objectiveness as my watchword for blogging you’d all be desperately dissapointed.  I’m sure my predilection for frankness makes for a more interesting read.

I read with delight an extended extract from Mark Kermode’s biography in the Observer earlier today and I realise his style is one that I aspire to.  His destruction of Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbour made me laugh out loud and lick my lips.

It was a Fringe dominated by shows from the collosus of Scottish new writing; The Traverse.  I saw no fewer than 6 of their shows but it should be pointed out that these threw up a wide mix of collaborators; not least my own beloved Lyceum who produced a high octane multi-character, three-hander called Wondrous Flitting which had many amusing moments and a very fine performance by Molly Inness in particular.

But their collaborations also included the NToS, Grid Iron and Blue Mouth Inc; all of which I enjoyed.

I’m desperately sorry that I missed Mission Drift which was, I suspect, the pick of the bunch but the following all inspired me;

The Strange Undoing of Prudentia Hart shows what a collossus of Scottish writing David Greig is; this site specific show, set in the  nearby Ghillie Dhu pub, had both Jeana and I in stitches and full of awe at a quite remarkeable ensemble performance.  Outstanding.

The second site specific show I saw was What Remains.  Set in the Anatomy School of Edinburgh University, and produced by Grid Iron it was the nearest one gets to outright horror on stage.  Driven remarkably by its writer, David Paul Jones, it begins with a highly intense (scary actually) twenty minute opening movement from a Concerto for piano written and performed by the aforementioned Jones.  It was electric.  What follows is the story of Jones’ descent into madness.  Part Bella Lugosi, part Anthony Hegarty, part Luis Bunuel, part Hammer House of Horror this show absolutely blew me away and at one point a certain plot devise pretty much made me let go of my bowels. Jones is simply wonderful as he acts sings and plays the piano in a one man tour de force.

My third Traverse pick is Dance Marathon.  Again Jeana and I attended and this was a joy from start to finish.  Following the recent trend, it too is site specific and the action took place in The Lyceum’s rehearsal studios in which the audience IS the cast and we dance for four hours (we went to a super long performance on the show’s last night).  Pouring with sweat at the denoument in which Jeana and I failed to be crowned King and Queen of the dancefloor in a dance, poetry, song and video smorgasbrod of excellent entertainment I was approached by Bluemouth’s producer who said she’d been watching me all night and declared me “Awesome and relentless”.  My proudest moment on this year’s Fringe.

Lastly, Marc Almond’s performance in Ten Plagues was awesome.  Very moving.

My other notable show this year was Berkoff’s Oedipus at The Pleasance which was brilliant.  The Greek Chorus of mainly old and middle aged men stole the show in a way choruses rarely do.  It was a little let down by the casting of Anita Dobson as Oedipus’ object of affection but it was not enough to stop tis being a top class show.

I saw FORK’s amusing Pink Noise but it fell short of completely convincing me that every sound emanating from this Finnish a Capella group was indeed man made.

All things considered though my personal Fringe First goes to Dance Marathon for the most invigorating (physically as much as intellectually) four hours I’ve spent in a theatre.

Now, list time. Everyone else on the planet is compiling their list of Best and Worsts of the Year, why not me? Generally, this year was kind of a lame one movie-wise, but there were a few good surprises. Fantastic Mr. Fox was a true original with jaw-dropping productions values and a genuinely surprising ending. Inglourious Basterds was a kick-ass World War 2 fantasy that looked amazing and gave pop culture its baddest-ass Jewish heroine since Esther. Despite John Krasinki’s annoying facial hair, Away We Go was a sweet and moving portrait of a couple, thanks to Vendela Vida’s gentle screenwriting touch and Maya Rudolph’s subtle performance. I hated what Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze did with the screenplay for Where the Wild Things Are – so bleak and joyless – but I loved the Wild Things themselves. Such a treat to see Jim Henson Studio creations back on screen! Visually, A Single Man blew me away. If anyone can get me a still from the scene outside the liquor store, I would be so very grateful.

There were also a few bad surprises. The benign-seeming Pirate Radio turned out to be a misogynistic mess, and a waste of Bill Nighy and a slew of other talented Brits. Most movies I saw this year had a casual streak of misogyny running through them, which is nothing new, but is getting tired. Up, for example, was a shamelessly manipulative tear-jerker that relegated its only female character to dead muse-dom (oh, I cried and loved it, but I got mad thinking about it afterwards). Watchmen turned a supposedly kick-ass lady hero (its only real female character) into a boring bimbo. Watching movies through feminist glasses is a pretty damn demoralizing exercise.

I didn’t travel very much this year, so the only theatre I saw was in Toronto (except for one disappointing show in Halifax that had such potential). I was lucky enough to be a part of two cool experimental shows at the Harbourfront World Stage this year: bluemouth’s Dance Marathon, which invented what should be a new genre – Dance Party Theatre – and Stan’s Cafe’s Of All The People in All the World, which was an art installation involving a group of awesome Brits and more rice than I’ve ever seen before in my life. I literally got paid to count grains of rice. It was a one-of-a-kind gig.
I also appeared in/helped make puppets for a Toronto Fringe kids’ venue show, the adorable glam rock puppet musical Rock Time 2009. It was a blast, even if our set almost killed us (ADVICE: don’t hire a random dude you met in a bar to build your set for you).

Of shows that I did not work on, the most memorable I saw was Soulpepper’s revival of Billy Bishop Goes to War. It’s always exciting to see shows you studied in school, especially when you can see them performed by the original cast. Especially when the original cast is Eric Peterson. I took a British friend along, and it was great to be able to take her to a true Canadian classic. So moving, and it didn’t romanticize war in the way I feared it might. Soulpepper also delivered excellent productions of Glengarry Glen Ross and Travesties. (I’m so glad there’s at least one company in town who can do justice to Tom Stoppard – Travesties‘ three hours flew by compared with CanStage’s clunky production of Rock and Roll.)

I’ve already written about My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding, but the original Fringe production was a peak Fringe experience – so moving and intimate, with 80+ people packed into the little backroom theatre at Bread and Circus. My other favourite Fringe show of 2009 was Uncalled For‘s tight and thought-provoking sketch comedy show Today is All Your Birthdays.

Of nifty one-off theatre events, I loved Studio 160′s participation in The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, and it was really moving to feel part of such a unique international theatrical event. I also appreciated CanStage’s reading of Tom Stoppard’s epic The Coast of Utopia as part of their Festival of New Ideas and Creation. Rare to see that many actors on one stage outside of a musical!

Finally, for sheer bizarre awesomeness, nothing could beat The Salon Automaton, which had life-size robots onstage.

What were your theatrical highlights and lowlights of 2009?