FINALLY!!!

Because inquiring minds want to know, here’s a detailed summary of what was surely one of the most (if not THE most) cool event to happen on the Fringe circuit this year… Doctor Caligari's Cabaret of Love or The Love-Match of the Audible Tongue Burden of the 52 Flamenco-Jesus Excursionists, the 21 Scratch Power-Chicks, and the 12 Lost Zombie-Shakespeares.

July 26th 2006 – 10pm
Most of the performers arrived, waiting for Alex Dallas’ show to finish upstairs at the King’s Head so we could head up and get ready. None of us were in costume. None of us were in makeup. None of us knew the line-up. None of us had met as a complete group since the week before. Jem Rolls saw that I was nervous and told me to calm down… I didn’t even realise that I was nervous until he mentioned it. I guess, after three years, he can read me pretty well.

10:15pm
We all went upstairs to get ready… white and black macabre makeup being passed around and put on in front of a mirrored beer advertisement… people mumbling lines to themselves… performers frantically ripping packages of batteries and flashlights and forming a surprisingly efficient assembly line.

10:30pm
The tickets went on sale… to an already large line-up waiting outside the King’s Head patio. Jem said that the tickets sold-out within 15 minutes last year… no such luck this year, but we did end up with a full house. They were clapping and cheering before we even stepped on the stage. At five minutes to curtain, Chris Gibbs brought us all together to go over the line-up and lighting changes (much of the show was lit by flashlight… if audience members brought a flashlight, they were given a dollar off the price of admission.) The energy was quite electric in the room.

SHOWTIME
I’ll try not to go into too much detail, because I could go on forever, but here’s what happened at the Cabaret:

Jonah (The Excursionists… aka. My fringe boyfriend) brought back his character from last year’s show Gloomology… and turned him into Cupid’s replacement. Cupid, sadly, had an accident and died, so his macabre character found two innocent audience members, shot arrows at them, made them kiss and then sent them on their way with a cheesy motel advertisement from the yellow pages in their pocket. He then shot arrows at two other people, a man and a woman sitting at the corner of the bar.

Terry and Caymen (Audible), lit by flashlights did a mega-faced-paced bit of dialogue from last year’s show Articulate… the scene sums up the whole courtship of a couple in just three minutes. The audience was already warmed up with Jonah, but the Saucy Fops had the audience roaring, turning their three-minute bit into five minutes, easily… and just as they are about to do their final kiss, they yell “flashlight”!

Change of focus to the stage, with Monster Theatre using masks on their hands to create two adorable fish puppets, swimming in the sea. They are clearly in love, but are afraid to tell each other how they feel. Just as one of them gets the guts to admit his love, the lady fish sees a shiny object that catches her eye and draws her to if… just as quickly, she is yanked out of the water by the lure and the other fish is left bubbling and crying in the water… but the story is to be continued….

John Huston appears standing on a chair near the bar, telling an early 20th century story only the way John can… a story of love, infidelity and trust. Madeleine keeps having affairs, but her husband still keeps holding on. She goes from man to man to man, but her husband still keeps wondering what they have that he doesn’t have…. John goes to give us the conclusion, but then complains that Chris didn’t give him enough time in this freaking cabaret, so the audience will just have to go unsatisfied.

Back to the stage, with Monster Theatre and the ladyfish now stuck in a tank… but lo and behold, her companion also bit the lure in an attempt to save her and now joins her in the tank. They confess their love for each other and have mad, bubbly fish sex together.

Jem Rolls appears to the left, at the top of the stairs and proceeds to perform one of his most loved poems “We broke up because the sex was too good”… wandering around the audience and finishing at the stairwell, just in time for…

Ricardo (Flamenco con fusion), on the stage, showed off his mad flamenco guitar skills, easily making every lady in the house melt in their seats. As loud as the audience had been for the duration of the show, not a noise could be heard when he played… completely mesmerizing.

The first impromptu bug of the night happened just before Chris (The Excursionists) went to perform some slight-of-hand magic. The CD player wouldn’t work so Jonah, acting as our MC in case such a thing happened, asked Ricardo if he would play some more. This resulting in some lovely collaboration between Chris and Ricardo… totally quirky and charming. A perfect end to the first act.

The second act started almost thirty minutes later with the audience clapping and slapping the tables, urging us to carry on… they clearly wanted more.

Chris Gibbs appeared on stage dressed in a gigantic heart (which he made out of cardboard and a red sheet just minutes before the show) and did three cartwheels on stage. The audience went nuts. He performed with a perfect American accent, explaining that he was there to encourage and teach the process of love. His bit ended with him trying to get the audience to sing “All you need is love”… but he kept yelling abusively to one side of the audience that clearly wasn’t getting it right. It was hilarious. He was a completely insane motivational speaker and the audience loved it.

Alex Dallas then appeared in the audience, lit by her own flashlight, and introduced Jem Rolls and his lyrical orgasm. He again appeared at the top of the stairwell and, breathless by the end, strung words together so fast the audience’s minds were racing.

Surprise, surprise, John Huston appeared on the other side of the room to deliver the conclusion to his dark love story. Madeleine only cheated on her husband once more, but this time, with a murdered. Jean, the husband, was left with no other choice… but to kill her. While John was delivering his final lines, Stewart and I made our way to the stage.

Once John was done, the lights came up on stage for us. Though Stewart and I wrote our bit two days before the show, and memorized it the day of the performance, we had no real idea how we would perform it. What came out was this vampy, campy, cabaret-esque couple who loved to hate (and lust after) each other. The title was “The Game of Love”… I went on to explain to rules of the game… writing them down like this won’t do the scene justice, but you’ll get the idea. Rule number one: The Game is always being played, it’s all about strategy and the Queen is the most powerful piece on the board. Rule number two: The cleverest man is always the one who ends up with the most pie. (Trivial pursuit reference) Rule number three: It’s loud, it’s chaotic and you have to have very quick hands or else the wrong person ends up with your balls in their mouth. (Clearly, the only rule the man made up in this game… a reference to Hungry Hungry Hippos). We went on to illustrate plays of the game. Some of them included: Battleship as a illusion to masturbation… Yatzee as an orgasmic cry…Guess Who as the moment a woman finds out her man is cheating on her with multiple women… and, the final scene, from Clue, when a man find his wife in the Study with Colonel Mustard (a cameo by John Huston)… and a candle stick! It was all very sexy and silly and incredibly fun.

The boys from Scratch did a scene in the dark, using microphones… I don’t remember much about it sadly… I was too busy calming myself down after my scene… I could finally relax.

Keir Cutler appeared in the stairwell, light by flashlight, and performed a scene from his show Teaching As You Like It… about a high school teacher who falls in love with a student but tries to justify their relationship as being pure and innocent. Funny, sad and pathetic, all at the same time.

Next up were Alex Dallas, Chris Caswell (2112) and Courtney Cunningham (Pouffy du Vey) appearing on stage, in full dirty clown mode, to sing a song for the audience. I don’t really remember much about it, the audience was too busy laughing over the lyrics for me to understand, but it was brash, dirty and kinda endearing… weird that.

Then we all came up on stage and sang “All You Need Is Love”… very very badly. But by this point, it was past 1am, the audience was drunk with either drink or laughter, and we were all giddy with our accomplishments. The show came across like a rehearsed piece of theatre. Not at all like the thrown together mess it actually was. We made over 1000$ which went to the volunteers pancake breakfast… a very good cause.

If you’re a performer in Winnipeg at next year’s Fringe, I strongly suggest you find out who is organizing the cabaret and get yourself involved. Or organize it yourself! Or just make sure you get a ticket to watch it. Either way, you won’t be disappointed.