The Prague Post
August 28th, 2008
Endowment Fund     Business Listings ONLINE      Reservations      Classifieds    Subscriptions
Hotel Prague Centre

Home » Archives » Night & Day

Living on the edge


Stage Review | Search restaurants | Archives

May 21st, 2008 issue

By Rachel Shimp

COURTESY PHOTO
The Paper Birds sleep it off, above, while Pip Utton impersonates Chaplin, below.
enlarge
Fringe Festival


When: May 25-June 1
Where: Various venues
Tickets: 150 Kč, available through Ticketstream and at the venues
For daily performances, see Calendar listings; for a complete schedule, check www.fringe.cz

For the Post
To be on the fringe of something is to be on the edge, just outside of convention. In the world of theater and performance art, aligning yourself with the concept begets a freedom to try just about anything, which in turn offers audiences a fresh experience. Unbound by rules, performers can tap their imaginations for results that run the gamut from transcendental to a total mess. Either way, the results are probably unlike anything you’ve ever seen.
It’s this principle that shapes the annual Prague Fringe Festival. Now in its seventh year, the fest features an international cast of performers offering theater, dance, music, comedy and more. And, each year, it gets bigger and more interesting.
“[Prague] is a very sexy location,” says Prague Fringe founder and director Steve Gove of the festival’s growing popularity on the international circuit. “Groups in their first several years of performing may not be up for being booked in big festivals, so this is a chance to travel and perform their work abroad.”
This year, festival newcomers like the Canadian company Bergstation & Fixt Point Theatre, whose The Tale of a T-Shirt (shown on the cover) has won rave reviews in their homeland, are joined by some first-timers from right here in Prague, including the all-female a cappella group Yellow Sisters. The lineup also features a number of the most popular performers from recent years, including Scottish singer/songwriter Andi Neate (back for the fifth time) and Italian-American cabaret diva Maria Tecce, performing Viva!. British comedy duo Topping & Butch bring back their “outrageous musical satire, stupid costumes and lively stand-up” in both a raunchy evening show and an Afternoon Tease.
Not outre enough for your taste? Try Willem van Ekeren’s Bach-Bukowski, which marries J.S. Bach’s “The Well-tempered Clavier” with a blues-vocal interpretation of Charles Bukowski’s The Last Night of the Earth Poems. Or perhaps The Hallucinogenic Toreador, a DaDa Exploration, based on a Dali painting, from the United States’ Lime House Theater Collective. And then there’s Pip Utton. Last year, The Daily Telegraph declared him “the doyen of the one-man show.” Here he performs twice — once as Charlie Chaplin, and once as Hitler.
Recommended below are a few of the more intriguing acts in this year’s Fringe. But don’t hesitate to follow — or go against — your own instincts. The National Saxophone Choir of Great Britain’s Sax to the Max! might be this year’s must-see show, after all.
“Sometimes the shows that interest you a little less than others end up being the hit show of the Fringe, the one that everyone’s talking about,” says Gove.
40 Feathered Winks “One-third of human life is spent in bed; resting, crying, hiding, lovemaking, sleeping, dreaming and dying,” say The Paper Birds, a British company that explores, with a live music backdrop, the many ways to pass time in the boudoir. Divadlo na Prádle, May 25–June 1 at 9 p.m.
The Dearest, Freshest, Deep Down Thing Could there be any combination of influences more enticing than jazz, port wine, Hart Crane’s coat and a tumbler full of fog? “Chance, desire and dramatic forward thrust” propel this Prague-based performance revue as they … well, we’re not exactly sure, but the lines between actor and audience promise to be blurred. U Malého Glena, May 26–June 1 at 6:15 p.m.
Karagiozis Exposed The story of a Cypriot shadow puppet who longs for the human world after getting a glimpse. His revolt and attempted return are told through physical theater, experimental architecture and music. Divadlo na Prádle, May 25–June 1 at 7:30 p.m.
Diary of Petr Ginz Children from Shrewsbury School in England will enact scenes surrounding a very peculiar artifact: the World War II-era diary of young Praguer Petr Ginz. It was discovered after the 2003 explosion of the space shuttle Columbia, on which an astronaut had carried a picture drawn by the boy. Divadlo na Prádle, May 25–29 at 6 p.m. and June 30 at 2 p.m.
Silkworm Following last year’s successful Fringe act, Blow This Popsicle Stand, Canada’s Black Hand Theatre Collective presents an exploration of colliding worlds when the daily routine of a villager’s life is disrupted by an ominous enemy. A Studio Rubín, May 25–June 1 at 5 p.m.
Rachel Shimp can be reached at rshimp@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (21/05/2008):

Browse the Current Issue

If you enjoyed this article, why don't you subscribe to the print version!
We accept secure online transactions provided by PayPal and Moneybookers

Be the first to add a comment!


Full Name: *
City: *
E-mail: **
This comment can be published in the print version of The Prague Post
Enter the text on the right:
 visual captcha
Comment: *
* Required field. In order to be approved for display, comments must have a first and last name and a city.
** E-mails are required and will only be used for internal purposes.

Most visited in Business Listings

Provokator
Hotel booking
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.