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Winnipeg Free Press
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Fringe at its gut-clutching best when it layers on the cringe
I have just laughed as hard as I have at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival in 20 years. Prodded in the gut until air escaped me in the most embarrassing way. The offending object was a play by Winnipeg performer Donnie Baxter called Shit: The Musical, which has its last show at 8:45 p.m. tonight. Supplied Shit: The Musical possesses a kind of gonzo spirit. My bright, witty peer Jeffrey Vallis gave it a one-star review in the Free Press last week. '(It) feels like a '90s after-school show gone horribly wrong — like if Barney sang about bowel movements instead of friendship,' he writes. 'Set in a university lecture hall, Dr. Eaton Fartmore teaches a class on the semantics of poop through stories and off-key songs that drag on like a bad bout of constipation.' All of this is essentially true — in fact, the play's narrative is perhaps even flimsier than this. But there's little accounting for taste — or for the tasteless things we savour. I will endeavour all the same. Imagine you are at the beautifully modern Theatre Cercle Moliere, named after France's most renowned satirist of its classical theatre. It's 11 p.m. on a Wednesday and there's a senior citizen singing tunelessly, 'Farts, farts, farts, always stink, don't you think? It's a shame, this awful name.' The awful name in question is his own, Dr. Fartmore, and this professor of linguists is riffing on Shakespeare's line about roses smelling as sweet by any other name. Groan? The audience of 30 assembled isn't laughing. Not yet. The fact they are not, only makes me laugh harder. It's as though we've all been ensnared in one of Ionesco's or Artaud's glorious trolls on audiences in their mid-century absurdist experiments. But for this to be funny for a few, seemingly it has to stink for many — including obviously Vallis, who does have a good sense of humour. I'm sure his bad review wasn't happily received by performer-playwright Baxter because at the end of the day, bad reviews are usually bad business. Fringe performers sink thousands of dollars and countless hours — staking not just their savings, but their reputations — on the chance to entertain us and hopefully break even. And they do it at a time when live theatre is said to be more endangered than ever, dulled by the narcotic pull of screen media: TikTok and Instagram memes, Netflix and the ever-churning algorithm. Believe it or not, we reviewers — as much as some may curse our names in the fringe beer tent — try to bear this in mind. But as Orwell's old adage goes, oddly fitting for the high politics of local theatre: 'Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.' All to say: Vallis's pointed, funny reaction to Shit: The Musical is as valid as the myriad bad, middling and good reviews we've issued through this festival. Still, in ultimately relenting to Baxter's routine I felt I was exorcising something. A resistance that reviewers like me can develop to a certain spirit of fringe that stubbornly eludes the star system. A gonzo spirit shared by another DIY artform supposedly destroying live art like theatre: internet memes. I mean especially those associated online humour styles that go by names like post-irony, shitposting, layered cringe. This is absurdist, often lowbrow humour that echoes older comedians such as Andy Kauffman, Tom Green, Eric Andre and Tim Heidecker. But otherwise, it's distinctly Gen Z — mocking those Millennials whose humour is still stuck in the era of YouTube, Vines and Jim Carrey movies when comedy meant straightforward skits, polished punchlines and mugging for the camera. Maybe it also owes something to a certain stubborn set of ideas still circulating in universities. Most liberal arts students, sooner or later, encounter the work of another French oddball who came after Ionesco and Artaud: Jean-François Lyotard, with his theory of postmodernity. This theory (stick with me) says we now live in a postmodern era — an age where 'grand narratives' have collapsed. Big, sweeping explanations such as Marxism or Christianity no longer hold sway. Instead, knowledge loops back on itself: science, ethics and meaning justify themselves by referencing other systems, not some fixed reality. Lyotard knew this would leave us ironic, skeptical, suspicious of truth claims — and he seemed basically fine with that. His critics weren't. They called it nihilism and accused him of corrupting young minds with moral relativism. Right or wrong about knowledge or modernity, Lyotard was strangely ahead of his time when it comes to understanding humour. So much of online youth humour feels postmodern today. It disdains narrative. Conventional storytelling jokes, unless ironically dumb, are old hat. Humour now is 'irony-poisoned,' as the phrase goes — self-referential, looping endlessly through layers of memes. But in being 'poisoned,' it's also frequently amoral, cruel even. This humour delights in mocking 'theatre kids' and older generations — people who crack earnest, dorky jokes and wear their sincerity a little too openly. Their guileless enthusiasm gets labelled 'cringe,' then enjoyed and recreated ironically for laughs. I am, despite these misgivings and my elder Millennial status, addicted to absurd Gen Z humour. Which leads me to wonder: is it possible I enjoyed the plotless Shit: The Musical and other one-star fare this year for unkind reasons? Was I laughing at Baxter, this 'theatre kid' in his 60s with juvenile but sincere humour who can't carry a tune to save his life, instead of with him? Maybe at first. But Baxter was also clearly laughing at us — trolling us like Eric Andre or an online shitposter, figures he may know nothing about, to test our prudish reflexes. Our lack of whimsy. And a certain point, about halfway through the play, it worked. The audience started giggling, going along with Baxter. Then roaring. So many fringe shows reach melodramatically for the universal in the most sublime and tragic things. Heaven and hell. Baxter's awkward, taboo stories about embarrassing trips to the bathroom on first dates and his surprisingly enlightening explanation of healthy stool shapes felt oddly more honest. I've had a lovely fringe festival this year. And reflecting back, I think the shows that have stayed with me weren't always the tight, touring shows I may have felt obligated to award high stars to. They weren't the shows with wham-bam, but ultimately safe, humour delivered with the finesse of new Simpsons or old Johnny Carson episodes. They were the ones that really took chances, lowbrow and highbrow. Shows that had at something at stake creatively, not just financially, even if they were messy. Especially plays such as Debbie Loves Bumblebee, The Apricot Tree, Brainstorm, Parasocial and Baxter's bonkers production. Most of which, for me, point in one way or another to throughlines between the wild theatre of modernism and the fringe and the chaotic DIY culture that proliferates online today. Shows that might also help to bridge the generational gap where live theatre is concerned, drawing in more young people to a festival that, let's be honest, skews towards an older audience. There's a couple of days left of the festival, and I hope more audiences take chances on the fringiest of Fringe shows — especially if me or my colleagues have panned them. — Conrad SweatmanReporter Conrad Sweatman is an arts reporter and feature writer. Before joining the Free Press full-time in 2024, he worked in the U.K. and Canadian cultural sectors, freelanced for outlets including The Walrus, VICE and Prairie Fire. Read more about Conrad. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
CTV News
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
‘Embrace the Fringe': Winnipeg Fringe Festival officially kicks off
The annual Winnipeg Fringe Festival has officially kicked off, with nearly 150 acts expected to take place in and around downtown.
Winnipeg Free Press
14-07-2025
- Climate
- Winnipeg Free Press
Free Press Head Start for July 14, 2025
High 22 C. Increasing cloudiness, with a 60 per cent chance of showers late this morning and this afternoon. UV index 6, or high. A poor air quality warning is in effect because of wildfire smoke. See more from Environment Canada here. What's happening This week, the Winnipeg Fringe Festival begins. Opening night is Wednesday at 6 p.m. The festival runs through July 27, and you'll be able to find our coverage and show reviews here. Today's must-read As the wildfire threat prompts precautionary evacuations in Thompson, long-term care residents in that city are being sent to a personal care home in Flin Flon. Residents of Flin Flon's Northern Lights Manor were evacuated in late May and are waiting to return home, but this move will further delay their return. Meanwhile, evacuations are underway for Island Lake First Nations. Gabrielle Piché has the story. Ludwig Krzak, a Flin Flon Northern Lights Manor resident, was evacuated to Winnipeg and is waiting to return home. (Supplied) On the bright side Longtime Winnipeg Fringe volunteer Wendy Molnar has been involved with the festival since 1990 in a variety of roles, including taking tickets, ushering people to their seats and assisting with the children's programming. 'Winnipeg was very welcoming to me and it was just a fun time, so I kind of got hooked on it,' Molnar says. 'Here I am, 35 years later, still volunteering and still enjoying every minute of it.' Aaron Epp shines the spotlight on Molnar's contributions here. Wendy Molnar has been volunteering with the Winnipeg Fringe Festival for 36 years. (Brook Jones / Free Press) On this date On July 14, 1922: The Manitoba Free Press reported Canadian railway workers could expect a wage reduction of between five and eight cents an hour. In London, British prime minister Lloyd George recommended that Germany be given respite in paying war reparations. Author H.G. Wells was asked to run as a candidate for Parliament by the Labor party. Read the rest of this day's paper here. Search our archives for more here. Today's front page Get the full story: Read today's e-edition of the Free Press .
Winnipeg Free Press
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Career coda
Rocking out on a kid-friendly guitar as a four-year-old Elvis wannabe, Larry Desrochers could never have imagined he would go on to helm one of North America's leading regional opera companies for a quarter-century. The arts leader announced today he'll be stepping down in May 2026 as Manitoba Opera's general director and CEO after 25 years. He's Canada's longest-serving general director and one of the longest-serving general directors on the continent. His tenure includes producing and casting over 50 productions showcasing nearly 400 artists — more than 90 per cent Canadian with a 'Manitobans first' policy — with world-class performances grounded in savvy, eclectic programming. RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS Manitoba Opera's Larry Desrochers is Canada's longest-serving general director. 'Not in a million years did I ever think I would be working in the arts. It never crossed my mind at all; however, I think it all worked out just fine,' says the famously down-to-earth director, 66, who studied theatre at the University of Winnipeg during the mid-1980s and once nursed a passion to become a journalist. Upon recommendation of an ongoing leadership transition committee, his dual roles will be divided into two distinct full-time positions: artistic director and executive director. Desrochers, who hails from Baldur (population: 320), is currently putting the finishing touches on the 2026/27 season. He will become interim artistic director in early August, working in tandem with the company's newly appointed executive director, whose name will be revealed in July, while continuing to support the 52-year-old company until his successor is in place. A new artistic director will be announced next season following an extensive search, with Desrochers taking his final curtain call when his five-year contract officially expires on May 31, 2026. 'This is a pivotal moment in the evolution of Manitoba Opera,' MO board of trustees chairwoman Judith Chambers says in a press release. 'For 25 years Larry Desrochers has led with vision, creativity and a deep commitment to our community, helping to elevate the company's standing as one of Canada's leading opera companies. 'The new leadership model builds on the strong foundation Larry has established, and we are confident it will bring a reinvigorated focus, new ideas, and will position the company to grow and thrive in a changing arts landscape.' Desrochers's multifaceted 40-plus-year career has spanned opera, theatre and film as both artist and administrator. He's served as associate artistic director for the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, was the founding executive producer of the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival and executive director of the Winnipeg Film Group. JEFF DE BOOY / FREE PRESS FILES Larry Desrochers was the executive producer of the Winnipeg Fringe Festival in 1988. Among the many feathers in his cap is producing and directing the opening and closing ceremonies for the 1999 Pan American Games, watched by a live stadium crowd of 30,000 and a televised audience of 1.93 million. For the games' grand finale, he helped organize a reunion of legendary Winnipeg band the Guess Who — there's that rock influence again — that also featured the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and Royal Winnipeg Ballet. His numerous awards and accolades include the University of Winnipeg's Distinguished Alumni Award (2000), Opera America's Distinguished Service Award (2010), Lifetime Honorary Membership from the Winnipeg Film Group (2011), and the Winnipeg Arts Council's Making a Difference Award (2012). His departure has already garnered fond words from colleagues: 'A steady, generous and wise presence in the Canadian opera sector for over two decades' said Association for Opera in Canada (AOC) executive director Christina Loewen, while Opera America president and CEO Marc Scorca called him a 'great colleague and cherished friend.' Desrochers admits he only planned to lead the company for an initial five years after being invited in early 2000 to help brainstorm ways to help the then-struggling troupe, which had a skeletal six-member board and ballooning deficit. Under his watch, Manitoba Opera currently boasts a $2.9-million operating budget and a healthy subscriber base of 1,842, with the decades-old deficit retired in 2019. His Midas touch has also been instrumental in raising money for a $10-million endowment fund that will help ensure the organization's future in perpetuity. 'Even though I listened to opera when I was studying theatre in university, I didn't really know the repertoire, or singers and their voice types and all that. That became a real challenge for me,' he says of the steep learning curve after he was appointed to his position in 2000. 'During those earliest years I just dug in as hard as I could, and saw as much opera as I could, travelling across Canada and throughout North America to build up my knowledge of the art form. I also learned how to manage the risks in keeping patrons engaged, which is particularly important in a two-show season.' JEFF DE BOOY / FREE PRESS FILES Larry Desrochers with Royal Winnipeg Ballet students during rehearsals for the Magic Flute in 2001. Asked for his personal highlights, he mentions the war-torn production of children's opera Jason and Hannah staged in 2008, Fidelio (2014) and the company's inaugural commissioned opera The Transit of Venus (2007), penned by Manitoba playwright Maureen Hunter and composer Victor Davies. He also notes Susannah (2019), which saw award-winning composer/librettist Carlisle Floyd, who has since died, in the house opening night. Another is last season's groundbreaking world première of Li Keur: Riel's Heart of the North, featuring a libretto by Métis poet Suzanne Steele, and co-composed by Alex Kusturok and Neil Weisensel. 'Li Keur was significant for us because of Riel's importance to Manitoba, as such a foundational piece of the province's history. If this opera was going to be done anywhere in the country, it needed to be done here, so that's why we worked so hard to make it happen,' he says of the first all-Indigenous led opera performed on a Canadian mainstage, a $1.1-million production that also led to Manitoba Opera becoming a signatory to the Winnipeg Indigenous Accord in 2024. Desrochers is also rightfully proud of navigating — and surviving — the global pandemic, during which so many arts organizations around the world shuttered their doors forever. Manitoba Opera pivoted to livestreamed performances, including the Sopranos of Winnipeg recital celebrating Manitoba's treasure trove of internationally acclaimed vocal artists. Those years also saw the launch of its hugely successful and nationally recognized Digital Emerging Artist Program. His intuitive leadership approach has forged a robust legacy of flourishing community education and outreach programs, with the company hosting an ongoing series of talks and panel discussions focused on such pertinent social issues as mental health and global strife as reflected in opera, making the centuries-old art form relevant for 21st century audiences. When it comes to his next act — and his own swan song with the company he's called home for a quarter-century — Desrochers says he's keeping his options open for now. ROBERT TINKER PHOTO Li Keur was the first all-Indigenous led opera performed on a Canadian mainstage. Wednesdays Columnist Jen Zoratti looks at what's next in arts, life and pop culture. 'I don't look back very much, but prefer to look forward, ' he says, adding that future plans might potentially include directing, teaching or continuing to serve in his various advocacy and advisory roles. Opera buffs might even spot Desrochers and his writer/producer wife, Laurie Lam in the audience after next May — that early Elvis fan now a diehard devotee of the 'glory of opera' for life. 'Opera creates a transcendent experience, and there will always be a place for that,' he says about the future of the art form. 'While it's always evolved and styles have changed, it creates an immensely human experience, which is why it's so important to see it performed live, and especially in the 21st century. There's nothing like being in the audience. You're all laughing together. You're all crying together, and the interaction between the performers, orchestra and audience becomes a powerful, enriching experience that touches people on such an incredibly deep level.'
Winnipeg Free Press
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Talking to the moon
To find tranquility in an overstimulating world, Wren Brian often uses theatre as a temporary escape into self-reflection. She's been doing it professionally since 2009, but personally speaking? The admittedly introverted playwright has drifted off into daydreams for as long as she could string together a sentence or a friendship bracelet. 'I went off and played by myself. I'd pretend I was an animal and sometimes that was with other kids, but then it would shift to going off to do it by myself at home. I told myself stories a lot. I would mutter to myself and walk, which sounds really insane,' she says. Leif Norman photo Kris Cahatol (left) as Billie and Toby Hughes as Counsellor Rickie in Billie and the Moon 'I was very embarrassed about it, actually. It's weird to be saying it out loud now, but that's what kids do: we do kid things and we imagine.' Brian never stopped: in her newest work, Billie and the Moon, opening today at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People, the titular character is just beginning to consider their place in the universe. Billie (played by Kris Cahatol) is a first-time summer camper, paired by the buddy system with a campsite veteran (Megan Fry) to provide assistance navigating the microcosmic lakeside community. Written without a specific gender identity in mind, Billie the kid is challenged by everyday concerns, such as anxiety, frustration and the fear of missing out, a struggle so commonplace that its acronym, FOMO, has an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. Raised in Whitehorse, Yukon, trained at the University of Winnipeg and now based in Scotland, Brian thoroughly understands Billie's out-of-place predicament. 'That all fed into Billie's experience,' says Brian, 34, a winner in 2017 of the Harry S. Rintoul Prize at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival. Billie needed a bit of summertime solace in nature, but instead entered a noisy environment with its own set of rules and expectations. Seeking companionship and understanding, Billie looks to the sky, where the funny man in the moon (Toby Hughes) does more than stare back: he talks. Brian began writing the story for Billie in 2017 as a member of the Sandbox, MTYP's playwright's unit, under the direction of Andraea Sartison and Rick Chafe. 'Dora Carroll and I — Dora's now the assistant director — were paired together and we improvised a scene of a child looking at the moon, speaking to the moon, and the moon answering,' recalls Brian. A three-page treatment followed and then, during a cacophonous presentation at the Carol Shields Festival, came the idea to set the story at a summer camp. 'Why did Billie want to go to the moon? Maybe they were seeking that quiet night,' says Brian. Supplied Playwright Wren Brian says she needs solitude in order to reflect. During her third year in the Sandbox, Brian dug into Billie full-time rather than generating more ideas for children's shows. Brian herself never attended summer camp, but was an ardent Girl Guide. Drawing on that experience, she built out Billie's camp world, which includes the responsible Counsellor Andy (Rhea Rodych-Rasidescu) and the chaos agent Counsellor Rickie (Hughes). But the similarities between Billie and the glowing satellite are the play's central celestial connection. The moon, Brian says, is required by nature to come out and play every night, but does it always want to? Monthly What you need to know now about gardening in Winnipeg. An email with advice, ideas and tips to keep your outdoor and indoor plants growing. It was easy to project Billie's inner life onto the lunar surface, but perhaps more rewarding to consider the other side of the reflection. 'It's the moon's nature to be alone,' says Brian, who says she often needs regenerative periods of solitude to be less prickly and more present. 'Taking moments of quiet solitude help me to be a better functioning person.' Outside, alone, away from the stresses of the world is often where imagination flourishes. Ben WaldmanReporter Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University's (now Toronto Metropolitan University's) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben. Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
