Celebrating its 20th birthday this year, the Toronto Fringe Festival usually bills itself as "unjuried, unexpected and unforgettable." The second of those adjectives, however, is no longer correct.
Though the Toronto Fringe's 148 shows are selected by random lottery, the majority of the theatre, comedy and dance festival's programming has become quite predictable.
You can always count on at least one Something Unlikely: The Musical! (this year's edition includes Fart Factory, Hockey and Floozy: The Musicals!), a feminist twist on Shakespeare (this year: 'Beth), a couple of plays about the jobs actors work in between gigs ( The Reservation, set in a restaurant, and Silver and Stinky, about bike couriers), as well as more autobiographical solo shows than you can shake a microphone stand at.
As an example of how much of an artistic echo chamber the Fringe has become, note that the 2008 edition has not one, not two, but three shows with titles that riff on Dr. Strangelove: How I Stopped Worrying and Learnt to Love The Mall, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Abortion and, last but not deceased, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Zombie Master. (The zombie play is another Fringe mainstay.) While what's on offer this year may feel déjà vu, that doesn't mean it won't be a fun, frenzied rerun. Here are some of the best bets in each of the usual offbeat genres from this year's sea of shows spanning a whopping 29 venues.
The One-Man Show
Cheap to produce and easy to tour, solo shows are perennial favourites at Fringe festivals. Seasoned veterans TJ Dawe ( Totem Figures), Chris Gibbs ( The Further Adventures of Antoine Feval) and Jonno Katz ( The Spy) return with new shows that are safe bets, but for sheer originality I'd check out Time to Put My Socks On. Performed by disabled comic Alan Shain, it takes a decidedly unorthodox look at living and loving with cerebral palsy.
"I know it's not politically correct, but safe sex sucks," Mr. Shain said in an excerpt I heard at the Montreal Fringe earlier this month. "Do you know how long it takes for me to get a condom on?"
Time to Put My Socks On runs July 3 and 4 and July 8 to 12, at the Tarragon Extra Space, 30 Bridgman Ave.
The One-Woman Show
This year's Fringe includes a play called One Woman Show, but it's actually a one-man show. (Starring Marco Timpano and co-written with the Shehori Brothers, it seems they've picked the wrong gender's narcissism to parody.) For the real deal, check out Celeste Sansregret's Wonderbar!, starring one-time Fringe regular Alex Dallas; it's a dark comedy about a woman who falls for a fraud artist.
Wonderbar! runs July 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11 and 13, at the Robert Gill Theatre, 214 College St., 3rd floor.
The Performance Poet
Britain's Jem Rolls has been touring his poems across Canada's Fringe circuit for so long, he should be given honorary citizenship. Mr. Rolls, who used to be flatmates with fellow poet and troubled rock star Pete Doherty, is trying something new, limiting himself to a single theme with How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Mall. A hit in Montreal, it's a hypnotic and unpredictable anti-consumerist rant in which Mr. Rolls explores our "free-range serfdom" with non-stop wordplay. Call it No Logorrhea.
How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Mall runs July 2, 4, 6 and July 9 to 12, at the Glen Morris Theatre, 4 Glen Morris St.
The Fake Band
For those who shunned the ersatz boy band Boygroove, here's Berlin punk duo Die Roten Punkte and their latest show, Super Musikant. With genuinely catchy tunes, bickering siblings Otto and Astrid Rot (Aussie clowns Daniel Tobias and Clare Bartholomew) send up the White Stripes and punk/rock/emo music in general. Their song Ich Bin Nicht Ein Roboter - I Am a Lion is brilliantly bizarre and would be a hit if covered by Hot Chip.
Super Musikant runs July 5 to 7 and July 9 to 12, at the Tarragon Theatre Mainspace, 30 Bridgman Ave.
The Metafringe Show
Theatre about theatre is one thing, but Fringe theatre about the Fringe is a whole other kettle of fish chasing their own tails. Popular monologist Keir Cutler returns with Teaching the Fringe, the story of his life on the festival circuit since 1999, including how one audience member reported him to the child-protection agency. For the Toronto run, Mr. Cutler is being replaced by Barry Smith, whose American Squatter is playing elsewhere in the festival. Teaching the Fringe will either be Fringe cross-breeding genius or a total bust.
Teaching the Fringe runs July 3, 5, 7 to 10 and 12, at the Glen Morris Theatre, 4 Glen Morris St.
The Next Drowsy
Chaperone?
Lightning is unlikely to strike the Fringe twice. The Drowsy Chaperone was an anomaly in making its way from the Fringe to Broadway and Tony glory. Still, while the gay-sportsman saga Hockey: The Musical has already been written up in The New York Times, Nursery School Musical will probably be a success as it is written by Brett and Rachael McCaig ( Waiting For Trudeau) and is produced by Derrick Chua ( Top Gun! The Musical). Definitely not related to Disney's High School Musical, it features a song called Why Are Disney Princesses All Such Whores?
Nursery School Musical runs July 4, 5 ,7, 9, 10, 12 and 13, at the Factory Theatre Mainspace, 125 Bathurst St.
The Next Swan Lake?
Dance Umbrella of Ontario is celebrating its 20th birthday along with the Fringe and so nine dance companies have been selected for the festival's new Dance Initiative.
Elizabeth Dawn Snell's The Reservation features "a world of dancing waiters, travelling coat racks and chairs which have no seats" and the talented Andrea Nunn.
The Reservation runs July 4 to 6 and 8 ,9, 11 and 13, at the Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace, 16 Ryerson Ave.
The Slummers
Established artists increasingly show up at the Toronto Fringe. Buddies in Bad Times' Sky Gilbert has a new show called Ladylike starring "Canada's most famous transsexual," Nina Arsenault (the one Tommy Lee flirted with), and is also directing a new play by Hope Thompson called Tyrolia.
Meanwhile, Genie-winning director Jerry Ciccoritti (TV's Trudeau, Dragon Boys) is helming Paula Rivera's one-woman show Every Girl Wants A Skirt Like Frida's.
Globe and Mail journalist Michael Posner, author of Mordecai Richler: An Oral Biography, is trying his hand at playwriting with Damages, a drama about two Holocaust survivors who become estranged for personal reasons.
Ladylike runs July 2 to 12, at the Tranzac, 292 Brunswick Ave.
Damages runs July 4 to 6, 8 to 10 and 12, at the George Ignatieff Theatre, 15 Devonshire Pl.
The Comedians
All the shows performing at the Sketchersons' new comedy bar on Bloor West look promising, but I can only vouch for Blastback Babyzap by Montreal comedy troupe Uncalled For. Popular at the Montreal Fringe where it just played to standing room only and won a slot in the Just For Laughs festival, the show replaces the troupe's sometimes uneven improv with sharp comic sketches. Stand-out performers include Nick Wright and Dan Jeannotte, who start off with a great spoof of cop movies.
Blastback Babyzap runs July 2 to 12, at the Comedy Bar, 945B Bloor St. W.
The Word-of-Mouth Hit
This show is the one you absolutely have to see.
And the only way you'll find out what it is is to hit up the beer tent or chat with people waiting in line to buy tickets. By next Wednesday, it will have sold out its run, so act quickly.
Happy Fringing.
Visit . Shows are on at various times. Tickets to shows highlighted here are $10 at the door.
J. Kelly Nestruck