Fresh from the Montreal Fringe: Heart-Strings, The Sputniks, and The Duck Wife arrive at the Ottawa Fringe Festival
You know, it can be really hard to sit through an hours-long theatrical performance. Not everyone can brave through numbing lower extremities to pay complete attention to live stroytelling that you may or may not even be interested in, anyway.
But see, the great thing about the Ottawa Fringe Festival is that every single show is under 60 minutes. And every single show is so incredibly unique. We packed in three fantastic performances on the midsummer evening of June 21st: two-hander physical comedy/drama Heart-Strings, by Tanya Elchuk and Amy Crnkovic, from Thunder Bay, Ontario; Elison Zasko’s one-woman/multiple-character hit The Sputniks, originally from Moscow, Russia; and from Montreal’s Inertia Productions, The Duck Wife, a dance-rock-opera retelling of an Inuit folk tale.
Heart-Strings with Tanya Elchuk and Amy Crnkovic
Think that would have been tiring for us? All three shows and their performers only arrived in Ottawa a few days ago, after performing at the Montreal Fringe Festival — and many will be continuing on to Toronto, Edmonton, and even more festivals after they wrap up their run in Ottawa.
Elison Zasko hasn’t performed her one-woman show The Sputniks in several years — she toured the 2010 Montreal Fringe in “Poison the Well” — but the energy, complexity, and sheer originality captured in the much-lauded piece never wavered. Zasko, who worked with familiar Fringe face Jonno Katz on the piece, so powerfully embodies multiple characters on the small SAW Gallery stage that the audience can only believe that the comic and heartwrenching story of a Jewish family escaping Soviet Russia must actually be played by five or more actors.
- The Duck Wife, by Inertia Productions and Grub Animal
The Duck Wife, brought to life by Inertia Productions and the band Grub Animal, mixes storytelling, dance, and garage rock to create a production truly fitting for the Fringe Festival — where else would you see angry guitarists, modern dancers, and folk-tale ducks rubbing elbows? We spoke with Grub Animal guitarist and Inertia Productions Artistic Director Ted Strauss and choreography mastermind Jenn Doan about how their complex project was created.
All three shows are playing at the 2010 Ottawa Fringe Festival through to Sunday, June 27th.
Heart-Strings plays at Venue #4, Academic Hall; The Sputniks appears at Venue #3, SAW Gallery; and The Duck Wife is on the Arts Court Theatre stage, Venue #1.
For more information, head to www.ottawafringe.com.
Emma Godmere is a local journalist and entertainment fanatic who believes the Ottawa arts scene is very much alive and well. She is the host of Now Playing on CHUO 89.1 FM every Wednesday at 1pm.
Video and photography special thanks to Kevin Burton
Tags: Heart-Strings, live theatre in Ottawa, The Duck Wife, The Ottawa Fringe Festival, The Sputniks
