The Vancouver International Fringe Festival runs until Sept. 19. For info and show times, go to vancouverfringe.com.

LIMBO

Waterfront Theatre

Sept. 17 and 18

How often does a solo writer/performer solve one of the major philosophical questions--free will or no free will--in the first two minutes of a show? Andrew Bailey does it. This is laugh-out-loud, intelligent, manic, sweet, quirky and, yes, profound, theatre and I loved every minute of it. Bailey's character, having once, at the age of 13, wanted to grope the breasts of some girl, has come to the conclusion that he is a rapist and therefore must kill himself. But, good Catholic boy that he is, he knows suicide is a sin, "unless you do it like Jesus." Later he believes he is not only a rapist but is, making a Kafka-esque leap, also guilty of murder, incest and pedophilia. And he suffers. But here's the profound part: emotional suffering not only makes people--like Bailey--write solo shows, but it leads to compassion. "Pain, when shared, is a blessing, a holy thing," his tortured but enlightened character says. How Bailey leads us to that conclusion is, itself, a holy thing. It's called theatre.

--Jo Ledingham

LUST OF THE SWAMP WITCH

Carousel Theatre

Sept. 17-19

If you want to know what young people are thinking about, writing about or, God help us, actually doing, Lust of the Swamp Witch is your window on their world. Written and directed by sisters Anais West and Veronique West, this show is a wildly, madly, crazily over the top story about mid-thirties Vera (Chilko Tivy) who lives in a trailer in the swamp, and her teenaged half-brother Jack (Nathaniel Hanula-James) who stumbles into her lair. While the West sisters don't suggest most teenagers are dabbling in satanic rituals, one thing comes through loud and clear: young adults don't want to turn into their grey, law-abiding, conforming parents. A bottle of booze later, Vera and Jack are up for anything. Opening night audience loved this loud and goofy spoof. Me? I celebrate the young playwrights' chutzpah.

--JL

WANDERLUST

Waterfront Theatre

Sept. 17 and 19

Long, lanky, writer/performer Martin Dockery doesn't have a spare ounce of flesh on him and no wonder: chances are he burns off a couple of kilos during every show with his windmilling arms and waving hands. Sure, he sits on a stool now and again but, hey, even then he's a man in motion. We've all endured listening to other people's travel misadventures, but Dockery turns it into entertainment as he takes us to West Africa where he spent five months. What sent him jetting off? Fear of commitment, maybe. What brought him back? A realization that commitment doesn't necessarily mean forever. It can be for just this very minute. It takes a chimpanzee to tell him that. This is intelligent material maniacally delivered with the best dramatization of the West African equivalent of Delhi Belly or Montezuma's Revenge you'll ever want to see--and never, ever, want to experience.

--JL

DIRT

Pacific Theatre

Sept. 17 and 18

Amidst all the goofiness that typifies the Fringe, there's always some dark stuff and it doesn't get any darker than Dirt. "My name is Sad," says actor Christopher Domig at the top of the show. But then he tells us he lies; "Lying is part of our ancestry," he claims. Maybe his name is really Saddam and maybe Saddam means "the proud one." But maybe not. I wallowed in Dirt, not knowing much of the time what was true and what was not. Whatever the character's name is, he's an illegal Iraqi immigrant in the U.S. who has internalized all the hostility of those around him who are pale-skinned, fair-haired, small-pored--in short, white Americans. "I have no right" to be in this beautiful country, he says again and again, calling himself "a dirty, lying foreigner." What is true is that, in the present U.S. political climate, Sad's story is probably an honest reflection of the Middle Eastern immigrant experience south and possibly north of the 49th.

--JL

7(X1) SAMURAI

Waterfront Theatre

Sept. 18

This is a fantastic show and performer David Gaines is bloody marvelous. If you're old, you'll remember Kurosawa's epic Seven Samurai; if you're not old and you want to see the acclaimed Japanese filmmaker's movie compressed into one brilliant, hilarious, swashbuckling hour, get a ticket now. The story is all still there: the frightened peasants, the bullying brigands (who come riding into town "boppety-boppety-bop"), and the seven brave samurai who stride into the village with their swords at the ready to rid the village of the meanies.

Gaines mimes it all with the help of two masks--the brigand chief and the master samurai--and some great sound effects including, rarely but helpfully, some gravelly English. Heads roll, guts spill and good conquers evil. Gaines is a graduate of L'Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris. It shows.

--JL

WHAT YOU WANT

Havana Theatre

Sept. 17-18

If you like your theatre hip and cool, hot and sexy and very, very metatheatrical, What You Want might be exactly what you want. Writer Andrew Templeton (This Mortal Flesh, Biographies of the Dead and Dying) not only writes himself into his play, at one point all four characters claim to be Andrew Templeton with a shared memory of a moth flapping around in a Greyhound bus. Later they drop the Andrew Templeton act and become Laura (Gillian Bennett) and Dave (Russell Bennett) who meet via Craigslist and Rob (Sean Tyson) and Starling (Rachel Aberle), a UBC philosophy prof and a student/hooker who are having it off. I could do with less bungled anal sex and tits and ass conversations and more of the "where did Vancouver go" and "what has that done to us." Are these four urban characters screwed up, for example, because the city they live in has lost its soul? But the performances are terrific and it's a witty, with-it script.

--JL

LUCKY 9

Origins Organic Coffee

Sept. 17-19

TJ Dawe, Fringe favourite and veteran of the circuit, may be moving on. He doesn't say that in Lucky 9, but in his usual fast-paced, energetic, intelligent and autobiographical style, TJ shows signs of a change in direction. Recently he's been absorbed in Don Riso and Russ Hudson's books about the Enneagram--a nine-type personality analysis. And while the Enneagram may tell you what type you are--from Reformer to Peacemaker--it also suggests that once you know your type, you can make changes. That might be good for TJ, but it might not be good for us, his fans. What if he turns into A Reformer or a Challenger? How much fun would that be? The Loyalist (anxious, suspicious) in me fears the worst but The Helper (generous, caring) in me just wants TJ to be happy. Lucky 9 leads to useful introspection and the knowledge that TJ Dawe will never be able to shake the best parts of being a fantastic number 4, The Individualist (melancholy, creative, dramatic).

--JL

DIE ROTEN PUNKTE: KUNST ROCK

Performance Works

Sept. 17 and 18

Go late. Go loud. Go crazy. Astrid and Otto Rot, the self-proclaimed Prince and Princess of Rock and Roll are back in town. Brother and sister purportedly from Berlin (not) were orphaned when their parents were either killed by a lion (unlikely) or hit by a train (ditto). They turned to rock and roll for solace. Pouty, dominant Astrid wears a get up that she describes as punk geisha/Snow White combo. I thought I'd lose it when she gets it tangled up in the microphone and lurches around the stage trying to extricate herself. Otto, in messed-up lipstick and whiteface, is inappropriately attracted to his sister, sings about bananas and competes with Astrid for our approval. Die Roten Punkte (The Red Dots) is a huge spoof and an acquired taste--which I have seriously acquired. This new show is slicker and even more outrageous than their others. Best song line comes from Astrid: "You're like a verb. You're always doing something to me." That goes for Die Roten Punkte, too. They're always doing something to you. Count on it.

--JL