Sex loomed large in the early days of the Canadian fringe theatre circuit. Shows that played Victoria included Transcendental Masturbation, Se The Musical and The Happy C--t.
The idea was to grab the attention of theatregoers.
After all, the Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival is host to dozens of shows (more than 50 this season). Performers hoped titillating titles would make them stand out.
The sexy-title trend waned over the years.
Theatre artists realized it didn't particularly sell tickets. This season, though, it appears racy shows may be back in vogue.
The roster for the 2012 Fringe includes: Sex, Religion & Other Hang-ups, The C--kwhisperer - A Love Story, slut (r)evolution: no one gets there overnight and The Human Body Project (the latter is a "naked and unscripted" show in which the performer encourages audience members to doff their own duds). We caught up with three of these touring artists to see what's behind the sexy titles.
Sex, Religion & Other Hang-ups St. Ann's Academy, tonight to Sept. 2
Toronto's James Gangl enjoyed boffo success last year with this autobiographical romp. The show was a box-office hit in his home city - winning the Ed Mirvish Award for Entrepreneurship in recognition of highest percentage of tickets sold. It was voted "patrons' pick" at the Toronto Fringe Festival and named outstanding production by NOW Magazine.
Sex, Religion & Other Hang-ups is Gangl's oneman show chronicling how his desire for a comely underwear model clashed with his strict Catholic upbringing. He met her at a shoot for a Coors Lite advertising campaign. The pair hit it off immediately.
"She really wanted to [have sexual relations]," Gangl, 33, said in a recent interview. "I was like, aw, I can't do that."
It wasn't that Gangl, who was 26 at the time, didn't want to consummate their relationship. He did. But his religion forbade sex before marriage.
He'd been an 脙录berCatholic, even undertaking bread-and-water fasts every Wednesday and Friday. As a teen, while his friends partied during spring break, Gangl flew to "war-torn Bosnia" to visit a pilgrimage site where the Virgin Mary was supposed to appear. (She didn't.)
"It would be an understatement," he added, "to say I was extremely Catholic."
Gangl, a former brand manager for Hershey sa国际传媒, did mostly comedy improv before creating Sex, Religion & Other Hang-ups. At first, he found penning a script a struggle. He initially wrote it from a fictitious character's point of view, and then as a fairy tale. "It only flowed out of me when I wrote this first line: 'Hello, my name is James Gangl,' " he said.
Rather than settling for comic glibness, Gangl strived to blend humour with honesty and revealing detail. The approach seems to have worked. But performing Sex, Religion & Other Hang-ups has had its awkward moments. His old girlfriend (the aforementioned underwear model) attended one performance with her boyfriend. And his mother, still a staunch Catholic, came to another.
"I said from the stage, 'OK, Mom, for some bits, put your fingers in your ears.' And she did."
Gangl says there's always plenty of raunchy Fringe shows aiming for shock value. But shows that earn word-of-mouth praise - every Fringe performer's dream - have substance as well. "If you have a message, you can get away with a lot. If you don't, it's just dirt for the sake of dirt."
The C--kwhisperer - A Love Story
Downtown Activity Centre Aug. 28 to Sept. 2
Not so long ago, Hamilton's Colette Kendall was a stay-at-home mom. Now she's touring her semiautobiographical solo show, The C--kwhisperer.
The title, says Kendall, 48, refers to an urban slang term for women who've had numerous lovers. Her creation, while humorous, is much more than a compilation of sex jokes. It chronicles her relationships, sexual and otherwise, with her first love, an ex-husband and her current long-time paramour.
The show contains lighthearted material, yet The C--kwhisperer also chronicles difficult periods in her life.
One story, for instance, details her experience of being physically abused by a former partner.
When Kendall tested an embryonic version on the Canadian fringe circuit in 2009, she found acting the darker sequences a challenge. After a physically gruelling 12-festival tour, Kendall considered quitting performing altogether. It was too tiring, too intense.
"It actually was really difficult to perform. And it was hard to embrace the material. I found I was still too close to it."
Kendall took a year off, focusing on running her Hamilton theatre company. She then applied for the 2011 Edmonton International Fringe Festival. When The C--kwhisperer was the first show drawn in the national category (shows at Edmonton's Fringe are selected on a lottery system), Kendall took it as a sign.
A more polished version of The C--kwhisperer proved popular with audiences. "Now, for me, I really enjoy performing this show. I get a kick out of it now."
slut (r)evolution (no one gets there overnight)
Victoria Event Centre Friday to Sept. 1
Cameryn Moore, a performer and part-time phone-sex operator, says she's on a mission: to get folk to thinking positively - and abundantly - about sex.
Enter slut (r)evolution: no one gets there overnight. Moore's solo show (which comes with a "graphic language" warning) offers her memoirs of a sexually charged life and thoughts on sex in general. The 42yearold Bostonian says she's aiming for an honest, thought-provoking monologue. "There's not a lot of honest, authentic representation of sexuality in our pop culture, in our movies and TV shows and magazines," Moore said.
The Oregon native is a colourful character on and off stage. More than three years ago, she accepted her first job as a phone-sex operator. "I started doing it because I was really desperate," Moore said. "I kept doing it because I turned out to be really good at it. And I like it."
Those experiences led to the creation of her awardwinning show Phone Whore. Moore's other pursuits include writing her online Tour Whore column for The Charlebois Post and creating "custom typewritten pornography as street performance and literary art."
With slut (r)evolution: no one gets there overnight, Moore's aim, in part, is to shift our perception of the word "slut" so we view it as, well - a good thing.
"Slut can be very tricky to reclaim," she said, "because it is charged so negatively in our society."
