Fringe Frolics

It’s New Zealand Fringe Festival time again, and for the third year I’ve volunteered to help out. Nicola is no longer volunteering as she is now an active participant, with her band.

This year, I have been rostered exclusively at Hannah Playhouse, one of the larger venues for the Fringe, and therefore inclined to have events that will attract a bigger audience; so not so much the weird, quirky shows that are the essence of the festival. Next year I’ll ask if I can get a mix of venues so that I can see some of the odder offerings.

The first show I saw was Nicola’s band, Sven Olsen’s Brutal Canadian Love Saga, or The Svens as they are more commonly called. They were again playing at Newtown Community Centre. I say “Nicola’s band” but she is a viola player in the string section, so perhaps she’s not the actual leader of the pack. They played their usual selection of songs about life in Wellington and New Zealand, with backdrops that are an integral part of the show. 

My first gig at Hannah Playhouse was Antonio!, billed as “a queer punk pirate musical starring Shakespeare’s ultimate love interest”, a reference to the fact that Shakespeare has a character of this name in four plays. This is a romp through those works, with the conceit that they are in fact the same person, and Shakespeare was in love with him.

The following week was a sell-out performance of The Spinoff: The Fold Live, New Zealand’s biggest (only?) media podcast, broadcast live from the theatre with two guests, also from NZ media. How interested am I in the behind-the-scenes goings-on in New Zealand’s media world? Not very. I was allocated the mezzanine and balcony section for this show, which is normally closed as not needed, but apparently enough people are interested in this subject to use it. The crowd for this show was noticeably more mature than is usual for Fringe gigs.

Nicola came along to my third gig, Tecuani, as she had a previous engagement at Te Papa. This show was a Mexican dance show revolving around colonialism, human sacrifice, gods, ghosts, and other shit like that. 

The following night we went to see a show that we’d actually bought tickets for – The Fabulous Fabelinskys, at Te Auaha. This is a combination of circus and play, with the story centred on a family of three women who’ve just lost the patriarch and main performer of their circus act. It follows their trials, particularly at the hands of the nefarious circus-owner who exploits them; interspersed with demonstrations of their acts – hoops and harness, high ropes, and a clown, with a sword-swallowing finale. Does what it says on the tin, and probably the best thing that I’ve seen this festival. 

My final show was Hausdown, which is a Bridgerton-esque house party at a country estate. There are various shenanigans between the guest before they finally all come out and admit that the boys are in love with the boys, and the girls are in love with the girls. Enthusiastically performed, the actors camp it up in period costumes and generally have fun.

 

Cuba Dupa

Wellington’s biggest street festival is back, bigger and better than ever before. We’ve not been for a while, and during la pandemia it was obviously a no-go. The festival is dance, music, street theatre, parades, and food, with various stages and areas set up for performance as well as the more mobile events. It starts on a Friday night, and on Saturday goes on late into the night, finally winding up on Sunday early evening.

As we’d volunteered for the Fringe Festival, we’d also signed up for Cuba Dupa. This involved two shifts for me, and one for Nicola (because orchestra on Saturday). Fortunately the weather was good – it being early autumn now, the weather can be a bit chancy – and whilst it was breezy on the Saturday, this didn’t seem to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm.

My first shift was helping out at the information stand on Cuba Street (there was another stand a little further away on Leeds Street car park), which also sold merchandise. The merch this year consisted of second-hand t-shirts, being recycled with a Cuba Dupa logo: these were either pre-printed, or you could select your own shirt and have a different design printed on them on the spot. This proved to be quite a popular option. Other items on sale were tote bags and reusable cups – a lot of the people who were attending, particularly into the night, were bar-hopping down Cuba Street to various venues and events. I was also able to watch the parades that went past during my shift, including a Bollywood-style dancing troupe.

My second shift on Sunday was a bit more tedious – managing the Green Rooms at Te Auaha. There were far fewer performances on Sunday, so in fact there were only three groups on during my shift – a wind and brass band and two dancing groups. They didn’t require much from me so most of my time was spent trying to find somewhere comfortable to seat and while away the hours, and directing people to the toilets.

After each shift I went on a bit of a stroll to get some pics to try to capture the atmosphere.