{"id":30024,"date":"2018-09-07T03:55:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-07T10:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=30024"},"modified":"2018-09-07T21:26:42","modified_gmt":"2018-09-08T04:26:42","slug":"fringe-mixes-drama-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2018\/09\/07\/fringe-mixes-drama-comedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Fringe mixes drama, comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Naomi Vogt performs in Big Sister<\/em>, written by her real-life sister, Deborah Vogt. (photo from Fringe)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The Vancouver Fringe Festival has started and there are (at least) a few shows that readers should try to fit in around the High Holidays. Jewish community members Deborah and Naomi Vogt, David Rodwin and Gemma Wilcox are presenting very personal works that examine issues with which we all deal, such as self-esteem, family relationships, finding and losing love, and the search for meaning. And they do it with humour and energy.<\/p>\n

Local playwright Deborah Vogt and her sister, actor Naomi Vogt, \u201care still making tweaks\u201d to Big Sister (Revue Stage)<\/em><\/strong>, Deborah Vogt told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cHowever, I\u2019m not sure if there will ever be a \u2018final version,\u2019 given that the script is a reflection of our ongoing conversation as sisters attempting to learn more about each other. Additionally, Naomi loves to ad lib and so the play will be slightly different every evening depending on who is in the audience. However, the dream would be to take it to other Fringe festivals, especially Edinburgh (the world\u2019s largest Fringe Festival \u2013 and my personal dream). There is something very special, however, about premi\u00e8ring this show in the city that we grew up in and the community that we know and love.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea for the show came up last summer at the Edinburgh Fringe. \u201cOver there, I saw so many beautiful, personal solo shows that tread the line between monologue and standup. I thought, \u2018I would love to do this, but I can\u2019t act. Who do I know that could perform a solo show that I could write?\u2019 The answer was obvious: my sister. We spent two weeks traveling together shortly after the Fringe, where we brainstormed ideas for shows in between hikes and wine bars. We abandoned most of those ideas when we realized the only story we could honestly tell was that of our relationship as sisters, and specifically how our relationship has changed over the last few years in the wake of Naomi\u2019s 75-pound weight loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camp Miriam makes an appearance in Big Sister<\/em>, said Vogt, \u201cbecause my sister Naomi went there for a few summers as a preteen and our mother went there for many, many years when she was younger\u2026. The show focuses on Naomi\u2019s weight loss, and talks about what being a fat kid at camp was like. Naomi loved Camp Miriam, but we also acknowledge that no camp experience is easy if you don\u2019t look like the other children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naomi Vogt performs the whole play. \u201cFor the most part,\u201d said her sister, \u201cshe is playing herself, but the version of herself that I have written through my perspective. And, on occasion, she plays me as well. I just have to sit in the audience every night and hear the ways she\u2019s manipulating my words. Part of the joy of the show is the various power dynamics at play \u2013 as a playwright, I have shaped Naomi\u2019s personal story but, as an actor, she is able to change my words at any moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were many challenges to writing Big Sister<\/em>, said Vogt. \u201cFirst of all, it was difficult trying to find the balance between Naomi as my real human sister and Naomi as a character. We wanted this show to be entirely truthful, while still presenting a piece of theatre. And this show touches on painful aspects of both of our lives (in a funny way, of course), so trying to write that without overstepping my place or lying to the audience about what actually happened (two sides to every story, right?) was difficult to manoeuvre.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a nutshell, the show is about weight loss. \u201cIt touches on how being heavy can affect all aspects of life, and particularly sibling dynamics,\u201d said Vogt. \u201cBoth of us have lost weight \u2026 but Naomi\u2019s journey was far more significant than mine. Through telling her story of weight loss, we\u2019ve learned a lot about each other, our childhoods and the community we live in.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
David Rodwin shares his sometimes-heartbreaking dating experiences in F* Tinder. (photo by Julia Farr)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cF* Tinder<\/em> is 100% autobiographical,\u201d said David Rodwin. \u201cOnly the names have been changed. But I only have 75 minutes to talk about dating 120 different women over two years, so there\u2019s a lot I have to leave out. But every story I tell, I do so as accurately as I can recall \u2013 with a theatrical flourish.\u201d<\/p>\n

F* Tinder: a love story (Performance Works)<\/em><\/strong> began as a book, when a friend who was writing his first book challenged Rodwin to do the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d moved to San Francisco after my last serious relationship ended in L.A. and, over a year and a half on Tinder and other apps, I\u2019d experienced some bizarre and noteworthy experiences in the lawless dating wilds of the Bay Area,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, I had an unorganized collection of short stories I\u2019d been developing…. Around that time, I met the one woman I truly fell in love with. That inspired me to write like crazy. But (spoiler alert), when she dumped me, I got writer\u2019s block for the first time in my life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThough I wasn\u2019t able to continue sitting alone at my desk typing out these tales, I couldn\u2019t stop telling them to friends and in storytelling shows like The Moth<\/em>, which I\u2019ve done for years. Finally, it became clear that, rather than just a bunch of short anecdotes, this was a full evening of stories with its own narrative integrity\u2026. And though I\u2019d written half the book, I threw out everything and started over because I find that writing with my mouth creates a more natural, humorous and vibrant live performance than when I type something, memorize it and recite it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a thrilling and terrifying process for me each night, not knowing quite how it\u2019s going to go and I hope it creates a more visceral, authentic and deeply intimate experience. And it\u2019s a technique I inherited from my mentor Spalding Gray. But it\u2019s meant that the show has changed a lot over time. The first version was 60 minutes long, then it grew to 90 minutes. Now, it\u2019s 75 minutes. But there have been multiple versions of each one\u2026. I\u2019m also able to adjust certain sections to fit specific audiences. I\u2019ve even added a curling joke for my Canadian audiences, making fun of Americans\u2019 inability to understand the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodwin continues to work on the book F* Tinder<\/em> and, later this year, he said, \u201cI\u2019ll begin directing a web series of F* Tinder<\/em> set in San Francisco, and also a feature film of my previous show set in Los Angeles, called Total Novice<\/em>. That one has an even edgier narrative than F* Tinder<\/em>, if you can believe. Let\u2019s just say I was a \u2018nice Jewish boy\u2019 who went to Princeton and I was a very late bloomer who became fearless (and occasionally stupid) in my pursuit of things that I considered off limits when I was younger.\u201d<\/p>\n

F* Tinder<\/em> includes Jewish elements, said Rodwin, \u201cbecause they directly affected how I look at relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the show, he shares how, on one Shabbat, while chanting prayers he\u2019d said for 30 years, he stopped midway through the V\u2019ahavta, \u201cwhen I said, \u2018And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children.\u2019 It suddenly hit me that I didn\u2019t have children, and I couldn\u2019t fulfil this prayer in a literal way. I always thought eventually I would. But, at 45, when I read that, I fell silent, contemplating how I\u2019d lived my romantic life in such a way that I was childless. And what it meant for me. And what I should be doing with the woman I was in love with. And it directed my next choice in how that relationship went.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodwin shared another touching, and Jewish, element of his show.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe woman I fell in love with told me she could tell I was falling for her and I shouldn\u2019t do that because she\u2019d already decided we weren\u2019t going to work out in the long term, and she didn\u2019t want to hurt me. So, she told me to build a wall around my heart, or she wouldn\u2019t see me again\u2026. I agreed to do so because I was afraid if I told her the truth, that I was already hopelessly in love, I\u2019d never see her again. Now, I\u2019m not a biblical scholar, but the next morning a piece of Torah came to my mind, out of the blue, while she lay sleeping next to me. Deuteronomy 30:6 \u2013 I\u2019d studied it eight years earlier with Rabbi [Sharon] Brous and I didn\u2019t understand it, so it stuck in my mind. The phrase, \u2018You must circumcise your heart … so that you may live,\u2019 baffled me. But, that morning, it suddenly made sense to me, and I decided I had to circumcise my heart and careen it against the wall around her heart until I either broke through or I broke. And people can come see the show, to discover the surprising ending.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
In Magical Mystery Detour, Gemma Wilcox explores the detours that happen in life and how we can find and trust our own centre. (photo from Fringe)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are many twists and turns in Magical Mystery Detour (Studio 1398)<\/em><\/strong> by Gemma Wilcox. Set in the United Kingdom in 2012, the action is prompted \u201cby a letter from her dead mother, [and] the protagonist, Sandra, and her dog, Solar, take an unexpected car journey from London to Land\u2019s End, Cornwall, at a pivotal and sensitive time in her life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Created in the summer of 2012, Magical Mystery Detour<\/em> premi\u00e8red at the Boulder, Colo., Fringe Festival that year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a semi-autobiographical piece, heavily based on aspects of my life at that time,\u201d Wilcox told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cI wrote this show very shortly after the death of my mother and the ending of a very significant love relationship with a man I thought I would marry and have children with. It was inspired by the tender and vulnerable process of dealing with and letting go of my mother\u2019s death, the getting over and releasing this powerful love relationship, as well as some of my magical journeys through the sacred, beautiful landscape in the southwest of the U.K.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe show reflects some of the themes I was fascinated by and exploring at that time in my life,\u201d she continued, \u201csuch as learning how to trust and surrender to the detours that happen in life, when we think our life is going in a certain direction, but then it dramatically changes. I was also interested in exploring how we can find and trust our own centre when those we love are not there anymore, and when we feel lost or that life is too chaotic or not going the direction we want it to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilcox was born and raised in London, and moved to the United States in 2001. She has been based in Boulder since 2004. \u201cI moved to the U.S. to explore yoga and embodiment practices, was in the Shakespeare Company in Austin, Tex., for a couple years, and found my theatrical\/creative family in Boulder, as well as touring across the U.S. and Canadian Fringe festival circuit every summer for the past 11 years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Magical Mystery Detour<\/em> is one of a handful of shows that Wilcox and director Elizabeth Baron have worked on together. In creating it, said Wilcox, Baron was incredible, advising \u201cme on how to stay both open and vulnerable as a performer, whilst also staying protected and safe and able to show the many shades and subtleties of a character.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilcox writes comedy-dramas. \u201cI find that it is highly important to balance the \u2018light\u2019 material with the \u2018darker\u2019 material, humour with seriousness \u2013 for me as a performer, and also for the audiences,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is easier to receive and digest more poignant or shadowy material when juxtaposed in appropriate moments with humour and lightness. Humour is a huge aspect of my work \u2013 humour that comes from identifiable and sometimes embarrassing situations or honest admissions.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the full Fringe lineup, visit vancouverfringe.com<\/a>. The festival runs to Sept. 16.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Naomi Vogt performs in Big Sister, written by her real-life sister, Deborah Vogt. (photo from Fringe) The Vancouver Fringe Festival has started and there are (at least) a few shows that readers should try to fit in around the High Holidays. Jewish community members Deborah and Naomi Vogt, David Rodwin and Gemma Wilcox are presenting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[8343,6205,1242,8344,218,2436,6208],"class_list":["post-30024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-david-rodwin","tag-deborah-vogt","tag-fringe-festival","tag-gemma-wilcox","tag-judaism","tag-naomi-vogt","tag-theatre"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}