Fringetastic

I've found that trying to see a good show at the Fringe Festival is pretty hit and miss. Maybe i'm just old enough that i've pretty much seen it all and am tough to impress.

To be sure, I've seen some shows that were wildly inventive and hilarious, but i've seen way more that were “meh” at best, and irritating duds at worst. I don't think I can drink enough over my lifetime to ever fully blot out the memory of this one show that was deceptively billed as a comedy about... ok, I don't remember exactly what lies they wrote up to trick people into buying tickets... all I remember is that I had absolutely no inkling that I was sitting my sweaty arse down to squirm through some lame, opposite-of-funny feminist screed that was overly peppered with shouted slams against the “cockocracy!” The only grudging chuckle they were able to tease out of the crowd was when, in the midst of some trite monologue about the wonder of breasts, one of the actresses – excuse me – Brave Goddess Foes of the COCKOCRACY!!! pulled a hidden string that made the vegetable steamer thingeys attached to the bosom of her dress suddenly unfurl like odd metal flowers. If there was ever a compelling argument against politically-correct driven public funding of the arts, I tell ya, that interminable waste of time was IT.


But one regular event I will not miss is the drag races. Not only is it free and outdoors, it is always a ridiculous blast of ribald fun. First of all, much like someone stepping on a rake, taking a pie to the face, or farting loudly in church, there appears to be something primally and inherently funny about men acting goofy in women's clothing. And when the performers are all clever hams with no shame who know how to work a crowd; and when that crowd tends to be predominantly tipsy and rowdy and possibly in the heady preliminary stages of heat stroke, well, mayhem ensues.


Here's the deal: a team of fringe actors is pitted against a team of professional drag queens. Going head-to-head in pairs, they have to pull someone from the audience and give them a 1-minute “makeover”; then ride a tricycle through (or, typically, over) a set of cones;

prepare a cocktail of their own demented invention;


carry the cocktail on their crazy-high heels or platform shoes through the car tires to the tasting judge;

who either deems it ok, or undrinkable (in which case, in theory, they have to make a new drink...but even the cocktail made with pineapple juice, chocolate sauce, and mouthwash got the royal assent);


then take the stage for a lip-synching duel before receiving their scores from a panel of judges.


Through it all, Mado Lamotte, the grande dame of Montreal's drag cabaret scene, keeps up a steady stream of witty commentary and runs herd as things get progressively more loopy, with frisky contestants trying to raid the booze table or frontally assault cute guys in the audience, and with the judges veering off into nonsensical scores like the symbol for pi, or a drawing of a chicken on fire.
Aside from the fact that its just silly fun, what I especially love about the whole thing is that you've got parents with their kids, and old ladies, and your usual hipsters, and just whoever wanders in off the St. Laurent street sale, but everyone is completely accepting of the fact that there are some seriously hard-core cross-dressing fags up there, and when things get a little crude/risque, everybody just laughs and cheers as if its all just perfectly normal and fine and good, harmless fun. As it should be.