Queer shows at the fringe are a mixed bag

Sally Lives Here

Sally Kemp is making way for yet more development in East Vancouver by packing up the household that she shares with her Aunt Phoebe.  With the bulldozers at the gates, Kemp is forced to deal with her aunt's possessions, sometimes interrupted by the music Phoebe loudly plays from upstairs.  It is almost as if Phoebe knows what is happening even though Sally has put off actually telling her.

As both writer and performer Lynna Goldhar Smith connects easily with her own material, talking about life with Phoebe and her partner Marcia and the memories that the house contains.  But it is when she talks about her past life as part of an up-and-coming country band that Smith really shines; as she describes the tragic circumstances that end life on the road with her band "Mustang Sally", Smith's heartache is real.

There is a wonderful melancholy that runs through Sally Lives Here and while Sally is forced to realize that it may be easy to live in your past, you can't stop time (or progress).  But there is still hope, as she sits thinking about what is to come,  she is still reminded of the past: "I'm sure the ground will remember the roses."

Visit http://www.vancouverfringe.com for showtimes and tickets.

Burning BrothelS: SeX And Death In Nevada

I admit that I don't go the the Fringe to be educated but with Katherine Glover's Burning Brothels: Sex and Death in Nevada I walked out of Origins Coffee Company a little wiser (and thorougly entertained).

A cynic telling love stories in 2010, this year Glover returns to tell some of the more colorful stories about prostitution in Nevada.  From 1989 through more recent history, Glover has uncovered some wonderful nuggets, not unlike the men who discovered gold in Nevada and from which modern-day brothels would eventually evolve.

Glover is at her best when she simply tells the stories of the people that populate the sometimes strange history of prostitution in Nevada.  For the most part, Glover is careful to stay away from making any moral judgement around prostitution, but by end of her 55 minute history lesson she is clear that the Nevada sex workers deserve protection.

Both funny and informative, Burning Brothels, is a colourful history of the world's oldest profession.

Visit http://www.vancouverfringe.com for showtimes and tickets.

Phone Whore

Cameryn Moore is a gifted writer and performer.  As a real-life phone sex operator, Moore has crafted her one-woman show to allow us to listen in on her side of the conversations during her calls with what she calls her "pervs".  She sees herself as "just another sex toy", providing a much needed service for the men that call her.

In her living room set, Moore chats easily with the audience in between the sex calls that grow progressively more taboo.  As the sex moves from the rather mundane to a gang-bang and finally to the darker realms of incest and pedophilia, Moore posits that by providing the callers with an outlet for their sexual fantasies she is helping to ensure they don't act upon them in real life.  These are, after all, just fantasies and there is no crime in fantasies.

There is no doubt Moore is being deliberately controversial with her show.  She forces her audience to think about where the line should be drawn when it comes to sexual fantasies.  For me, Moore definitely crossed that line in her final story but I can at least admire the way in which she helps us across.

With its subject matter, two walk-outs and my own partner wishing he had followed suit, there is no doubt Phone Whore will be the talk of the fringe.

http://www.vancouverfringe.com for showtimes and tickets.