Greetings, Fringe-denizens.

There’s always a good side and a bad side to everything, isn’t there? As an International artist, one of the good sides is that coming over to Canada from England is a huge adventure. A sort of working holiday. At Dreamscape, our whole approach to the Edmonton Fringe is: if we manage to cover our costs, then we’re happy. After all, we’ve had a great time, in a great country, doing what we enjoy. What more could we ask for? In my case, it is also the only way I can possibly afford to visit my Father, who has lived here since 1968 (when my parents decided they couldn’t share the same continent!). Sadly, an Actor’s wages doesn’t generally stretch to social visits to Canada (family or no family), and so for Tina and myself to get over here…well, Thank You Edmonton Fringe!!

But on the down side: there is a huge amount of organisation involved in getting the show, cast, props, costumes etc out here. We can’t really afford air freight, so we try to make sure that everything fits into a suitcase…and within the weight restriction of the relevant airline! Costumes are usually not a problem. In “Red Wine and Canvas” we have no fewer than 14 costumes! That filled up most of our suitcase allowance. It’s a good thing it’s summer over here, as we would have had no room for winter clothes in our luggage. As it is, I’ll be walking around in sandals no matter what turn the weather takes here in Edmonton!

But sometimes there are items which won’t fit into a suitcase…or just can’t be brought over. Again, in “Red Wine and Canvas” we use two big self-standing picture frames. Not practical to fly over. Luckily, our Canadian musician is also a dab-hand at DIY, and so was able to build them over here in time for our arrival. But even that has a certain absurdity: we have performed this show in England, Croatia, and now Canada, and have had to build the frames anew in EACH country! In fact, while Bruce was building our frames here in Canada, I was doing the exact same job in a small Istrian village in Croatia!

But frames are relatively simple. More difficult was the Dagger prop we use in “Full of Sound and Fury”. Strange to say, airlines don’t like you to carry weapons these days, even prop daggers in the hold luggage. We didn’t even try. As a result, Dreamscape is now the proud owner of no fewer than FOUR different daggers, in four different countries: New Zealand, UK, Croatia and now, Canada. Whyte Knight proved to be the source for our Canadian dagger. Vicious looking thing, but actually quite harmless, as it has no edge to it, and our ever-helpful technician D’Arcy, ground off the point. Even the clumsiest actor would be hard pressed to injure themselves with it now.

Overcautious? Well, here’s a little cautionary (but true) tale of 7 years ago. There was, at that time, a Canadian sketch comedy troupe called “The Imponderables” on the circuit. I would occasionally do a cameo with them. One of their sketches involved a rifle: only a cheap plastic toy rifle. Nothing dangerous. However, this was 2002, and the western world was still in the grip of Security-Fever. A few weeks after the Fringe season had ended, I got an e-mail from one of the troupe, describing their adventures and finshing: “oh…and by the way. Never. I repeat NEVER, try to travel with a toy rifle in your luggage during a security scare!”. Apparently, they were at the airport for HOURS!

Art. Life. It’s all one, isn’t it?

A la prochaine!

FERNANDO

Tags: Croatia, Edmonton, England, Fringe Festival, International, New Zealand, travel

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 at 12:58 pm and is filed under General, Shows, Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.