Sin City: Carnies ~ video and press
Read articles by Janis La Couvee and The Martlet reviews below!
Also featured in Times Colonist Around Town photo spread; Radio interviews on CBC Radio "All Points West" and CFAX "Eye on the Arts"
Also featured in Times Colonist Around Town photo spread; Radio interviews on CBC Radio "All Points West" and CFAX "Eye on the Arts"
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A sinful city of Carnies
posted by Mary Ellen Green 10/12/2011 12:00 AM Calling all freaks and geeks... step right up for one of the most thrilling, sordid, astonishingly inconceivable shows you’ll ever see — right here at the Victoria Event Centre each Tuesday night. Sin City the Live Improvised Soap Opera presents season two: Carnies, a completely improvised 24-episode serial exploring the lives and exploits of a roving 1930s sideshow, presented by Broad Theatrics with live direction by Ian Ferguson. “The carnies we’re going for are different than what you’d imagine at the circus in the Big Top with the elephants,” says core cast member Kirsten Van Ritzen. After the depression hit, most circuses went broke and the sideshow with its human acts and skilled tricks took centre stage, she explains. Each week . . .the cast and audience come together to find out what will happen in the lives of these curious characters that may include Ava the Snake Lady, The Mesmerizing Mentalist, The Faceless Man, the Celestial Hypnotist, dancing Cootch Girls, the Falling Wallendas and assorted barkers, rousties, stooges and marks. “We never tell anyone who they’ll play,” says Van Ritzen, whose Ava the Snake Lady is “half viper and half vamp.” “We all do some research and come with an idea. We don’t interact with each other until the onstage preview. We don’t want any perception of cheating, so if we develop a back story for our character, we don’t tell each other.” With his thick stature, Morgan Cranny is a perfect fit for a strongman, but it’s a character he’s already played with Atomic Vaudeville. “I don’t like to repeat myself. I’m pretty good at a Russian accent, so I decided to go with a Dmitri, a mysterious Russian roustabout. I didn’t want to develop an act right away, and as a roustabout he has access to everything and everyone.” The cast includes some of Victoria’s most impressive improv artists and comedians, including Cranny and Van Ritzen, as well as Wes Borg, Christina Patterson, Chris Gabel, Robert Conway, Karen Brelsford and Alan Penty, plus a slew of guest artists like Andrew Bailey, David MacPherson, Christine Upright, Charlie de Pape and Miss Rosie Bitts. The musical score and songs are improvised by multi-instrumentalist Grayson Walker, and the lighting and sound by Theodore Sherman. “The music is another character in the show,” says Van Ritzen. “It really embiggens the show,” Cranny says with a chuckle...“It’s like being an editor on the fly,” says Van Ritzen. “We wouldn’t want to do the show without [Ferguson], he’s a brilliant puppet-master.” M |
Opening Night: Sin City the Live Improvised Soap Opera – Season TWO: Carnies
November 1, 2011 By @lacouvee condensed Well the joint was hopping last Tuesday night at the Victoria Event Centre as the good citizens of Victoria came out in full force for opening night of the very popular Sin City A Live Improvised Soap Opera - Season Two: Carnies. The actors in Sin City are well known to local audiences, having performed with Atomic Vaudeville, Giggling Iguana, Launch Pad, and other companies on stages all around town... What I didn’t realize was that narrator/director Ian Ferguson and his wife, Kirsten Van Ritzen, are no strangers to this type of fast paced, multi-character, vignette driven, completely improvised show. Starting originally in Edmonton with Die-Nasty (now in its 21st season) in the early 1990s then moving to Toronto with Sin City in the early 2000s, they came slowly westward in 2010 to Victoria. Ferguson is a brilliant director. . . he calls them up onstage to perform in one of several locations – the Boneyard, a trailer, the tent, a field. What follows from there is the work of pure improvisation, and pure genius. Our Carnies have been abandoned near Esterhazy Saskatchewan by the Claresholm Brothers Carnival without a working jalopy. The top acts are gone, leaving Ava Garter the Snake Lady, Tallulah the Sharpshooter, Count Christoff the Amazing Mentalist, Alexei Kalashnikov the Rousty, Francois Lapideux the Human Statue, Purdy Durvert the Celestial Hypnotist, Hans Versagen the Faceless Man, and Dolores Delisle the Cookie. They are joined by local physician Dr. Thomas Brighton and Orville O’Donnell the Greenie. . . It’s fast, funny and completely entrancing to watch actors at the top of their game, veterans of vaudeville and improv, as they hurl themselves willing into situations demanding complete trust in the abilities of their fellow performers. Whatever you thought you knew about improv – throw it out the window, erase it from your memory, and grab your tickets quick before other theatre patrons realize just what a treasure we now have in the city. Disclaimer: I was offered a complimentary ticket to attend opening night. I was not paid to write a review nor was I required to do so. As always, I retain editorial control over all the content published on this blog. http://janislacouvee.com/opening-night-sin-city-a-live-improvised-soap-opera-season-two-carnies/ |
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LA COUVEE: IT'S MY LIFE
(excerpt) It’s time to bid farewell to the second season of Sin City: the live improvised soap opera, as the Carnies wrap up all the loose threads of the season. ... Despite my best intentions I only managed to attend opening night and the penultimate episode last Tuesday. There were many new (to me) characters including Charles Lapadieux Robert Conway (with a delicious and remarkably accurate French accent), a very pregnant Sparky McGee Amanda Lisman and a knock-em-out Delores Delisle Christine Upright . Thankfully the program insert provided me with enough history to understand the antics onstage. The actors (witty, profane and very funny) have enriched their characters considerably since October and provided situations that will require a fair degree of ingenuity to resolve next week. ... My original impressions from October still stand: "It’s fast, funny and completely entrancing to watch actors at the top of their game, veterans of vaudeville and improv, as they hurl themselves willing into situations demanding complete trust in the abilities of their fellow performers. Whatever you thought you knew about improv – throw it out the window, erase it from your memory, and grab your tickets quick before other theatre patrons realize just what a treasure we now have in the city." http://janislacouvee.com/sin-city-live-improvised-soap-opera-season-two-carnies-season-finale/ |
The Martlet
Sin City gets populated Improvised carnie soap opera draws a crowd Nov 01, 2011 - Vanessa Annand - condensed To properly review any sort of revue, I feel I must open with “Laydeeeeees and gentlemen! I give you ... 500 words on burlesque and body humour!” When the show in question contains a cast of carnies, this hawking sort of intro is almost a given. But it's impossible for me to phonetically emulate the phlegmy, Chewbacca-esque vowels of Ian Ferguson, the creator, announcer and director of the live, improvised soap opera Sin City: Carnies. . . . perhaps I'll leave the proud announcements to the practiced pros. The pros in Sin City are hardly A-listers in the world of carnivals. In fact, at the Oct. 25 premiere, these carnies found they'd been abandoned by their employers, the Claresholm Brothers, in a small Saskatchewan town. They're the dregs of the sideshow talent pool — a snake lady, a celestial hypnotist, a trick shooter, a roustie, a mentalist and a faceless man. Sure, there's a red-faced farmer and a windbag of a doctor hanging about, but they seem to be the only fans of the financially insolvent freaks. It doesn't help that the Great Depression is making its tough impression on folks everywhere. . . . show highlights included the trick rider, Tallulah (played by a surly Christina Patterson), riding piggyback on the farmer-turned-shill (Wes Borg) after discovering the Claresholm Brothers have absconded with her beloved horse, Lightning. The Snake Lady (Kirsten Van Ritzen) advised Tallulah that “Sometimes you've got no horse to get back up on, so you've just got to air out your scanties and think of something else.” Best of all, the carnies tried to rally their spirits by singing “I'll Fly Away,” while the shill screamed caterwauling harmony, scarred by his glimpse of the faceless man's visage. The one-liners are zingers, the carnies are zany, and the improvised musical accompaniment lends a period-appropriate zeitgeist to the piece. . . Judging from the crowd that turned up for the premiere, I'd arrive earlier than the 8 p.m. start and purchase tickets in advance . . . Even if you missed the premiere, Ferguson's booming summary of the show to date will get you on track and feeling as if you're under a big top, ready for anything. http://martlet.ca/martlet/article/sin-city-gets-populated/ |
