It's hard to believe that the San Francisco Fringe Festival was born just a decade ago. At its inception, the fest was a one-venue affair spanning a mere weekend and bringing in 450 audience members. Now, as the non-curated event is gracefully slung into double digits, one thing is certain: It has aged beautifully. Under the loving parentage of Exit Theatre directors Christina Augello and Richard Livingston, the Fringe now boasts 11 days, 50 different acts and an expected audience of 10,000. And what's more, the Fringe folk have just added a brand new theatre on Taylor Street--quite the impressive acquisition during a year when many local arts organizations had to consider selling their spaces, or a body part of equal value.
Sitting in the administrative office situated above the Exit, Augello and Livingston joke that the Fringe has become an animal with a life of its own. But the festival's remarkable maturation is a direct result of this dramatic duo's unfaltering devotion. Besides spending a good part of each year industriously preparing for the transformation of their beloved Exit Theatre complex into Fringe central, the pair simultaneously runs full seasons at the Exit's consistently booked spaces. Why are these 11 days still so important to the community? A sign above Augello's desk reads: "Art is one of the few things left worth doing." That explains a lot.
The Fringe has grown considerably over time. Apart from adding the Exit's brand new 75-seat space, the festival has also expanded its Bring-Your-Own-Venue category to allow longer, more technical shows. In fact, every year brings a new and improved Fringe that operates more swiftly than the last. But unlike the Fringe Fests in Canada, which receive plenty of citywide attention in major newspapers and on network TV, the festival here is lucky to get a handful of reviews--and likely to get a fair amount of grief from members of the mainstream media who dislike the non-juried format.
Augello tries not to be bothered by a little criticism. With great animation, she describes the Fringe as "Christmas theatre," speaking of its celebratory nature (one couple is reportedly spending their honeymoon here!), while alluding to the unique element of surprise that local theatre fans have always held dear. "The Fringe is as random as the art itself," says Augello with pride. "The creative risk-taking is what's so exciting."
Local Fringers agree with Augello, naturally, and express some concern for what she aptly refers to as the city's "designer art attitude" toward theatre.
"The attitude of the mainstream press is that the Fringe is just 'too strange'," injects actor Steven Patterson of Kaliyuga Arts, who, with partner John Sowle, returns to the Fringe for the fourth time. But it will take more than accusations of strangeness to stunt this pair's creativity. Sowle, who mainly directs, has found the Fringe to be an invaluable incubator for new ideas. Kaliyuga's latest piece, The Pilgrim Project--written by Dan Carbone--is about the haphazard conquest of the pilgrims. It was inspired by Sowle's distant relationship to a manservant on the Mayflower, and by the recent passing of much-admired Polish director Jerzy Grotowski, on whose technique the direction is based.
"The Fringe gives you the opportunity to work in ways you might not normally attempt," says Sowle, who gazes at Grotowski's book while Patterson stands nearby, fondling a foldout turkey. "Staging a 30-year story in an hour with nine people is definitely a challenge."
Theatre Au Naturel's Eve Smyth, a founding member of the Fringe committee, equally embraces the random design of the festival.
"Gamble, live a little," she says. "That's the only way you're going to have those happy accidents." Smyth's solo show What Big Teeth You Have marks her seventh year in the Fringe, and focuses on a Little Red Riding Hood who is tortured by the deconstruction of her own psyche.
Much of the beauty of the Fringe lies in its unpredictable, kaleidoscopic program. Besides seasoned vets, the festival draws fresh talent such as 24-year-old local performer Gabriel Diani, who is doing his first solo Fringe show this year called God Complex, a 40-minute Jonathan Swift-esque satire on organized religion.
The event also continues to entice eclectic performers from across the country. Multimedia performance artist Atomic Elroy of Chaos--TheatreArts in Colorado Springs returns for the fifth time with Interstate Zero--a series of character studies in the form of a Charlie Chaplin-inspired postmodern medicine show. "I used to go to the Telluride Film Festival," he says. "Now I skip that to perform in this."
Even hard-core New Yorkers, like Elisa DeCarlo, prefer the S.F. Fringe to the N.Y. Fringe for its tight-knit community feel. DeCarlo's ambitious, one-woman show Toasted is based on a true story about her online encounter with a pedophile who murdered his daughter. A perfect compliment to pilgrims, fairytales, gods and Chaplin, indeed.
Like all of the participants, DeCarlo is enraptured by the festival's diversity, and always looks forward to this annual, autumnal experience. As do we all.
Karen Macklin is a local arts writer, as well as a student of San Francisco State's graduate program in playwriting.