Rogue tales

You'll find performances from the Broadway-ready to the truly bizarre.

The Fresno Bee

(Updated Friday, March 11, 2005, 8:07 AM)

There are three words that warm the heart of any Rogue Performance Festival organizer:

Standing room only.

Lisa Repasky on Saturday night arrived at the Rogue Cafe behind Veni Vidi Vici, took one look at the throng exiting Lisa Kao and David Aus' show and the 70 or so people lined up to catch Jaguar Bennett's comedy act, and knew she needed to put on her organizer hat.

"I'd better do some crowd control," said Repasky, the festival's publicity coordinator. First came a line for those holding Rogue Ready passes, a festival pass that allows ticket-holders first shot at seats before the general rabble. Then she started counting seats. At $3 a pop, they went fast. Soon the tiny "cafe," an oddly shaped tented space crammed into Veni's back patio, was packed. Repasky had to turn 30 people away.

Not all acts during the opening weekend of the Rogue were so crowded; 10 p.m. Saturday is a prime slot. But though many opening-night acts Friday didn't attract big audiences, things picked up throughout the weekend.

It's often that way with the Rogue, Fresno's nonjuried festival of independent performance and art that continues through Saturday. It's as if it takes people a couple of days to realize the full extent of what the festival offers. When they do get warmed up, the enthusiasm level is palpable.

And now, with the buzz building and a new crop of out-of-town performers arriving, the second weekend of the Rogue is kicking into high gear.

With 150 scheduled performances unfolding at eight official venues, it's impossible to catch every show. But with a top ticket price of $6 — and many acts priced at $3 — you can afford to experiment. A quintet of Bee staffers did just that. While not claiming to be comprehensive, we tried to focus on acts scheduled to perform both weekends so we could give readers our picks and pans. Check the updated Rogue schedule at roguefestival.com for times, venues and prices.

First of all, the best, period: "Rap Canterbury Tales," written and performed by rapper-scholar Baba Brinkman (yes, that's his real name — sort of — "Everyone calls me that, my mom, my dad, professors"; no relation to "Baba Goes Ballistic," though). What sounds like a gimmick or just a bad idea is in fact an astonishing retelling of some of Chaucer's classic tales performed in a rap so mesmerizing it'll have your head spinning. Chances are good you'll want to catch it again, just so you can believe you saw it the first time. Would stand out on any New York stage.

Best Nick Drake imitation: If the moody, introspective folk-rocker is your cup of tea, have it with some honey and lemon at Kien Lim's "More Songs from London" show. Lim's entrancing vocals wrap around love songs both sweet and sour, but always in the key of mellow. Give the amiable Lim some extra props for showing up and supporting numerous other Rogue acts.

Worst venue to stage a dance performance: the Rogue Cafe on the Veni Vidi Vici patio. Organizers have to find some way of elevating the stage in this cozy but awkwardly laid out space; it doesn't matter so much if you can see the feet of a stand-up comedian, say, but it makes a big difference when you're watching the full-bodied motions of a belly dance troupe.

Best husband-and-wife act: Tony and Aileen Imperatrice's "Compositions for Canvas." Many works of art have been created from music, Tony Imperatrice notes, but he and his wife, Aileen, turn that ap- proach on its head by creating art (hers) to music (his). Tony gave Aileen his music with no titles or explanations, yet when Aileen completed her paintings, the two discovered that in most cases, they both thought of the same things while working separately. Must be that husband-and-wife thing.

Best use of toilet paper: Thanks to Blake Jones' daughter Chelsea, Mallory Moad was mummified in toilet paper by two more-than-willing audience participants (who proceeded to argue the merits of two- vs. three-ply throughout). Moad said: "I am wrapped in toilet paper, and I am gorgeous." Then she was duct-taped at the direction of artist Enrique Lopez, in a statement about censorship that featured cue cards, confetti, patriotic music and screaming. Who knows what she'll do this weekend in her Daredevil Kitchen? Find out at "That Thing With the Cell Phone."

About those no-shows: A certain amount of flux is expected in a fringe festival like this. But out-of-town performer Jay Martin, set to appear in an anticipated act about historical figure Upton Sinclair, missed two shows the first weekend. He waited until just minutes before his second show, at Ashtree Studio, was to begin before cancelling. What happened to "The show must go on"?

Best reality show: Tim Ereneta is droll, funny and original in his one-man sketch, "Happy Endings are Overrated: The Life and Times of Prince Charming." Learn the real dirt about trying to climb Rapunzel's hair, life as a frog and other behind-the-scenes looks at the fairy-tale life. Unfortunately, Ereneta isn't returning for the second weekend, but he lives and performs in the Bay Area, and you can always bug festival director Marcel Nunis to invite him back next year.

Best Jewish Elvis impersonator: The five-member improvisational comedy team known as the Irregular Theater Company features an odd array of characters. The Jewish Elvis trades jokes with a saucy ex-nun, an aging film star, a not-so-holy preacher and Arnold Schwarzenegger's brother. These odd characters improvise jokes using suggestions from the audience. Their material is built around a fictional telethon to raise enough money to buy a lamp a new shade. Right now its bulbs are naked. At last count, the shade tote board was up to $3.87.

Best argument for recycling: The local high school performers who make up the All Too Real Players turn a couple of small shirts, two pairs of miniature tennis shoes, caps, a tennis ball, small basket, spatula and a few other pieces of junk into the characters for their puppet performance.

Performers dress in all black. That makes them the coolest men (and women) in black since Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.

The group rewrote their show just weeks before the Rogue Festival. They have included a very moving story about the lives changed and lost after a large tidal wave.

Who needs to make the Statue of Liberty disappear? Go ahead. Look closely at what Bryan Odd is doing. The star of the show he calls "Magician So Amazing He Amazes Himself" does close-up magic.

That means there isn't room for smoke or lights or mirrors to help him create his illusions. All the magician's tricks include everyday objects from balloons to fresh fruit.

Be careful if he asks you to pick a card. Even the impossible becomes very possible.

Best act to take a partner to: With eight vignettes lasting just a few minutes each, the topic is the driving point in the one-act "Opposites Attract" while the participants merely serve as the vehicle to get us to writer Bruce Kane's desired destination.

Kane has his theories about what we want from our partners, and while they're mostly rehashes of "Men are from Mars …"-style philosophies, it's still fun to see local actors look foolish for doing and saying what most of us have thought at one point or another.

The comic scenes range from parable — a man and woman go through an evolution of a courtship and relationship in the span of one night at a bar, climaxing with the line: "Just tell me what you want and I will withhold it" — to the absurd — a married couple's commitment is tested only by their Tuesday night trysts with other partners. The show has an intimate feel that is engaging, and its 45-minute running time never allows it to be overbearing.

Best comeback after a slow start: For the first half of the Big Weird Pop Ensemble, the show wasn't living up to its name. There wasn't much weird.

There was just Mallory Moad playing circus master to a couple of bands and a belly dancer. Entertaining, sure; but let's face it, in the Tower District, that's business as usual. But then Blake Jones came out with his theremin.

Hello, weird.

Jones played the role of musical magician, making sounds without even touching anything, just waving his hand in front of the theremin's metallic bar.

The show ended with an 11-person ensemble performance by the four musical acts — Blake Jones and the Trike Shop, They Can't Hardly Playboys, 2,000-Pound Bees and the Ethereal Theremin Ensemble — and belly dancer Annette Federico.

It was surf guitar meets western fiddle. Standard pop fare meets the shaking and gyrating of a belly dancer. And, of course, there was Jones and his theremin. It was everything the show needed to live up to its name. It was big. It was weird. And it was fun.

Best use of his NC-17 rating: Jaguar Bennett likes himself. Really likes himself. In an almost inappropriate manner. But that's OK, because the stand-up comic asks his audience to "come drunk" in hopes they will like him, too. Either that, or because he figures you won't mind the racy content after a cocktail or four.

The material could cover two 45-minute routines, but his problem is that he only has one. While Bennett speaks mostly about relationships — which he defines as "when you're dating and you don't have a clear exit strategy" — his thoughts on the current state of American politics need a more fluid transition from the road he initially takes his audience down.

And some of his material is dated. He morphs into a Tyler Durden monologue and later references Janet Jackson, a topic so last year. But at three bucks, you'll find some laughs. If you go, get there early, and buy a drink.

Best time for the fire marshall to stay away: When the crisp and well-rehearsed members of Tanjora Tribal Bellydance perform the celebrated fire dance in the little Veni Vidi Vici tent. Where's the closest exit?

But seriously, these women, under the direction of Lydia Fortner, are a tightly knit group with a high level of virtuosity. With their exotic costumes, interesting routines (love the sword) and cultural allusions (their show is inspired by the ghawazee dancers of Egypt), it's a relaxing and enlightening experience.

If you're a substitute teacher, you can't miss it: Steven Karwoski's smooth and funny one-person show, "Adventures of a Substitute Teacher," from Other Fish to Fry Productions, recounts the traumas of being a long-term sub in the Los Angeles Unified School District. From the evil vice principal (the picture he paints of her on a motorized scooter suggests a cross between a bloated bureaucrat and a Nazi field marshall) to the politically incorrect depiction of the special-education students for whom he's responsible, this is a warts-and-all look at education — and often very funny.

Best way to make the Rogue schedule better for next year: List the performances by name of the show, not the producing organization. If we could tell you how much time we wasted trying to figure out who the heck Sage Collaborative was.

Members of the Big Weird Pop Ensemble perform a surf set as part of the Rogue Festival. Tomas Ovalle / The Fresno Bee

Will Albritton, Rick Bentley, Marty Berry, Donald Munro and Mike Osegueda contributed to this story.