Walking Fish Theatre's "Three Wishes'

I don't ordinarily to do much Fringe-cruising, since I'm usually involved in a production of my own. But a free evening took me to Kensington's Walking Fish Theatre for an original production by "Ari Flamingo" (i.e., Gerald van Wilgen): Three Wishes, a farce about sex and repression in the '50s, loosely based on the soft-porn best-seller, Fifty Shades of Grey.

It's a spirited soufflé, acted and directed (by Stan Heleva) with verve and (not to put too fine a point on it) candor. It's also a refreshing reminder of the Fringe's original mission: to provide a showcase for local theater talent in low-cost, offbeat productions that offered fun and (decidedly adult) games.

This is not to say that the Walking Fish doesn't do more conventionally full-length work. Heleva's credits also include Entertaining Mr. Sloane, Adventures in the Skin Trade and an adaptation of Brecht. Through intricate blocking and split-second timing, he uses his theater's intimate space to generate a good deal of action, and his performers throw themselves into the spirit of the occasion.

Art of firing

Cornelia Jennings (Michelle Pauls) is a buttoned-up junior executive at a staid firm whose owner has suddenly died, leaving it to a madcap relative whose arrival is anticipated with apprehension by the staff— notably Cornelia's boss, Mr. Glashard (John Burmaster), who has already learned that Cornelia is about to be promoted and will soon be his superior. This is of course the end of Glashard's world as Nature intended it; but, good company man that he is, Glashard huffily attempts to adjust.

The year is 1952, a time when no one quits his job— that is, his post— this, too, being Nature's way. Glashard does release a little of his frustration by firing the louche janitor, Javier (Matt Shell), who has attracted Cornelia's eye.

You get a little of the sense of Mitt Romney's "I like to fire people" in this scene— not by accident I am sure. In an age when people are fired by computer, termination has become a lost art— one that Glashard clearly savors and Mitt, as it seems, would like to revive.

Underemployed Id

Javier soon returns, though, in the guise of a plumber, and this time Cornelia's interest is franker. She is egged on by a sprite-like alter ego (Sarah Braun), who vamps Javier on Cornelia's behalf. The three wishes Cornelia grants Javier bring the proceedings to their, if you'll pardon the pun, climax, and the appearance of the new mystery owner caps them.

Glashard, you'll be happy to learn, doesn't get fired, nor does anyone else. Unlike Romney, it's all just a fantasy.

As Cornelia, Michelle Pauls displays impressive vocal as well as dramatic range, and Sarah Braun (billed as her "Inner Voice") is spot-on as an underemployed Id. Matt Shell's beefcake turn is brought off with insouciance and aplomb, and John Burmaster brings out pathos in the blustery Glashard.

The 20th Century may well be remembered as the century when men invented the atomic bomb and women discovered the female orgasm. Which would have the greater explosive potential is still up for, you might say, grabs.