En Garde

On Friday, I went to an early evening show at the Fringe Festival entitled SwordPlay: A Play of Swords by a local sketch/improv troupe. This parody of the fantasy genre, mostly movies and video games, went over well for the large, enthusiastic crowd. The show's homages were quite apparent; the most influential being The Princess Bride. A grand-father tried to entertain his sick grand-daughter with an old classic. But in this case, instead of a beloved book, it was a video game from the 80s. Other nods included an extended chase scene with a masked pursuer, and a marriage overseen by an unintelligible clergy.

There were also winks to the musketeers with 3 buddy-knights, and various video game conventions. Every now and then, the music would shift to cheery 8-bit sounds and the performers would hold up cardboard cut-outs containing pixelated drawings to remind us that we were actually "watching" a game. The other big source of reference was Game of Thrones. There were over-the-top bloody but humorous fights, poisoning, and fatal banquets. But mostly in the character of Princess Pimpernel, who revealed herself to be more than a "Save Me Mario" damsel but rather some combination of Daenarys Targaryen and Arya Stark.

The performers were fun to watch and inventive in their use (and re-use) of props. And the play was short enough that the pastiches didn't grow tiresome. It could make a great kids play but the references may be too old to appeal to anyone under 30.