Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jun 30/00) - A film student and a theatre student return to Yellowknife for the summer.

That means when you attend Under the Midnight Sun, Yellowknife's mini-fringe festival at the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre, you're bound to be in for some theatrical experimentation.

Calling themselves Butt But Butt Productions -- hey, there's been stranger names, trust me -- Kirsten Carthew and Doug Richard bring you White Teeth.

The 30-minute multimedia piece tells the story of a "bored, boring man, a man overcome by instinct," explains Carthew.

It merges the best of what Carthew had been learning in her film program at Simon Fraser University with the best of what Richard has been learning at TooBa, a Vancouver school specializing in movement, mime and dance.

In the background, a film loop of a dog lot will run throughout the play, while in the foreground -- live on stage -- Richard will play the character of Edward.

"The film itself is a mini, comical documentary," says Carthew, as she describes the image: rows of little lots, each with a little house for a doggie.

The two compare it to suburbia.

"The film images the personality of the character, the exterior personality," adds Richard.

In fact, there are two characters in the play, outside Edward, who is bored and boring, and inside Edward, who knows and struggles.

Carthew defines a bored, boring man as one who "lacks positionality. He doesn't know his place in the world."

"He has no stand-point from which to express himself," says Richard.

"Empty of passion," adds Carthew.

"And on a monorythmic cycle." (As in: sleep, work, family interlude, sleep, work, family interlude, and so on).

The pair created White Teeth by departing from the physical aspects, and playing off Richard's movement, mime and dance work. Carthew wrote the text and directed.

The two promise their show will be entertaining and funny.

Wait, there's more

In addition to White Teeth, five other plays will run from July 5-8.

Brian Wainwright returns with another four plays in 45 minutes. He will direct five actors: Tate Clark, Lynne LaPorte, Samm Merritt, Moira Vane and Kerry Walsh.

B.S.D.P. Productions, aka director Amanda Dei will direct Mari Croizier (better known as NACC's technical director) and Kenton Brownridge.

This troupe will stage With or Without You by Luigi Jannuzzi -- "a comedy that puts 'fun' back into dysfunction."

Angela Carruthers, who directed A Midsummer Night's Dream along Frame Lake Trail last summer, brings you Taking Liberties by Dave Carley.

Starring Lorne Gushue, Mark Seebaran, Rosanna Strong, Kirsten Watt and Ken Woodley, Taking Liberties spans five decades in one city, by examining critical moments in the lives of five people.

Gillian Dawe and Simon Taylor perform Present Day Courtship. A self-directed play by an unknown author, this piece is about "one guy, one girl...a little tension and a lot of romance."

Finally, the famed Someone Wicked of last year's Something Wicked, returns...with Something Wicked. This was terribly wicked last year, folks, and was then and is now, "directed by a wicked person with wicked intentions."

Don't miss these six performances. Catch them all, catch them quick. Every last one is superbly affordable.