by AMY BARRATT

Recently, I was asked my opinion of what kind of play works at a Fringe festival. I should have answered with three words: Star Wars Survivor. Actually, I never saw Purple 9 Productions' show of that name when it played our Fringe in 2003, but that title is the bomb. As you might suppose, this collaboration between Ace Lopes and Aaron George cast Darth Vader and his wacky intergalactic friends as contestants on TV's most skin-damaged reality show, Survivor.

Pop culture reigns at the Fringe, and Purple 9 obviously gets that. Star Wars Survivor was popular with audiences here in its hometown and on the road at Fringes in Toronto, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Victoria and Vancouver. The company's playful irreverence has also been seen in a Godfather-style King Lear and the comic-book-based Cobra: The Musical. This hardworking young troupe has done straighter stuff too, including David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross and school tours of modern-translation Shakespeare. Now, the offbeat minds behind Purple 9 are taking on one of the silliest texts of all time, Christopher Durang's Beyond Therapy, to be performed starting tonight at St. George's Church downtown.

What ties all of these projects together, according to producer Lopes, is a sense of fun. "If we have a mandate at all, it's to do what we like to do, and to give local actors an opportunity," he says. They also choose projects with someone other than the habitual theatregoer in mind. There's a desire to get people who don't normally go to theatre to go to theatre. And that, says Lopes, means doing shows that are "more fun than highbrow or socially relevant."

Lopes came to theatre by an unconventional path. Before he started Purple 9 about three years ago, he was the owner of legendary comic book emporium Empire Comics. He was also an events promoter, notably organizing the Star Wars convention held in Montreal in '99. Before that, he was a musician touring with various bands. The comic book store provided Lopes with enough of a nest egg to start up a theatre company, not a typically lucrative endeavour. He currently works full-time on Purple 9 business and makes a living from it.

On why he and director Aaron George chose Beyond Therapy - the story of two deeply neurotic and over-analyzed singles, Bruce and Prudence, as their next project, Lopes says simply, "It's one of our favourite plays." They're doing it in the humid heart of summer because most of the rest of their year is taken up by school tours.

Durang, who also wrote Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You and, more recently, Betty's Summer Vacation, wrote Beyond Therapy in 1981, which makes it a period piece by now. The original Broadway production (1982) starred impossibly young versions of John Lithgow and Dianne Wiest. Imagine a Saturday Night Live sketch written by Samuel Beckett and you're getting close to Durang's screwball-comedy-of-the-absurd style.

The Fringe figured out a long time ago that the way to make a successful theatre festival is to attract the non-theatregoing audience. Purple 9 carries that concept over into everything they do, and it's working.

Beyond Therapy, Aug. 5–7 and 12–14, 8 p.m., at St. George's Church (1101 Stanley), 816-5516, $10

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