I saw this on the Final Saturday, and it was alost sold out, and had the most audience in a show I've seen this Fringe. Though, it seemed to be family and friends night.
The Steampunk angle, I guess one could define Steampunk as imagining the past to have more advanced technology than it did, is what drew me in. They do play that out in the costumes, and the quest of the main character.
But the blurb also says this is Commedia Dell'arte which I still don't completely know the meaning of, but now have a better idea of. The San Francisco Mime Troupe is said to have originally been based on Commedia Dell'arte, and I've seen them twice. Once in a park in San Francisco in 1980, then here in Montreal when they performed in November of 1982 (and I finally after some years of wondering where it is, found my San Francisco Mime Troupe tshirt, though it's too small now). I can see the similarity in form between those shows and "Who is..."A level of comedy, and the actors at times address the audience.
Anyway, it's fairly old form of theatre, so this show is somewhat different (not unique, the form has appeared at the Fringe at least once, likely more times), but souped up with the notion of Steampunk. There was some talk of rivalry between this and another show earlier in the week, but really, there's no comparison. "How We Went to mars" isn't exotic theatre, but the science fiction angle is important. Here, the Steampunk is just a way to dress up the actors, the type of story is quite old, as is the form of performance. This one does come across as theatre types wanting to try out a different form, rather than science fiction types wanting to put on a show.
