Reviews

The creators of previous Fringe hits The Bible (Abridged) and The Movies (Abridged) are back, this time minus their usual parenthetical. Despite it’s critical acclaim last year I was disappointed with The Movies, having found the abridged cinema spoofs to be generally flat and earnest. I thought I’d give the group a second chance with Killing Kevin Spacey, based on the assumption that this year they were creating a narrative themselves, rather than just finding excuses to reenact their favourite cinematic moments.

This quirky navel-gazing comedy from writer/director Maya Rabinovitch profiles an ensemble of neurotic characters using the stresses of air travel as a catalyst to extract their inner secrets and demons. Fragmented monologues reveal the characters true selves in bits and pieces, leaving plenty of room for imaginative and visually attractive staging to compliment the sharp dialogue. Universally vibrant performances from the ensemble work hand in hand with dramatic lighting and a revivalist soundscape to create a surreal dissection of our hyper-anxious world. A polished and colourful work that elicits plenty of laughs along the way.

If the title of Sean Cullen’s mini-tour smacks of straight-faced obviousness, it should. Unlike some star-driven one man shows, there is no hokey pretense on which his presentation hangs, only an opening voice over that is as dramatic as it is obtuse: a fair description of most of Cullen’s material. The musical comedian, who recently graced the stage of Toronto’s Panasonic Theatre, doesn’t operate on a signature theme or structure, but lets his mind wander into whatever direction it may, only brought back into line for his stage performance by the necessity of segueing into one of his catchy and off-beat songs.

Putting ideas ahead of aesthetics when making art can be an interesting exercise. This kind of conceptual art tends to provoke questions about the nature of art, about what makes for good art, and about the boundaries of form and genre. But, if the resulting artwork doesn’t come up with many good answers to the questions it asks, then one has to ask what the point of the exercise is. If an artist isn’t in it for the aesthetics, and doesn’t do a great job of addressing the big questions either, then what is the value of such art? This is what I was left wondering after watching Cabane by Fortier Danse-Création.