Reviews

  • 2 Ruby Knockers, 1 Jaded Dick is performed by actor and playwright Tim Motley from Melbourne, Australia.

    The lights went on and a rumpled sort of Humphrey Bogart, in the requisite raincoat, appeared. Smoking a cigarette, and talking like someone out of a B detective movie -  in both dialect and dialogue. I think if it had only been this, and our “Dick” had only told a few jokes I would have been satisfied. But there was more – much more.

    Tim Motley – ( insert your joke here ________) - the only actor in the play (other than a few...

  • The Chronic Single’s Handbook, is a one man show written and performed by Randy Ross. The one-hour show has been featured at venues around New England and at fringe theater festivals in the U.S., Canada, and Edinburgh, Scotland.

    Fringe veteran Randy Ross provides his perspective on how men feel about sex, love, marriage, and online dating. The Chronic Single’s Handbook (which Ross also sells as a separate book) sounds a lot like a diary of 56 year old, never married, unemployed sex traveller.

    In 2007, Ross has been laid off from work and has received a large severance...

  • Musings about being an actor before an audition for “cashier #2”, Vancouver-based film and television actor Morgan Brayton reflects on her adolescent ideas of being a successful actor and all her apparently “golden ticket” opportunities in Give It Up.

    The show is filled with moments that make you laugh because they are true. Like the second-hand embarrassment you feel when Morgan shares with the audience how she has failed all her prepubescent dreams of having a spin off series, sharing the cover of Teen Beat with Scott Baio and being invited to late night talk shows.

    Never...

  • Jeff Newman has chops, that’s for sure. And he probably knows I think that about him. His show will amaze you as he peers into the minds of his subjects with his shockingly blue eyes and reads the very thoughts from them, thoughts he has no conceivable way of knowing other than clairvoyancy.  His show was sprinkled with storytelling and humor which was a mix of cheesy and clever. His charisma is palpable and he truly is a master of his art.

    As the show started, the tricks were relatively simple. The usual tell a joke, pick the right...

  • Eugenius (played by Sean Amsing) is a dick. More specifically he's a super villain with an epic plot to rule the world. Antagonist takes us through a day in the life of an angry, angsty, outrageous evil genius.

    The whole cast does a wonderful job of framing Eugenius’s frustrations with himself and the world. From the mediocre evil plots of his coworkers to the lady in the fifteen-items-or-less-lane, to his mother's attempts to get grandchildren, they all do an amazing job of igniting his rage. Even his supervillain colleagues are innocent and hurt at his outbursts, and have...

  • Honestly, I was a bit disappointed when I realized that each of Henry’s wives were going to be played by the same actor. One of the things I look forward to in theatre, especially in period pieces, is the costumes. With one woman in one costume I could tell this wasn’t going to be a “costume drama”. So with the revelation that Til Death: The Six Wives of Henry VIII was a one-woman show, aka, a one costume show, I prepared for an attire-less evening.

    Within minutes all my disappointment evaporated with the laughter that engulfed me from...

  • Presented by Gas Pedal Productions, Love, Lust, & Lace is a 60 minute Commedia dell'arte performance that has a little bit of everything. It’s like watching a live cartoon: there’s action, buffoonery, clowning, lots of audience interaction and of course romance!

    A sensual evening set to the classic tale of two lovers, it is full of wonderfully dramatic characters and includes lots of audience participation. These actors are ready to do anything, and they are ready to handle anything their audience throws at them. I was very impressed with the actors` ability to take input from the audience and...

  • Chloe Ziner and Jessica Gabriel of Vancouver’s Mind of a Snail company have again constructed, composed, mimed, sang, and wiggled into our hearts with their unique version of how the unicorn lost its horn through a virus from a little critter whose environment has been destroyed by the unicorn’s corporate construction.  

    Behind the white backdrop the magical unicorn shadow puppet appears at home in his or her high rise having coffee and ‘surreal’ before going off to bid on a contract. We won’t tell you all the fable’s treats, so go and experience the visual genius of...

  • Covering all of Leo Tolstoy’s mythically long-winded novel is no task for mere mortals, but Ryan Gladstone is up to the task. War and Peace is a funny, smart, and heartfelt treatment of one of history’s greatest works of literature.

    The story is told in many layers: the plot of the novel itself, often played straight but poked fun at when necessary; the echoes of Tolstoy’s own life, including his depression and his youthful habits of gambling and womanizing; the historical context of the Russian setting; and the context of Tolstoy’s own writing of the novel, including the...

  • NeOn (Ne.On) is about love and the way love has changed over the past seventy years. It follows the stories of a grandmother, two young women, and two young boys seeking the affection of the unattainable Miki. The stories are interwoven among time and space and the story goes through a series of fractured moments which the audience is left to piece together.

    The production was touching: well conceived and executed. I really enjoyed the incredibly energetic role of Nathania Barnabe as Miki – the childlike goddess who refers to herself as “princess of the universe!” The slice of life feature also...

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