The Positive of Power Thinking is a 70-minute play written by Wallace Fessler and Joshua Fisher that runs at Performance Works. It stars Lance Banks who is an egotistic, smarmy motivational speaker, here to get your life on track with the help of his assistant Dave. Together, they demonstrate the power of the LanceLifeTotal Life System program and how it can make you more money, more powerful, more material possessions and more dependent on their multi-step program to success.

The format and idea behind...

It was the dawn of time…” So begins Adam Patemans thoroughly delightful Alone in the Universe.  With a series of increasingly neurotic mute living tableux, Pateman takes us through the history of humankind, from the primordial ooze, to newborn babies, to ...

    Written by Alex Karolyi, Plays in Cafes are two plays about Frank (Craig Burnatowski) and Shelly (Alex Karolyi) and their relationship which centres around a cafe. The first play tracks Shellys desire to reignite their relationship with fun activities (like playing cards!) while Frank obsesses over sex and returning to their big, expensive house. During the second play, Frank proposes and Shelly plans their...

Peachy Keen Productions

Written by Sydney Hayduk and Elsa Resor-Taylor

Performed by Sydney Hayduk

I found myself drawn into the hive. Like Charlie, our doleful protagonist trapped in a soul-less social media job, I have wanted to opt out at times. But Charlie disappears into a village that is hive-like, borderline cultish, and just plain weird. Actor and co-writer of Village Ax, Sydney Hayduk plays three parts: disillusioned...

George, the periwinkle-colored old man puppet from the jury, accompanied Adam Francis Proulx to the Fringe Box office Friday afternoon to drum up some interest for his performance here in Vancouver. Judging by the line-up at 10:30 pm on his first night, I would say he managed that. The acclaim he gained at the Montreal and Toronto Fringe earlier this year might have something to do with it as well.

Proulx is an excellent and versatile actor. He characterized all 12 jurors...

Spoiler: this show has no pornography in it. So let's get that out of the way.

    Pornography is a play written by Simon Stephens that premiered in Hanover, Germany in 2007. It's set in London in 2005 during the week of Live 8, the 2012 Olympic Announcement and, tragically, the 7/7 bombings of London's subway trains. The audience follows the stories of eight individuals, sometimes over lapping, as they weave through these three events.

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An amalgam of stick puppetry, spoken word poetry, beat boxing, monologue and slightly absurdist dialogue, this entire show felt like a non sequitur.

I’m not sure I would call this a play. It feels more like a performance piece. There isn’t a plot. There are no clear characters. There’s a male stick puppet and a female stick puppet, but who they are or what they want is not obvious. Near the end of the show we’re all given chocolate chip cookies (which I was confused by...

There are a number of elements of this piece that I very much enjoyed, I thought the dialogue was well written and the pacing was wonderfully executed by the two actors with fierce commitment and powerful intentions.  In writing this, Munish Sharma tackles the universal themes of family, love, and traditional values with a skill and precision that kept me actively engaged in the show. Award winning actress Nimet Kanji is a fierce force to be reckoned with. She stings Raj (played by Actor and Playwright Munish Sharma) with sharp one-liners like “You are...

An audience of six huddles around the open door of Pandora Park’s Fieldhouse, fluorescent light burning a rectangle in the darkness, a moth flutters into our faces (not part of the show) as two girls inside a closet fight with balloons. Well, maybe fight isn’t the right word. And they aren’t really balloons. Two girls inside a closet roll their bodies against the thin squeaky skin of two clear plastic garbage bags puffed up with air and tied tightly like empty pillows. They wear matching pajamas - a black and white pattern that...

My first question going into this production was, "is this about Mars?" The answer to this question did not disappoint. It is about Mars.

It follows a father and daughter on a long road trip to Olympus Mons on a recently colonized Mars. The father (played by Mark Nocent) tells the daughter (played by Valerie Cotic) the story of the first two astronauts to come to the red planet, Strider and Magic (also played by Nocent and Cotic). The story itself is really well put...

Kris Neufeld steals this show with his quirky John Candy-like performance of the well-written characters Gill and Chermandrew. Lou Ticzon isn’t far behind as Trev, Guru, and Doug. And it’s nice to learn that for both of them its their first-time as Fringe artists. Good new talent here, both actors are from the Vancouver Film School. Credit goes to Leftovers writer Brianna Wiens and Director Maddison Popov for finding these two newbies and building this little comedy with them and Robbie Carley. 

Robbie Carley has a lovely voice, but he doesn’t have much opportunity to use it here—a pity—and the character...

    Lee MacDougall’s comedy caper High Life, presented at the Cultch as part of the Fringe Dramatic Works Series is the kind of play that would make Martin McDonagh (In Bruges) or Tracy Letts (Killer Joe) very proud with its witty portrayal of scheming criminals. Unfortunately, this production doesn’t do justice to the excellent script. The writing has a very particular style, and it demands a certain vocal agility to capture the repartee. In the opening scene Dave Evenson and Marcel Perro, as longtime partners-in-crime Dick and Bug, speak the dialogue at a jarringly uneven pace, not quite making...

If you’ve ever seen any truly bad improv or sketch comedy, then this is a show for you. 

Creator/performers Devin Mackenzie and Tom Hill clearly know their way around a comedy sketch and have seen more than their share of comedy disasters. Perhaps because of the expectations that come with a show being at the Improv Centre, from the moment you come in there is a boisterous, excited energy running through the audience, which is a great energy to be surrounded by. The show opens with Mackenzie and Hill sitting in the audience, impatiently waiting for the show to start....

Aaron Malkin and Alastair Knowles bring a fine level of clown and mime skill to this Beckettian set and script that gently remind each of us that there is more to a person than meets the eye. 

Starting in darkness, small selves emerge, and the discovery continues—revealing the distinction of self from other, vulnerabilities, pleasures, and finally the fondness of the bonds that form when we are brave enough to engage one another. The performance deals with an existential question of creation: Why do you set the stage for the next step? 

The how of setting the stage is pared...

Going to see TJ Dawe’s first show at this year’s Fringe Festival, I had high expectations. He’s been Fringing almost as long as I’ve been alive and even though I’ve never seen any of his shows before, his name is one I long associated with the Fringe. Additionally, one of my favourite movies to come out in 2013, The F Word, was based on one of Dawe’s plays (one which you still have a chance to see on the 17th...

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