FISHBOWL - Fun with Freaks – Don’t Miss It!

Comedy, Queer, New Work - http://www.shyzer.ca/fishbowl/

This show is a shwack of a lot of fun and LOL funny, the actor has a great grasp of the material and the characters he is playing. We can relax back; we are in good hands.

Mark Shyzer really enjoys being up there on the “boards” and we enjoy watching his characters come to life and talk about their everyday insights into their worlds.  His energy is most engaging. Mark flips genders and characters smoothly and dives into their lives and the material to bring them into focus for us larger than life! He uses a lot of pop culture references, is very hip and has his pulse on what is important and going on in the world.  So, we get a glimpse into the world of youth and he does this with such wit, insight and self-awareness that each character, as quirky and offbeat as they are, are also endearing and vulnerable.

Although there is a through line here, there doesn’t seem to be a point to all of it, an underlying theme, so at the crucial three quarters mark of the piece we are getting a little tired and the piece drops into rhetoric. It meanders along and makes you wonder if it couldn’t be edited down or couldn’t have found a way to bring us along on a journey which isn’t just for the sake of laughs.

Having said that Mark says a great deal about his generation and the generation prior to his, but just doesn’t succeed in anchoring it all so we come away with some insight, not looking for a tidy little package but a point to hang it all on.

But it is just too funny and delightfully quirky to miss!

 

By Beverley Siver