Barbara Bell both wrote and performed this one-woman show about a successful academic who must recover her past through the haze of fragmenting psyche.
When the house goes dark off the top of Putz, the nasal and at times grating voice of Andrew Bailey rings out in black: “Before the beginning of time, God said, ‘I’m lonely, I’m going to create myself.’
Putz, Adam wore a plaid shirt the day the apple appeared...
From behind the audience comes a great speech, but not one that would make any sense – it is a spray of Shakespeare’s quotes, meant to evoke emotions and familiarity.
We're not really sure what Shakespeare looked like
Stephen Lowe’s play Smile did well at last year’s Momentum Festival in Nottingham, and I can see why Vancouver's My Theatre Company (the presenting company's frustratingly generic name) wanted to mount the piece. It’s the kind of story that draws you in slowly and then wallops you with a hit that's both emotional and intellectual.
From the opening rap song, “She’s a soccer Mom ‘ho,” Broad Comedy is an enjoyable hour of sketch comedy and parody. A comedy troupe of four outrageous women, their subject matter is heavy on American culture but pleasingly so.
This was the fourth fast-paced one-man show I have seen in this Fringe run. I'm not sure why Fringe performers like to stand on stage and talk about themselves incessantly. I'm also not quite sure why they believe they can ask a bunch of strangers to pay for it at 10 bucks a pop. At least some of them do it well.
I'll be frank right off the top here; this kind of theatre isn't my cup of tea. Actually, I'm one of those guys who thinks theatre shouldn't resemble tea in any way at all, I want it to feel at the very least like a stiff shot of cheap tequila, and at best like a syringe full of epinephrine straight to the heart.
The Sputniks is about a family of Soviet Jews who leave the Soviet Union for Austria and Canada, and find a greater tragedy along the way than the one they left behind.
