Martin Dockery, unbeknownst to me when I sat down to watch “Moonlight After Midnight”, is a fringe icon. I, on the other hand, was much more distracted by sharing a name with lead actress, Vanessa Quesnelle (we are few, but we are mighty!). Although the blurb of “beautiful woman, mysterious man” didn’t grab me, the concept of an intellectual puzzle play struck me as quite interesting.
The setting, unfailingly, is a hotel room, in which our cast of two dynamically spar throughout. Who they are, and what is going on, are the central themes to...
Playwrights Cleo Halls and Kristina Hunszinger have updated the buddy story with this musical performance featuring lots of rhyming (as you’d expect) with new lyrics set to old and new compositions, augmented by YouTube videos and questionable montages. I’m guessing that no animals actually went missing.
Much was made through careful blocking on this tiny but cozy stage with the two young women meeting at the employment office, sharing a tent they call home and performing on the stage of the talent competition. Both women have interesting singing voices with character and strength. And there’s some mean ukelele...
Fringe Description: Silly · Musical · Warm and Fuzzy
See this incredible show! Poor is one of the most incredible theatre experiences I have had in recent memory. The one woman show is funny, risky, tragic and surprising.
The writing, by Suzanne Ristic is witty, clever, sneaky, poetic, and brilliant. It is both of our time in its exploration of wealth and class and also a timeless human story. Ristic has also created, in Shelly Cormorant, one of the most unique, heroic, disagreeable, alive and powerful characters that I have seen on stage in a long time. I started out laughing at and disliking Shelly, but over the course of...
I had heard about this show earlier on the tour, that Fringe artists were describing it unfailingly (and in rather a cult-like fashion) as “life changing”. Although I was unfamiliar with the reputation of playwright/star Jayson McDonald, I had high expectations for “Magic Unicorn Island”… and I was not disappointed.
Picture-perfect physical theatre opens the show; before your eyes the universe is created, mankind evolves, and one very important fact is asserted: that there has been NO time in human history where war was not present. This theme is built upon until we reach the surprising central narrative of,...
Deranged Dating is a half-hour autobiographical tale padded with unrelated skits into an hour-long comedy show. Half of the show is related to the stated theme of the hazards and pitfalls of thirtysomething dating; the other half -- the first 20 minutes or so of the show especially -- seem to have been gleaned from other comedy routines.
Shirley Kirchmann uses minor costume changes and simple props to portray her thirtysomething self and a handful of peripheral characters including her meddling Aunt Hattie and a superficial-minded matchmaker. Her stage voice is clear and strong, but at times her words are...
Don’t let Theatre Plexus’ simple setup fool you. Saudade will leave you twitching in your seat, wanting to chug cheap liquor and hang out the window of a fast car, hollering the lyrics to some catchy anthemic song.
At first glance, the small space at Granville Island’s Arts Umbrella seems improvised, hastily thrown together -- two glaringly-bright overhead projectors, a small ghetto blaster, blank sheets hung from the walls. Cramped school desks and low benches form the audience seating. The audience’s knees bend like heron legs as they shuffle their feet and try to find a comfortable position to sit...
A bare stage: a folding chair, a small table, one prop: a whisky bottle. Bill Pats - green T-shirt, torn jeans - shambles on. I note this because this is all we have to look at for 70 minutes. Pats tells how two policemen came to his door to arrest him. Some body language and changed voice reveal the manner of the police. A few minutes backstory: he was guilty of embezzlement.
And then his narrative, in an even-paced way, goes on - and on. Sometimes absorbing, sometimes harrowing, sometimes tedious, significant life experiences from his twenties to his 40th birthday. "Based on a...
“The Masks of Oscar Wilde” by Shaul Ezer with C.E. Gatchalian, is now playing at the Arts Club Revue Theatre, presented by Matchmaker Productions in association with the frank theatre company. The finely printed programme in the lobby quotes the playwright: “Heavy on lecture and light on theatricals."
It opens with a slide show on a 32” tv screen & paper bird finger-puppets. The Happy Prince is telling a story about a little swallow, and proceeds through the six masks that he wore: poet, aesthete, martyr, etc. I wish I could’ve taken a little swallow everytime I heard that, but the bar was closed....
"My Beautiful Monster" is a painfully personal one-woman show. Although I gather that much of it may be based on the actor's own life, it is a separate fictional work. Annie's sexuality is awakened at puberty, and she faces a lot of guilt and shame. She wants to connect with the opposite sex, and she wants to be loved, but her fear and apprehension hold her back. She can't respond to good candidates, and bad candidates do stuff that terrifies her. She is from a traditional Christian home (Dutch Reformed, is my guess), and her mother constantly admonishes her...
Candice Fiorentino plays a new immigrant from Bosnia in the late 90's. It's a simple premise - she has done well enough in Mrs. Wilson's ESL class to be able to make a 55-minute long presentation in English. She tries hard to follow the instruction to keep it positive even though questions from classmates probe into areas that are much darker. She is so happy to be in Edmonton, Canada and working at the SuperStore even though she can't afford a fridge and she still doesn't have her sons with her.
