I’ve seen some comments on the ‘Net saying it’s fitting that Sally Lives Here should be at the Cultch, because it’s an East Side story. That may be true, but despite a slow start, this is a touching show that everyone should see. It’s a people story.
Lynne Goldhat Smith both wrote and starred in this one-woman show, where she bares Sally’s sweet stories about her younger years as she struggles to come to terms with her (and her family’s) past. Smith glowed as she got into the stories that entwine her family, friends, and locations across British Columbia. It...
Funny, funny, and more funny. A whole (gore-filled) bucket of funny, already. What else can you say? I didn’t get to see the Peter ‘n’ Chris show last year, but now that I’ve seen The Mystery of the Hungry Heart Motel, I want to fly back in time to see the older shows... Hey, that would make for a good Peter ‘n’ Chris show.
This year’s adventure has the pair survive a hilarious slo-mo car accident, only to need directions to a mechanic and a place to stay for the night. Enter the Hungry Heart Hotel, where everyone knows that...
Lost in Place is performed outdoors in a public setting and involves a lot of audience participation. The show is therefore partially improvisational and results will vary. In this instance the results were mostly just silly with the best moments being quite accidental. The best line of the evening was delivered by a person passing by who wasn’t aware of the context or asked to participate. Credit is due to the performers for taking on the challenge of an unpredictable venue and for successfully integrating the unexpected, but there just wasn’t enough of this element of surprise.
Little Orange Man is a charming and hilarious portrayal of a little girl who is told she has attention deficit disorder. She doesn’t care too much about this label and it isn’t the focus of the show. It is just one of the many, many things she is compelled to tell us about (or in this case burst into song about). She has a vivid imagination and boundless energy and is prone to behaviour that might be disturbing to an uninformed observer. It alienates her from her peers (they call her “freakshow”) and gets her into trouble, but when she...
I came to Lovestruck with no prior exposure to H.P. Lovecraft, and surely many allusions were lost on me, but I can say is that it is worthwhile anyway. Whoever initially conceived of them, the characters are delightful, and the acting is impressive.
Chris Gibbs is simply a great comedian. He anchors his routine around his insecurities about being a father and there are some serious gems of wisdom in there. Gibbs would be completely entertaining talking about anything at all, but what makes him so enjoyable is that his material is often sincere and he seems to be having a lot of fun up there. He probably wouldn’t include anything that didn’t really amuse him too, so you can be sure that nothing old and worn out will creep in.
For example, probably the most used up source of clever observations...
I have to confess that this is the first opera I’ve seen at a Fringe Fest. I’ve seen Weil and Brecht performed at Fringes but this is charting new territory. Even in its organizational structure, the Vancouver Concert Opera Co-Operative is truly creative. An operatic co-op! What a cool concept.
In Fruitcake, one-man show performer Rob Gee takes us through what it’s like to work in a mental institution administering to the mentally ill. He balances funny anecdotes with gruesomely serious monologues taken from people experiencing frighteningly real delusions. And he does it in a thoroughly entertaining way.
The play resonated with me – particularly the story about the man who believed that the world was set up as a SECRET EXPERIMENT to monitor his choices, complete with microscopic listening devices and invisible cameras affixed to streetlamps, mailboxes and buildings. I liked it because it made me feel like I...
“How do you even begin to plan a show like this?!” I exclaimed.
Friday night, late, Granville Island, Fringe Festival, opening night. A show that I hardly knew anything about but looked fascinating from the brief introduction a friend sent me .... this was going to be interesting.
If you’re expecting an epic about expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic, forget it! This is a no-holds-barred performance about a serious and too often misunderstood disorder. Written by Jason Gale and Tyler Workman, Type 2 follows the life and love of a couple struggling with the effects of bipolar disorder.
