This is a show about a performer, Chris Gibbs, doing a show about an ancestor that partnered with a thief and con man to form a detective agency.
While the tale being performed is interesting by itself, the transitions between actor as actor and the show within the show was insufficiently distinct and made the action on stage hard to follow at times. While the actor seemed quite capable, this show could benefit from better direction and a tighter script.
Antoine Feval is on as part of the Vancouver Fringe. For more information please go here.
This stylish vintage-improv show courtesy of National Theatre of the World (Matt Baram, Naomi Snieckus, Chris Gibbs and Ron Pederson) presents absurd comedy within the framework of a genteel variety show. It’s a perfectly contradictory setup given the sometimes dark and demented places the scenes go.
Matt Baram, Chris Gibbs, Ron Pederson and Naomi Snieckus looking good in tights
Borrowing a scene from Superman, Chris Gibbs in Like Father, Like Son? Sorry (on now in Victoria as part of the Uno Fest) sweeps onstage with the plastic baby that would grow up to be Christopher Reeve. From here, he slides out of his robe and into a long reflection on his own fitness as a father. He then quickly adjusts the baby’s head so that it’s flat, unblinking, empty, lifeless, soullessly accusing blue eyes bore through the being of some unfortunate man in the front row. Gibbs is not one to let sincerity smother comedy for long.
If you kept your ears open around last year’s Fringe festivals, you probably picked up a shred of conversation or two about Chris Gibbs in The Power of Ignorance which is back in Victoria for a return engagement at the Uno Fest. Gibbs plays idiot-savant motivational speaker Vaguen – here to teach you (!) no less than nineteen (!) ways your ignorance (?) can save and better your daily life.
