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.
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 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.
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...
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.
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...
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...
The Liminal Space Theatre Collective had a lot on their plate. This group of UBC theatre students were writing an epic heroes’ adventure. They had about three months to write, stage, rehearse and show the piece. And they had to keep it within 45 minutes. This would have been difficult enough in a standard theatre setting; but throw in the fact that this show was staged in the Granville Island Water Park, and the task becomes almost as epic as the tale they were trying to tell.
The Collective clearly has some good ideas. The story revolves around an unwilling...
Brought to you by The Liminal Space Theatre Collective
Martin Dockery’s Oh, That Wily Snake manages to ask some fairly big questions with humour and sensitivity in a play that overlaps allegory and social commentary. What is the line between argument and coercion? What responsibility do the deceived have in their own deception? What if evil doesn’t know its own evil until it’s too late? What does that mean in an age where we have killed our own gods? These are questions that will hopefully become conversations the audience will pick up when the show is over. The play is a funny and intense piece, backed by a nuanced...
I have to admit a couple of things before I talk about this play: I like solo shows because they are the most intimate of performances and I loved Denis Simpson. What does Denis Simpson have to do with this play? Directly, very little. Indirectly, everything. I will get to that in a minute.
