2009

TransCanada '69

Company: 
Attunement Productions
Duration: 
60 minutes
Venue: 
Performance Works
Photograph: 

Take a musical journey to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the summer of '69 with songs of Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Liona Boyd, Lenny Breau, Glenn Gould, Oscar Peterson, and Leonard Cohen.

"Five stars . . . Colin Godbout is a virtuoso." - Times Colonist

"With complex fretwork and dazzling finger picking, it's all luxuriously listenable." - The Georgia Straight

"Stunning . . . thoroughly enjoyable." - Ottawa Citizen
   
Showtimes
Sep 11 - 10:45 PM
Sep 12 - 4:35 PM
Sep 13 - 1:00 PM
Sep 16 - 7:00 PM
Sep 18 - 5:00 PM
Sep 19 - 8:05 PM

Read the PLANK Review for the Vancouver production.

Location: 
Year: 

The Seven Lives of Louis Riel

Company: 
Monster Theatre
Duration: 
60 minutes
Venue: 
Havana Theatre
Photograph: 

A Canadian cowboy comedy! The Life of Louis Riel, viewed from seven different points of view in another historically hysterical comedy.

Completely sold-out run in 2008! Held-Over 2008, 2006, 2002 (The Shakespeare Show, Jesus Christ: The Lost Years, The Canada Show).

"Wildly funny, wonderfully crafted, and brilliantly acted! Flawless!" ***** - CBC

"Nothing Short of a Comic Miracle!" ***** - FFWD
   
Showtimes
Sep 10 - 7:15 PM
Sep 11 - 10:00 PM
Sep 12 - 9:30 PM
Sep 13 - 5:30 PM
Sep 15 - 9:00 PM
Sep 16 - 9:00 PM
Sep 17 - 9:00 PM
Sep 18 - 6:30 PM

Location: 
Year: 

The Secret Love Life of Ophelia

Company: 
Theatre ABC
Duration: 
60 minutes
Venue: 
Studio 16
Photograph: 

Sex, lust, love, politics, scandals, murder, deceit, betrayal, and devotion are a few of the many layers depicted in Steven Berkoff's award-winning script. The play reveals new insights into Ophelia and Hamlet's relationship - from their courtship to their ultimate tragedy. Innovative director, Jeremy Waller, perfectly casts on- and off-stage lovers Alicia Novak and Darren Boquist in this beautifully poetic and visually spectacular piece of theatre.
   
Showtimes
Sep 10 - 7:00 PM
Sep 13 - 6:25 PM
Sep 15 - 8:00 PM
Sep 16 - 5:00 PM
Sep 19 - 9:40 PM
Sep 20 - 4:30 PM

Read the PLANK Review.

Location: 
Year: 

Victoria: Anyone who’s attended a show at the Fringe this year has seen Jem Rolls—if not on stage, then out on the street, spreading the good news of his own show. But he isn’t the only one talking about his best of performance, Leastest Flops—everybody seems to love it.  His out-of-the-way venue boasted the longest line-up I’ve seen yet this Fringe. Maybe it’s because of the buzz, or maybe it’s because everyone felt personally invited to be there.

Jem Rolls is used to more stars.

Victoria: In the event that Alex Plouffe and Samantha Richard read the reviews here on the Craig, they’ll probably want to know that the seats they chose for their in-audience first scene were the two directly to the left of this very reviewer. The experience comes highly recommended.

As the title says: BOYGIRL

Victoria: Things exist which are funny: funny things, like muppets having sex, make us laugh. Things that are not funny also exist: consider tax returns, which do not make us laugh. In some horrific limbo world lies the unfunny. The unfunny, much like the undead, is a gnawing emptiness only half-concealed by the stolen, desecrated flesh of the living. Things which are unfunny include The Monday News, written by and starring the Pigs.

The Pigs

Victoria: When a fire tuck, sirens ablaze, pulled up alongside a burlesque venue, the awaiting audience and I figured we were in for something hot. But then reality kicked in; the truck had arrived to aid someone in the townhouses beside the University Canada West venue. And the show? It’s less hot and more edutainment. And that’s okay.

Prairie Fire

Victoria: If you’ve heard one too many politic stabs, or taken in an ounce too much of obscurity this Fringe, then stay out just a little bit later and go meet Lavignia. Vancouver’s Tara Travis plays the entire playful cast in this storybook adventure directed by Ryan Gladstone, but she simply sparkles as the eight-year-old giantess.

Lavignia

Written by Lee MacDougall of Canada, High Life was adopted and adapted by the theatres of Japan. It is Tokyo’s Ryuzanji Company that has delivered back to us this complete, polished and intoxicating theatrical parcel about ex-cons planning the robbery that will, finally, set them free.

High Life

Victoria: There comes a point where most people start to dread their birthdays. For Jackie (Lana Schwarcz), it’s all downhill after 30, a slow downward decay into old age. She diagnoses herself as a “gerontophobic “—one with an intense fear of aging. So, she sets off to conquer this fear . . . by taking a job at a Jewish nursing home in Melbourne.

Granda Sol and Grandma Rosie

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