I can almost see the emotions in this play as if they were instruments in an orchestra. A quiet and cautious beginning with a dash of quick chirps here and there, like a sugar rush and too much coffee. A long soft clashy melody goes back and forth with the tempo quickening steadily. As the melody plays on, the notes become sharper, louder intense and harsh.
Catherine Montgomery (writer/actor) is a spitfire manic performer and she pours everything she has into her balls-to-the-wall -- sorry, pussy-to-the-wall -- performance in Straight From That Side of Town. Whether you want to go to that town is another story, but hey, this is the Fringe. Sometimes we're forced to go to places we don't really want to go to.
Twice the Same River is a comic existentialist romp that tackles the meaning of love, adultery, and identity. Four faithless lovers become entangled in a web of supernatural intrigue that leaves them profoundly confused about the nature of the self and the soul.
I have been praying to the Theatre Gods to send someone to write a play about ghosts that would leave my skin crawling and my heart pounding. Well, someone up there heard me, and sent Andrew Templeton along with MachineFair and Craning Neck Theatre baring their newest creation: Biographies of the Dead and Dying.
Verbatim theatre to me is like a documentary or an interview where the names and faces have been altered to keep the people anonymous. The characters in this show were as if you had met them before and listened to their stories. The stories besides the main character, Jackie, are real accounts from elderly people who reside at Emmy Monash Home for the aged.
Vancouver: John Hefner, estranged 2nd cousin (or is that first cousin once removed?) of the world famous playboy himself, Hugh Hefner, brings us a true tale of life in the shadow of a name.
When I was growing up, my first experience with death was the death of Heidi, my guinea pig. She was killed by my lop-eared rabbit, Brownie. Of course, this wasn't a planned "hit" or anything. When we were home, we let them wander around the house and they always got along. They even ignored each other. What I gathered from my mother was she had startled Brownie and the rabbit jumped up on top of Heidi's cage.
“Oooooee” I think as Collette Kendall opens her piece at Performance Works late on Thursday night. She holds a large dildo and proceeds to indulge in cock facts and cock stories.
Collette Kendall shocked by learning what a cock looks like
I don't want to say this play was terrible but I can't say it was good either. I can sum up this production in one sentence: Did I just about sleep through a girl fucking a rock on stage? I uttered this sentence to the person next to me and they smiled back with a "why the hell am I here?" kind of smile and and whispered: "Yes, Shane. Yes you did."
Biographies of the Dead and Dying is a captivating play that clutched me from the opening music until the unpredictable ending. The writer, Andrew Templeton, presents us with a perspective on death. The female lead, played by Heather Lindsay, twists her way through her neurotic need to write and find material while blocked by her own inability to live in the present reality.
