Writer/Performers Emmelia Gordon and Pippa Mackie have crafted a winning confection that could have real legs developing and growing into something longer and greater than its already wonderful self.
Awkward Stage Productions brings us this musical written by Marvin Hamlisch and Howard Ashman. It's about a teen Beauty Pageant with a fascinating twist. Rather than have it’s young cast play both the teenagers and the adults in some sort of age makeup, the older set is presented “Avenue Q” style as puppets, with the young performers fully visible in black. While occasionally awkward, in the hands of some of the performers true magic occurs.
Written by Katherine King and Hannah Vaartnou, this show is 45 minutes of pure cringe-making hell. Pretentious beyond belief, boring, amateur, with two young performers caught way over their heads. If the performers had produced this mess themselves I might just forgive them, instead they are betrayed by King’s hubris. (Here’s a concept for you, Ms. King - study that one and leave the hero’s journey and cabaret alone. No matter how “off balance” you try to keep us as an audience you cannot disguise the lack of talent displayed here.)
Performers Maya-Roisin Slater and Paisley Nahanee deserve better....
A brilliant idea is ruined by a poorly rehearsed performance – for this show to work it needs to move like clockwork. It doesn’t.
The floor is covered in a map of the world – Cormack tells us part of her life story as she moves from country to country as a recorded voice lists them alphabetically. In the middle section of the show, she draws Ireland and Wales in outline and lists statistics that join her two “homes.” Then she tells us where she’d like to visit on earth, taping down a zig-zag line and then there is a...
One about a woman (let's call her A) who creates a fake past and becomes a celebrity for the “pain” she’s been through, the other (let's call her B) dreams inside of a man who will complete her, but she never speaks to him. When A is found out and B has her dream irrevocably crushed, each decides to commit suicide. They connect online – and for a while it’s interesting, even if B's plight seems unbelievable as a reason for suicide - people delude themselves true, but this story is a bad cliché.
The surprise for me was to find so many people at this show on a hot Thursday at 5 pm. Martin Dockery was at last year's Fringe and was well-received, as they say, hence this response.
Dockery simply talks, often fast, without props. The main surprise, which I suppose I should not give away, comes 12 minutes in.
The idea behind Brent Hirose's one-man play (he is author and actor) is original and ingenious: suppose that after a faux pas one could turn time back a few seconds and say the right thing instead. Most of us, I expect, can identify with this. Accept this one premise, and you are ready to be drawn into the situations Hirose creates. He uses four characters to explore this fantasy.
Wildwood Park walks us through the painful steps of obsession as experienced by Ms. Haviland, (played by Maryth Gilroy), a realtor who has been both drawn into and repulsed by an incident in her hometown. Like a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, she has a very personal relationship with the home she's trying to sell and yet at the same time has far too much emotional attachment to part with.
The perspective buyer, Dr. Simian, (played by Jason Broadfoot), seems to wear a mysterious cloak, and waffles from menacing in one moment to almost normal in the next. He both...
A site-specific production in the bring your own venue (BYOV) category, Willow's Walk: Ripples in Time is a 20 minute short piece at Sculpture Grove which is right beside Alder Bay and Bridge. It is hidden away a bit, so make sure to venture through Granville Island as if you were looking for treasure. Willow (Miranda Allen) is a treasure in her own right as she takes you into time periods of her life and you watch as she puts the big picture together.
This is Miranda Allen's first performance at the Vancouver Fringe Festival. Even with the multiple distractions...
