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Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION
Club Chernobyl
Our Rating: 
Saskatchewan playwright Dianne Warren was nominated for a Governor General’s Award for drama in 1992. This is not that play.
It’s tough to imagine what the company saw in Warren’s story about four people trapped in a grim nightclub and an apocalyptic rainstorm that may be the end of the world. An overlong muddle of undeveloped characters, go-nowhere plot, ham-fisted imagery and dreary, quotidian dialogue, it’s not a good showcase for these local actors, though Karen O’Brien has a querulous charm as the nervous, sheltered Gina. Ryan Miller, so wonderful in sketch troupe Hot Thespian Action, is given nothing to work with as the surly club owner and the other characters’ motivations are impossible to penetrate.
It’s not so much terrible as it is unrewarding — not to mention that for much of the play’s 90-minute running time, the soundtrack of a torrential downpour threatens to drown out the actors.
— Jill Wilson
From the official Fringe Festival program:
Dallas has been having dreams again. Blackness and blood. He’s opening the doors of his new concept Club Chernobyl, and everything is falling apart. His wife might be cheating, there’s a dead girl in the basement and his only customer can’t pay. And then it begins to rain.
Opening night just might be the end of the world.
Warnings: Language, Strobe Lights,
RECOMMENDED: Mature Audience
90 min
Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 8), to Sunday
Tickets: $8
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