Fringe Show Reviews

Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION

Minding Dad

Written by: Kenneth Brown

Presented by: RibbitRepublic, Edmonton, AB

Venue 13: University of Winnipeg Asper Centre for Theatre and Film

Our Rating: Your Average Rating:

07/22/2012 3:03 PM | Comments: 0

When Dan (Jon Paterson) visits his elderly Dad (Kenneth Brown), who is slowly drifting away at a care facility, they share the same circular conversations that grow ever smaller.

In Brown’s solidly written drama, events dissolve from Dad’s memory as quickly as they occur. But occasionally, something from a more distant past bubbles up past the frustration of the present and Dad offers Dan a glimpse of the once bright, stoic father he knew.

Brown and Paterson give moving performances, in this emotionally truthful slice of life, which will ring too true for anyone who has experienced the aimless sinking of a family member into Alzheimer’s. And while their story has its pain, it is not without humour, and even a strange kind of hopefulness.

— Wendy Burke

From the Fringe program:

From the writer/director of the "Spiral Dive" trilogy comes a sweet, bitter and funny new play about loss, redemption and the lasting power of love.

Jon Paterson (House, Letters in Wartime) plays a son trying to make his father's life as rich as he can, while watching him gradually fade into the mist of Alzheimer's.

From the company behind the Fringe classics "Grimmer than Grimm", "BoyGroove", "Be A Man" and "Pilk's Madhouse".

Recommended for: Mature audience

Length: 75 min

Tickets: $10

Warning: Language

History

Updated on Sunday, July 22, 2012 at 3:03 PM CDT:
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