Fringe Show Reviews

Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION

The Coconut Clubber

Written by: Xanadu Productions

Presented by: Xanadu Productions / Winnipeg, MB

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Our Rating: Your Average Rating:

07/16/2009 12:54 PM | Comments: 0

This locally produced musical sports a caution for onstage use of “herbal cigarettes.” One can only guess a prodigious amount of herb must have been smoked offstage for this Winnipeg collective to come up with a story about a club-handed man who lives in a primitive tropical archipelago where everyone subsists on the titular “fibreballs.”

When Clubber (Matt Berven) fails to properly sacrifice a cat, he is exiled to… Winnipeg. Once there, a rabid Quebec Nordiques fan teaches him how to be a man — and, um, it goes on.

The direction is sound, the tech (a high-def video screen) is slick, and the 18-member cast is enthusiastic. But the play’s disorienting 90-plus minutes feels like a hybrid of creation myth, after-school special, and one of the more hallucinogenic Max Fleischer-produced Popeye cartoons.
The presence of an onstage band, the Shouting Ground, carries one saving grace: At least one guy in this musical production can actually carry a tune.

— Randall King

From the official Fringe program:

"Feast for the Senses" - Andrew Gordon
"Feast for the Senses" - Marcus Wong
"Feast for the Senses" - Derek Joeseph

Warnings: Herbal Cigarettes,
RECOMMENDED: General Audience

90 min.

Venue#9 Canwest Performing Arts Centre (MTYP) 2 Forks Market Road

Tickets: $7
Discount Tickets: $5 for Matinees, Seniors, Kids (12 & under)

Babes in arms permitted.

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