Snag yourself more fringe play reviews

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This article was published 20/07/2024 (810 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Between Gigs

Tickle the Lemur Productions

Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 8), to Sunday, July 28

There are tens of dollars to be made in the world of musical accompaniment, Vince (Joseph Aragon) tells Moira (Heather Madill), a singer who never dreamed of becoming a soloist.

For years, Vince has been slapping together multiple streams of income to keep his melodic dreams alive, writing private opuses and corporate hold music. “Compose eight bars and you loop that shit,” he says. Vince needs a voice and, in Moira, finds one who can sightread right as wedding season is upon him.

A duet in song told through funny, sweet, and insightful conversational intermissions, the Madill- and Aragon-scripted Between Gigs is an etude in grief marked by measured performances. An introspective peek into the lives of artists forced to hyphenate, the two-hander is a meditation on the reasons we create, even as the rewards seem to diminish.

Aragon and Madill are wonderfully understated performers, with director and dramaturg Cory Wojcik instilling the production with balance and light. 🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟

— Ben Waldman

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Dressed as People: A Triptych of Uncanny Abduction

Parry Riposte Productions

Tom Hendry Warehouse (Venue 6), to Friday, July 26

Margo MacDonald crafts three distinctive performances as separate narrators, telling stories by Kelly Robson, Amal El-Mohtar and A.M. Dellamonica of liminal spaces and disturbing disappearances.

Robson’s, set in 1989 Edmonton, has a nun teaching CanLit remembering a pregnant girl from her cruel Irish convent and her desperate, eerie attempts to escape. In El-Mohtar’s, a woman on a forest’s edge in 1827 England pleads with unseen forces seven years after the disappearance of her childhood friend — their relationship much deeper than either could admit.

And Dellamonica’s, a 2021-set half-standup, half-confessional by a lesbian cruise ship comedienne is the story of a whirlwind affair with a mermaid that can only exist when each is at the edge of her world.

MacDonald’s characterizations are riveting — and so are the stories, each with an undercurrent of humour and often a deep sense of unease. 🐟🐟🐟🐟 ½

— David Jón Fuller

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Field Zoology 301: Myths and Monsters

Shawn O’Hara

PTE Colin Jackson Studio (Venue 17), to Sunday, July 28

That dubious nature scholar Dr. Brad Gooseberry, emerging from his nature-adjacent dumpster home behind a Giant Tiger, turns his attention away from the animal world to the more shadowy realm of cryptids — Jersey Devils and Nessies and Chupacabras, oh my!

Gooseberry is, of course, the reliably funny Shawn O’Hara, who emerged from Victoria, B.C., to delight fringe-goers over the past few years. His show is hardly a tight 60-minute exercise in comedic clockwork. O’Hara delights in the messy and unexpected during the course of his shows, involving, say, a stick-on moustache that refuses to stick. He’s also one of those artists who can do lo-fi magic with an overhead projector, animating, for example, the blossoming relationship between Nessie and a Scottish nature photographer.

This is just plain mad fun, with little to learn except that cryptids have nothing to do with cryptocurrency, a lesson Gooseberry learned to his own financial detriment. 🐟🐟🐟🐟

— Randall King

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I Ruin Things For a Living

The Placeholder Show

Dave Barber Cinematheque (Venue 7), to Sunday, July 28

Winnipeg’s J.D. Renaud cracks himself open and pours out the syrupy contents of his cartoonishly quick mind in an hour-long session of radically honest group therapy and self-assessment.

Opening with a strange-but-true story about cetacean masturbation, Renaud — one of the city’s most creative misfits — pins 38 years of anxieties to a public corkboard, exploring his journey from teenage butcher’s apprentice to comedian to visual artist. For the last seven years, Renaud has found a niche as a collagist, making beautiful things out of discarded goods.

“I’m not very good at making new stuff,” he says. He’s not giving himself enough credit. Throughout this original lecture, the asexual anarchist lets himself cook, throwing into the pot autobiographical line drawings and vaporwave music video remixes while setting himself to boil.

As always, it comes down to taste. But this performer bursts with complexity and contradiction, surprising even himself as he learns, through laughter, how many others tread his oddly beaten path.  🐟🐟🐟🐟

— Ben Waldman

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Kicked in the End

Shawn DeSouza-Coelho

Son of Warehouse (Venue 5), to Sunday, July 28

Gaining the audience’s trust from the outset with a charismatic, rapid-fire delivery (and a literal exercise in trust), Toronto’s Shawn DeSouza-Coelho delivers a lot more than a magic show.

After drawing people in with a riddle that he then repeats after giving a key word — illuminating the same clues in a new context — DeSouza-Coelho moves from self-deprecating patter about show biz conventions to often-moving autobiographical anecdotes.

Amplifying the comedic notes with expressive physicality, he moves deftly through emotional shifts to illuminate more than a simple magic effect — he takes the audience on a personal journey through Canada’s racism and xenophobia. He learned growing up that being “brown means: intruder,” and later observes, “The Canadian theatre… has always positioned my body as a problem.”

Fortunately for theatregoers, it didn’t stop him from performing. He delivers a tour-de-force one-man show with a stage magician’s charm and a spoken-word poet’s cadence and power. 🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟

— David Jón Fuller

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Kore

Chronically Ch(ill) Productions

Planetarium Auditorium (Venue 9), to Sunday, July 28

Do we need another retelling of Greek mythology? Especially the oft-told tale of Kore/Persephone and Hades?

Well, yes, frankly we do, at least this specific retelling, which shifts the story from the lovers and delves instead into the complexities of family relationships.

In this version of events, Kore deliberately abandons Goddess of the Harvest Demeter, choosing life with Hades, King of the Underworld, over one with her domineering mother.

Kore’s perspective is delivered in a blistering monologue by Winnipeg-based writer and performer Hailley Rhoda, who vacillates between barely suppressed rage and devoted contrition as she attempts to make sense of the mother-daughter dynamic. As if possessed by the spirit of the goddess herself, Rhoda’s Kore is tender yet terrifying, as the consequences of her actions dawn on her.

Modern vernacular, BookTok references, doll play and shadow puppetry bring this ancient myth bang up-to-date in a riveting 45 minutes. 🐟🐟🐟 ½

— AV Kitching

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Neurohilarity: Exposed

Neurohilarity

Royal Albert (Venue 15), to Sunday, July 28

The talented performers from last year’s award-winning Neurohilarity show — Danielle Kayahara, Carole Cunningham, Scott Koropas, and Adam Schwartz — return with Neurohilarity: Exposed, joined by new friends Rollin Penner and Kaitlynn Brightnose. This comedic ensemble strips down emotionally to share their neurodiverse experiences, offering a blend of nitty-gritty jokes and revealing stories.

The show is fun and sweet, with laughs sprinkled throughout the performance. Despite struggling with poor ventilation and a heat problem at the venue, the performers pressed on. Even when they or the audience became distracted, they always managed to bring the focus back.

What sets Neurohilarity: Exposed apart is its ability to be both funny and teachable. The comedians share embarrassing tales and hilarious anecdotes about revealing their neurodiversity to loved ones, friends and complete strangers. They delve into life with ADD, ADHD, autism, and more, providing an insightful glimpse into their world. The performance strikes a fine balance between humor and heartfelt moments. 🐟🐟🐟

— Thandi Vera

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Porn and Pinochet

Caturro Productions

Planetarium Auditorium (Venue 9), to July 28

Vancouver-based Andy Cañete is quick to remind everyone of his standup comedy roots before launching into a summary of his life that veers between the funny and the tragic.

The youngest in a family of five, Cañete moved to Canada as an infant, along with his two older siblings, “pathological liar” of a dad and a mother who believed in corporal punishment. We get a glimpse into his Canadian childhood in a Chilean household before he is forced to return to Chile at 13, where life under Pinochet’s regime is rather different.

It’s a lot to cover in 75 minutes and Cañete does an admirable job of trying to sustain the momentum, but ultimately falters as his narrative is weighed down by superfluous details. By trying to unpack too many things at once, the core of Cañete’s story loses its emotional gut-punch, which is a real shame.  🐟🐟🐟

— AV Kitching

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Rat Academy

Bat Rabbit Collective

Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 8), to Sunday, July 28

It’s a rat-girl summer, didn’t you hear?

Two survivors of Alberta’s rat control program, Fingers (Dayna Lea Hoffmann, frighteningly on point) and Shrimp (Katie Yoner, adorably committed), scurry past the litter and scat, scrounging up the scraps of their rapidly disappearing way of life.

The rat’s tale is rewarding, but secondary to Hoffmann’s and Yoner’s astounding comic embodiment of their characters, a curly-toed bouffant weary of losing her cheddar and an affable clown who trusts the universe to always deliver a fresh slice. The costumes, designed by Meegan Sweet, are perfectly and simply ratty, as is the trashy set by Claire Sonmor.

Along with their voicework — Yoner’s sweet vibrato and Hoffmann’s squirrely drill sergeant — the makeup elevates the performance, with Hoffmann’s eyes conveying menace and Shrimp’s buck teeth eliciting grins.

Seeking answers, Fingers and Shrimp consistently turn to their lord, a Magic 8-Ball. Will Rat Academy make you laugh? It is decidedly so. 🐟🐟🐟🐟

— Ben Waldman

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Red Light

The Barbarian Bombshells

RRC Polytechnic (Venue 11), to Saturday, July 28

On the surface, Red Light is an uneven story, cobbled together with details about getting drunk and stoned in Amsterdam with Houstonian Dana Graham as the bedazzled, bedraggled tour guide.

A bartender laid off in the wake of 2017’s hurricane Harvey, Graham tells her hour-long story of a vacation gone wrong. Leaving Texas barrooms behind for Dutch nightlife, Graham reveals the common travails of being a woman in flight. Subtly, perhaps more so than the audience realizes, she challenges all-too-accepted ideologies of blame and shame as she discusses her often harrowing experiences with sexual assault.

“Let’s scream like we wish we could have,” she says, offering an invitation for joint catharsis. Punctuated by the pyrotechnics of profanity, Graham tells her story loudly and without regret, something worth engaging with, even if the overall experience is somewhat drowned out in the afterglow. 🐟🐟

— Ben Waldman