Dario et la Diablesse: A Caribbean Musical (Bellemoune Théâtre Troupe Inc) 2016 Toronto Fringe Review

Promotional image of Dario et la DiablesseI had the pleasure of seeing Dario et la Diablesse: A Caribbean Musical tonight (Bellemoune Théâtre Troupe Inc.), which is playing at Al Green Theatre, as part of The 2016 Toronto Fringe Festival!

This show has so much going for it: a great cast, amazing music, humour, and a fascinating story. To me it needs just a bit of attention to detail to really bring it home.

I love a good love story, and this one has a few twists: Death, the Devil, God, soul-catching beings, and a young woman who defiantly transcends her newfound form — and relinquishes her yearning for revenge — for true love.

It starts off with a fairly dark premise — a young woman is violently killed, makes a deal with the devil to cheat death, but then finds herself deceived and unable to go back to her old life. Seemingly bound to a life doing the Devil’s bidding, the story takes a brighter turn when she finds love — despite learning some shocking secrets about her intended (which I won’t give away here).

A live orchestra — even a tiny one — always adds an extra layer of pleasure for me, and this show had a great one. They set varying tones for the scenes: exuberant carnival vibes, mysterious sounds fit for a Devil’s dealings, love songs, and more.

The cast was enjoyable and diverse, and I am very disappointed that there were no programmes (nor can I find a cast list anywhere online). The real standouts to me were the Devil, who was fabulously creepy and funny; Danny, Dario’s grandfather, who bickered hilariously with his wife; and the Narrator, who delivered prose with nuanced emotion and set the scenes perfectly.

I loved almost everything about this show, but there was one major problem with it (the aforementioned lack of detail): at least half of the musical numbers were inaudible. There were times when I didn’t even realize the leads were singing until I saw their mouths moving. The female lead, who played Lily / Lilith / La Diablesse, had a few moments where her incredible vocals shone through. But mostly, I couldn’t hear her during the musical numbers.

Perhaps this was a last-minute technical problem, but it’s hard to imagine no one noticed the orchestra completely drowning out the vocals. I’d say that, minus that one issue, Dario et la Diablesse: A Caribbean Musical is unique, funny, lighthearted, full of wonderful themes and music and poetry, and well worth seeing.

I would LOVE to see it again after a batch of microphones have been dispensed to the entire cast.

Details

Performances

  • Thursday June 30th, 08:15 pm
  • Saturday July 2nd, 10:30 pm
  • Monday July 4th, 02:45 pm
  • Wednesday July 6th, 01:15 pm
  • Friday July 8th, 05:45 pm
  • Saturday July 9th, 07:30 pm
  • Sunday July 10th, 12:00 pm

Promotional image of Dario et la Diablesse provided by the company

2 thoughts on “Dario et la Diablesse: A Caribbean Musical (Bellemoune Théâtre Troupe Inc) 2016 Toronto Fringe Review”

  1. Thank you! I am the writer of the show. Re: the sound… The theatre told us we did not need microphones and also they did not think it would have been wise to get them since we only have15 minutes to set up. Fringe is very strict. But we are getting mics today… we did all we could when it came to the sound. We are also cleaning up a few more things… so watch out! Come again! Thanks so much for your review… also a lot happened within the last 10 days. Directors, blocking, choreography were changed, I ended up on stage… I wasn’t supposed to be.. so we were late with the programs. So so sorry about that. But all that is fixed. See you again and I hope to thank you in person.

    Sasky.

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