When I was watching Bad Date: A Cautionary Tale…, produced by Aubrey Productions and playing at the Toronto Fringe Festival, it occurred to me that, since I met my husband at 19, I haven’t had to go on a first date in 13 years. I certainly haven’t experienced dating where actually meeting someone in person is a novelty.
Continue reading Bad Date: A Cautionary Tale… (Aubrey Productions) 2017 Toronto Fringe Review
Improvised musical arrives on the Toronto stageEarlier this year, I reviewed a Fringe show that promised a completely improvised musical over the course of one hour after just one suggestion from the audience. Showstopper! The Improvised Musical is that show writ large; instead of an accomplished local comedy troupe, the accomplished performers (The Showstoppers) are here on tour from England; instead of one suggestion, they incorporate several over the course of the evening; instead of a Fringe space, they must fill the cavernous Panasonic Theatre, and instead of one hour, they run a bit over two with intermission.
However, their challenge is the same: can they tell a complete story without leaving too many loose threads? Can they make catchy, harmonic music of varying styles, while rhyming? Can they run the gamut from The Sound of Music to Hamilton on the audience’s whim? Showstopper! does a great job with its constraints, it’s loads of fun, and it’s pretty easy on the ears.
Continue reading Review: Showstopper! The Improvised Musical (Showstopper Productions)
Tracey Erin Smith took the Fringe world by storm in 2006 with her one-woman show The Burning Bush, about a rabbi who finds enlightenment through stripping. Since then, she’s made a name for herself as a solo player and teacher of Soulo classes, in which aspiring artists are encouraged to find their voices and create a personal performance piece. The classes continue, but in addition, Smith runs a five-day theatre festival that includes both performances of finished pieces and workshops for those who are inspired to tell their own stories. Now in its fifth year, the SOULO Theatre Festival runs from May 25-29 2017 at the Red Sandcastle Theatre. We asked Smith a few questions about the upcoming event.
Continue reading PREVIEW: SOULO Theatre Festival (Soulo Theatre)
The title of The Dress HE Wore—a Lift the Lid Theatre production now playing at Red Sandcastle Theatre—alongside its billing (“a provocative and disturbing black comedy”) strongly implies that the show is going to be a focused exploration of the impetus behind crossdressing.
The dress is there – an oversized floral almost-muumuu worn by solo actor Alastair Love’s David – but it’s really incidental, almost ancillary to the plot. Though the character wears a dress, its trappings are merely symbolic, a representation of a dysfunctional relationship he can’t quite let go.
Running a scant 45 minutes, The Dress HE Wore is nevertheless a fascinating look into a nuanced but often unsympathetic character. It’s never boring, but disappointingly relies heavily on stereotypical commentary regarding male and female gender roles.
Continue reading Review: The Dress HE Wore (Lift the Lid Theatre)
The Clean House is comedy that is “polished”, “superb”, and “bitingly funny” on stage in TorontoAfter seeing the opening night performance of Sarah Ruhl’s The Clean House, now playing at Alumnae Theatre, my companion put too much hot sauce on her Pad Thai. Tears streaming down her face, she assured me, “I’m crying, but I’m happy.” After a moment of careful consideration, she continued, “like the play.” It was a fitting statement, as The Clean House is a bitingly funny comedy with a wounded, glorious heart underneath; it’s a wonderfully, startlingly human play about weird love, family, devotion, class, and the funniest joke in the world.
Continue reading Review: The Clean House (Alumnae Theatre Company)