Rise of Los Muchos, the latest and fourth installment in actor-playwright Luis Fernandes‘ P-Dale set in Parkdale is out. Will the gang of friends and acquaintances explored in past episodes survive to the end of this one? Audiences can expect to find out in this generally funny, profane and engaging performance.
Continue reading Review: P-Dale Episode 4: Rise of Los Muchos (Unit 102 Theatre)
Code White Theatre‘s Toronto Fringe Festival entry 3 Artists Search for a Festival is a delightful short play, taking its audience to see just what sort of desperation can besets performers in the fifteen minutes before showtime.
The play opens in a rush, as actors Leah Holder and Mandy E. MacLean rush to join their director (Matthew James Hines) at a table in a tent in the alley at Honest Ed’s. Only fifteen minutes remain before the curtain will rise on the next performance of the three’s Fringe show, barely enough time for them to go over the director’s notes scene by scene.
Continue reading `’3 Artists Search for a Festival (Code White Theatre) 2013 Toronto Fringe Festival
The Socratic Theatre Collective‘s Toronto Fringe Festival performance of Terry Pratchett’s Monstrous Regiment is the group’s second performance of a dramatic adaptation of a novel from Terry Pratchett‘s long-running Terry Pratchett‘s Discworld fantasy series. The success of this adaptation proves that the Collective clearly knows what they’re doing.
What has given Pratchett a devoted fanbase is his ability to take a fantasy setting, infuse its with his knowing humour and not a little wordplay, and deal with serious issues. In the novel Monstrous Regiment, the 33rd book in the Discworld series by publication, Pratchett takes a look at gender, war and cultural change generally through the person of Polly Perks. Continue reading Terry Pratchett’s Monstrous Regiment (Socratic Theatre Collective) 2013 Toronto Fringe Festival
The idea behind Toronto Fringe Festival entry Innocent When You Dream, a one-man show by Texan performer Zeb West, is certainly interesting. What would a man get up to if he found himself stranded in the innards of a whale with no literature to keep him company but copies of Don Quixote and Moby Dick? What would it reveal?
However, despite an interesting starting point and some great performances by West, Innocent When You Dream doesn’t develop much beyond this premise.
Continue reading Innocent When You Dream (Elephant and Peanut) 2013 Toronto Fringe Review
Alex Nussbaum’s Handbook to the Future: A Brave New Worrier, a thought-provoking play about the future of humans and technology at the Toronto Fringe Festival, proves that creator and performer Alex Nussbaum really does know about what we humans should worry about in our increasingly online future.
It’s to Nussbaum’s credit that in this his first Fringe production, he makes the stuff of staid futurists a smart laugh-out-loud evening at the theatre.