Getting older definitely sucks, so if you find yourself feeling Middle Raged, you can laugh along with Gary Pearson and Geri Hall at the 2019 Toronto Fringe Festival. Hall and Pearson wrote and perform this handful of sketches about parenting, sex, and body issues. Since both performers are alums of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, they definitely know what they’re doing in the comedy department.
Continue reading Middle Raged (Gary Pearson) 2019 Toronto Fringe Review
In The Commandment (playing at the Toronto Fringe Festival), God’s unhappiest prophet (Phil Rickaby) breaks into Open Mic Night to explain how he got into this situation, and bequeath unto us the latest and greatest word of the Lord. The result is somewhere along the Adams-Gaiman-Gorey spectrum, exploring what it even means to be a prophet in the modern era — and the unique duties it imposes upon an atheist.
Continue reading The Commandment (Simple Truth Theatre) 2019 Toronto Fringe Review
In Sidney Needs a Kidney (playing at the Toronto Fringe Festival), a nice young suburban couple have come to the end of the road. The spoiler’s in the title: Sidney needs a kidney, and so far they’re coming up dry. But they have a plan involving a dinner party, her sister’s boyfriend, and an unconventional method of persuasion.
Remember, it’s all for a good cause, so they’re good people. No matter what.
Continue reading Sidney Needs A Kidney (Little Fish Productions) 2019 Toronto Fringe Review
Smart, funny, moving, and integrated, Laura Anne Harris takes her audience to Syracuse, New York in Destiny, USA by Convention Productions playing at the Streetcar Crowsnest Scotiabank Studio as part of the Toronto Fringe Festival. In Destiny, a city boasting one of the country’s largest malls, Harris navigates her new job as a relay telephone operator for deaf and hearing-impaired individuals even she struggles with a looming personal tragedy. Continue reading Destiny, USA (Convection Productions) 2019 Toronto Fringe Review
Despite the melodramatic nonsense title, The Ashes of Forgotten Rain at the 2019 Toronto Fringe is a comedy — a theatrical comedy. As in, it’s a comedy about working in theatre, full of in jokes and meta-references and pleasingly-headshaking “ah, the theatah.” For this kind of show to work at all, it needs actors that can commit fully to a high level of nonsense and then ride it through the grave and back to life. To the benefit of my funny bone, to say nothing of my spirits, this exceptionally well stage-managed play had them.