A DOLL’S HOUSE: ODDLY CONSTRUCTED
I could not get a bead on Act 1, but I found Act 2 rewarding, which sucks, I guess, for the people who left at intermission. In the theatre, style is often the trickiest thing to get right, and this script exists in a stylistic hall of mirrors. Henrik Ibsen, who wrote...
NEO SOUL TIES (Vancouver Fringe)
You know how, when you go swimming, your body remembers the water for a long time? After I watched the tap-dance show Neo Soul Ties, my body kept thrumming with rhythmic excitement. Neo Soul Ties is exhilarating! And, choreographed by Toronto artist Victoria Miller,...
GOD THE DAUGHTER (Vancouver Fringe)
In her monologue, Patricia van der Meer reveals that, when she was five or six, she believed she was the second coming of Jesus Christ. Then she got a pair of red Buster Brown shoes and loved them so much she realized she was vain — not holy. That’s about it. There’s...
PLAN V (Vancouver Fringe)
The two sections of Plan V are so distinct they might as well be different scripts. The shorter one works. In the longer, opening section of her solo show, Eleanor O’Brien takes on the persona of Mama V, a pink-track-suited proselytizer in the revolutionary Pussy...
A CABARET OF LEGENDS (Vancouver Fringe)
Peak experience. Really. Tymisha Harris’s A Cabaret of Legends had me in tears. Harris’s voice is so rich and pitch-perfect, it feels surreal sometimes that she’s singing live. A celebration of Black female singers, A Cabaret of Legends overflows with substance....
AN AUTISTIC PRIEST AND A DOG WALK INTO A BAR (Vancouver Fringe)
You preach, brother! The premise of Jean-Daniel Ó Donncada’s solo show is that we’re attending a meeting of the St. Steven’s Youth Group. It’s led by Ó Donncada, a real-life Presbyterian minister, who’s also very smart and very funny. At one point, Ó Donncada shows a...
FOURTH AVENUE (BROOKLYN) – (Vancouver Fringe)
You’ve got to love a whodunnit in which the who is capitalism. In Fourth Avenue (Brooklyn), which is being performed by co-creators Emily Louise Perkins and Moti Margolin, a guy named Boris is being interrogated because he’s suspected of murdering the...
LOVE, SHARKS & FRENCHING (Vancouver Fringe)
Lou Laurence, who wrote this piece and is performing it, has charm to burn and an appealingly deep and raspy singing voice. Overall, though, Love, Sharks & Frenching is only intermittently engaging. The premise is that Laurence is conducting a scientific...
THE BISCUITEATER (Vancouver Fringe)
One of the first notes I wrote was, “This actor is not relaxed.” Two short pages later I wrote, “The characterization of the grandma is the best.” That second note marked the beginning of a theatrical seduction. In The Biscuiteater, writer and solo performer Jim...
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