Shawn O’Hara is my new Fringe hero. He created or helped to create two of my favourite Fringe shows: Field Zoology 101 and Fake Ghost Tours. (See that review below.)
In Field Zoology 101, O’Hara becomes lecturer Dr. Brad Gooseberry. And you never know what’s going to come out of his mouth—when he describes the African elephant as “the dick-faced jungle cow”, for instance, or shows us the basilisk, “which is what the bullfrog becomes when it experiences its first blood moon.”
This comedy is all about absurdity and surprise. And O’Hara torques it with his low-key, deadpan delivery—smouldering with lust when he describes the sensuous curves of the rock python.
Formally, he keeps changing things up, including with the super clever use of an overhead projector.
O’Hara even slips in a head-twisting environmentalist message. Elephants, he tells us, are repositories of human suffering—so they really wantto die.
At the Revue Stage on September 6 (6:45 p.m.), 8 (8:15 p.m.), 11 (5:15 p.m.), 13 (10:15 p.m.), 14 (6:45 p.m.), and 16 (noon). Tickets > Colin Thomas (This review is based on a performance at the Victoria Fringe.)
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