Redbone Coonhound: diminishing returns
This is unusual: a relatively positive review has come back to haunt me — well, to tap me on the shoulder. When the Arts Club mounted Redbone Coonhound as part of its audio play series, I kind of liked it. Back in February, I said about the play, “It isn’t always...
Blue Stockings: Feminism 101
I wish there was a time store where I could go and demand a refund. The subject matter of Jessica Swale’s 2013 script is potentially fascinating. Set in 1896, Blue Stockings is about women’s struggle to be granted degrees at Cambridge University. The story features...
Benevolence: exuberance, compassion
On my trip to Benevolence, I started on a hill, then wandered through a valley. As I climbed the rise on the other side, I was surprised to find a startling view. Translation: I got bored in the middle of this show, but there’s such an excellent payoff that my...
Hot Brown Honey: The Remix — exhilarating, liberating
Hot Brown Honey: The Remix is one of the best political rallies you’ve ever going to attend — because it’s also a big, loud, slick party. The Honeys, as they call themselves, are an ever-changing feminist group from Australia that’s made up of Indigenous women and...
Animal: family entertainment in the truest sense
I didn’t get what I thought I was in for, but I did get a very good time. Cirque Alfonse is a humble Québecois company: the acrobats and musicians are all either members of the Carabinier Lépine family or their friends. And Animal is a humble show that riffs — in...
The Thursday Night Bridge Circle: Decline the invitation
I do not want to write this review. I know that it takes enormous effort to mount a show — even if it's a bad one. And I’m sure that everybody involved with the United Players production of The Thursday Night Bridge Circle has the best of intentions. But sometimes...
Peter Pan Goes Wrong — and so does this farce (sometimes)
Farces can be beautiful machines: marvels of comic timing and physical business so dazzlingly funny they leave you gasping for breath. But, of course, the thing about machines is that you want them to work all the time. This production of Peter Pan Goes Wrong hums...
VANCOUVER FRINGE 2022: Spooky & Gay Cabaret
I got goosebumps, I laughed (a lot), and I cried — all in one show. Of the performances I’ve seen at the Fringe so far this year, this is my favourite. Writer and performer Bruce Ryan Costella frames Spooky & Gay Cabaret with a scary story about an eleven-year-old...
VANCOUVER FRINGE 2022: Summer Teeth
Playwright Bill Marchant’s Summer Teeth is an odd assemblage. It starts with one of the most riveting monologues I’ve heard in ages. The givens are that we’re in a post-plague near-future somewhere along the Pitt River in what seems to be a rural community. At least...
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