Vancouver Fringe: SOMETHING IN THE WATER
Yay trans identity! Yay queer idenity! Yay polymorphous perversity! Yay … squid sex? Sure! Yay squid sex! In this playful solo show, which they wrote and perform, S.E. Grummett explores gender through a clown character named Grumms. Grumms uses Barbie and Ken as props...
Vancouver Fringe: HI, MY NAME IS JAI
When I heard that this autobiographical solo show was about the performer changing his first name, I thought, “So what?” But Hi, My Name is Jai is engaging for most of its 60 minutes because writer/performer Jai Djwa brings so much richness to it. Djwa’s dad was an...
Vancouver Fringe: IAGO VS. HAMLET
Especially in these tough times, I don’t want to give anybody a bad review, but Iago vs. Hamlet didn’t work for me. The premise of playwright Jayson McDonald’s two-hander is simple: in a mix-up, Iago and Hamlet have rented the same rehearsal space for an hour. After...
Beneath Springhill: excellent performance, dull material
When does a pile have no depth? When it’s a pile of clichés. I can understand why programming Beneath Springhill: The Maurice Ruddick Story might have looked like a good idea. This solo musical is based on the real-life experience of Maurice Ruddick, a Black Canadian...
Done/Undone: half done
For me, the two most personalized passages in Done/Undone, screenwriter Kate Besworth’s new film about the current relevancy — or irrelevancy — of Shakespeare’s work, are also the most successful. In Done/Undone, which was initially commissioned by Bard on the Beach...
Gather: Stories in Nature — room to grow
Maybe the best way to see these two short scripts is as seedlings. In Gather: Stories in Nature, Shayna Jones and Cameron Peal both perform solo plays they’ve written about their relationships to the earth. In a (mostly) productive decision, their work is being...
The Magic Hour: It really is
The Magic Hour opened me up and rearranged me. It was extraordinary. The Magic Hour offers an immersive experience that audience members go through one at a time — or in pairs if you need to. The idea is that you’re finishing a dog walk and re-entering your home...
I, Claudia: Welcome home
I cried with other people and laughed with them. We shared the space with a skilled and responsive performer. Together, we all slipped into the land of deliberate artifice and came out the other side with our hearts bigger and, in my case at least, more relaxed. Last...
Sii ye’yu: A Healing Assembly
This is what performance — what gathering — can be. Last Thursday, I attended and participated in Sii ye’yu (friends, relatives), an event created by Mortal Coil (a theatre company headed by settler artists) and Tsatsu Stalqayu (an Indigenous family group also known...
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