Lots to get through as I was lax in my posting yesterday. Here we go:
I believe this is an autobiographical dance piece. Inspired by the life of a woman who was adopted, in a private adoption, by parents who expected her to be white, the piece explores themes of identity and culture when you must find your own way, or perhaps assemble it from what is around you.
Falling solidly on the art side of the art-therapy divide, I recommend this for those following dance at the Fringe.
The direction is slick but simple, and the humour delightful, and never cruel.
Recommendation: Strongly recommended.
Recommendation: Light fare, worth seeing.
Recommendation: Hard to say. I wouldn't recommend against it, but wouldn't push people to it either.
This is a send-up of the b-horror weeklies of the golden age of Radio. In it, we watch four 1950s actors putting on the radio show giving the play its title. The show had its moments (and I especially liked the idea of a man who only ever talked when on the air), but the pace was uneven, and the show-within-the-show had a script that wasn't serious enough to take seriously, but not campy enough to embrace for its cheese.
Recommendation: You can safely give this a pass
Billed as a Cabaret Journal telling stories of loss, love, and loss, it really just presented a song list with no through line or thematic development. A strange trio of pieces about Joan of Arc finish off a set that left me scratching my head.
The voices are strong for the most part, and the music isn't bad so much as forgettable.
Recommendation: Not recommended.
Shows like this are what I go to the Fringe for as much as for anything else. A well presented, well crafted story with a widely applicable theme, told through a specific experience, and likely on a subject matter that I would not see in my usual theatre-going habits.
Kanika Ambrose plays Rosmarie Jon-Charles Hicks, who, after 20 years of living in Canada, returns to her home island of Dominica, to teach a series of head-tie workshops. Ambrose plays not just the character of Rosemarie, but of all characters in the piece, embodying them with aplomb. The resonant theme of how you can never really go home again come through brilliantly.
Recommendation: Recommended
Sisters of Salome understand dance for theatre-people as very few companies at Fringe do. I last saw them two years ago when they presented a dance interpretation of The Little Mermaid. Their fare this time around is selections from the slightly more adult 1001 Nights.
Their show provides skillful traditional dance as well as modern flare, offering off a wholly accessible dance experience for people who may be interested in seeing a dance piece, but unsure of the genre. I was particularly impressed with how the company brought to life a sea teaming with serpents.
Recommendation: Recommended
With a strong sense of moment and mood, performers Alisa Walton and Thomas Morgan Jones, under the direction of Ginette Mohr, create an engaging and moving piece of physical theatre.
Structured primarily as a dialectic in two acts, we first meet Beamish (Sean Sullivan), the regional executive of a silver mining operation in an unnamed and unstable African nation, and LeBlanc (Nicole Wilson), the young lawyer sent to smooth things over after an unnamed number of women are raped by the security forces guarding the silver mine. The event, however, is tinder to a spark that sets of revolution and which, in act two, sees both Beamish and LeBlanc held at gunpoint by a soldier (Craig Thomas) who used to work in the mine.
Though billed in the program as a satire and as darkly funny, it is no such beast. Rather, it is a gripping examination of issues, first in the abstract, and later, in the specific. Engaging first the mind, and then the gut, this production overcomes what I felt were some character inconsistencies in the first ten minutes, to hit first its stride and the a dramatic intensity that I do not often see at the Fringe.
The performances are universally strong, but Nicole Wilson gives a fearless and intense turn as the woman with two devils in her shoulders, and who speaks the world as it is, in its cold, uncaring, and unfairness only to have the tables turn and experience its unfairness first hand.
Recommendation: Highly Recommended - do not expect a comedy
What a gem! What an absolute gem!
This simple and innocent take on the Frankenstein's Monster narrative is by turns heartwarming and touching. Beautifully told without words, and solely through music, movement, and shadow puppets, this show is the show that, for me, makes my Fringe!
Nathan Howe's direction keeps the pace and tone just right, and the original score by Howe and Derek Desroches provides a strong base to build a strong story of disappointment, filial love, loss, and acceptance.
Morgan Murray and Danielle Spilchen bring such a beautiful chemistry to the roles of creator and creation that you cannot help but fall in love with both of them. I left totally satisfied and moved by both the whimsy and completeness of the piece.
Recommendation: Top Recommendation. See this play! See it now!
I Was Born White
I believe this is an autobiographical dance piece. Inspired by the life of a woman who was adopted, in a private adoption, by parents who expected her to be white, the piece explores themes of identity and culture when you must find your own way, or perhaps assemble it from what is around you.
Falling solidly on the art side of the art-therapy divide, I recommend this for those following dance at the Fringe.
Three Men in a Boat
Based on the novel Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome, this tells of a boating trip up the Thames taken by three young upper-class men in the late 1880s. I believe most of the narration (and it is on of those shows where the characters narrate the action) is lifted more or less directly from the source material, and done with such a deft touch, that you could easily imagine it written for theatre.The direction is slick but simple, and the humour delightful, and never cruel.
Recommendation: Strongly recommended.
The Devil's Circus
Puppets in Hell. This show uses the myth of Orpheus and Euridice as a very very weak foil for what is generally puppet vaudeville. Despite its flawed construction, the jokes and humour were delivered in such a simple and guileless way, that smiling is inevitable. The show as a whole could use some sharpening, and the featured "trick puppet" moments, such as a marionette trapeze artist, went on to bit too long, leaving you with the clear idea that youd' seen each puppet do all it could, instead of all it wanted. Still, it was a fun hour that I would not normally see. The puppeteers here show a lot of promise.Recommendation: Light fare, worth seeing.
Prisoners and Criminals
This is a mixed bag set of monologues about, as the title suggests, prisoners and criminals. The good here is very good: a monologue about a developmentally handicapped child who kills a classmate in revenge for a brutal bullying; a comedic piece about a man murdering his landlord as retribution for the death of his gold fish; and a moving last testament from an American solider who had been part of the forces that liberated Auschwitz stand out as particularly good. Unfortunately, the bad was particularly bad: a gangster with an inconsistent speech impediment kidnapping the local paperboy for not delivering the paper failed to connect, and a man shooting a bartender for not having cold beer fell flat.Recommendation: Hard to say. I wouldn't recommend against it, but wouldn't push people to it either.
Dr. Frightful Presents Dead Air
This is a send-up of the b-horror weeklies of the golden age of Radio. In it, we watch four 1950s actors putting on the radio show giving the play its title. The show had its moments (and I especially liked the idea of a man who only ever talked when on the air), but the pace was uneven, and the show-within-the-show had a script that wasn't serious enough to take seriously, but not campy enough to embrace for its cheese.
Recommendation: You can safely give this a pass
50 times around the sun
Billed as a Cabaret Journal telling stories of loss, love, and loss, it really just presented a song list with no through line or thematic development. A strange trio of pieces about Joan of Arc finish off a set that left me scratching my head.
The voices are strong for the most part, and the music isn't bad so much as forgettable.
Recommendation: Not recommended.
The Art of Traditional Head Tying
Shows like this are what I go to the Fringe for as much as for anything else. A well presented, well crafted story with a widely applicable theme, told through a specific experience, and likely on a subject matter that I would not see in my usual theatre-going habits.
Kanika Ambrose plays Rosmarie Jon-Charles Hicks, who, after 20 years of living in Canada, returns to her home island of Dominica, to teach a series of head-tie workshops. Ambrose plays not just the character of Rosemarie, but of all characters in the piece, embodying them with aplomb. The resonant theme of how you can never really go home again come through brilliantly.
Recommendation: Recommended
Arabian Nights
Sisters of Salome understand dance for theatre-people as very few companies at Fringe do. I last saw them two years ago when they presented a dance interpretation of The Little Mermaid. Their fare this time around is selections from the slightly more adult 1001 Nights.
Their show provides skillful traditional dance as well as modern flare, offering off a wholly accessible dance experience for people who may be interested in seeing a dance piece, but unsure of the genre. I was particularly impressed with how the company brought to life a sea teaming with serpents.
Recommendation: Recommended
Tickva's Orchestra
This piece of dance/circus/movement/physical theatre was highly moving, though at some times inscrutable. Presenting the narrative of a Jewish cellist attempting to save the players of her orchestra during the attacks of Kristallnacht, this is likely the first time I have been emotionally moved to feelings other than happiness and awe by circus style skills.With a strong sense of moment and mood, performers Alisa Walton and Thomas Morgan Jones, under the direction of Ginette Mohr, create an engaging and moving piece of physical theatre.
Potosi
From one challenging piece to another. Potosi, winner of the Fringe new play content, looks at questions of guilt, greed, and responsibility that arise when the "developed" world exerts is influence "developing" and unstable nations.Structured primarily as a dialectic in two acts, we first meet Beamish (Sean Sullivan), the regional executive of a silver mining operation in an unnamed and unstable African nation, and LeBlanc (Nicole Wilson), the young lawyer sent to smooth things over after an unnamed number of women are raped by the security forces guarding the silver mine. The event, however, is tinder to a spark that sets of revolution and which, in act two, sees both Beamish and LeBlanc held at gunpoint by a soldier (Craig Thomas) who used to work in the mine.
Though billed in the program as a satire and as darkly funny, it is no such beast. Rather, it is a gripping examination of issues, first in the abstract, and later, in the specific. Engaging first the mind, and then the gut, this production overcomes what I felt were some character inconsistencies in the first ten minutes, to hit first its stride and the a dramatic intensity that I do not often see at the Fringe.
The performances are universally strong, but Nicole Wilson gives a fearless and intense turn as the woman with two devils in her shoulders, and who speaks the world as it is, in its cold, uncaring, and unfairness only to have the tables turn and experience its unfairness first hand.
Recommendation: Highly Recommended - do not expect a comedy
Aiden Flynn List His Brother So He Makes Another
What a gem! What an absolute gem!
This simple and innocent take on the Frankenstein's Monster narrative is by turns heartwarming and touching. Beautifully told without words, and solely through music, movement, and shadow puppets, this show is the show that, for me, makes my Fringe!
Nathan Howe's direction keeps the pace and tone just right, and the original score by Howe and Derek Desroches provides a strong base to build a strong story of disappointment, filial love, loss, and acceptance.
Morgan Murray and Danielle Spilchen bring such a beautiful chemistry to the roles of creator and creation that you cannot help but fall in love with both of them. I left totally satisfied and moved by both the whimsy and completeness of the piece.
Recommendation: Top Recommendation. See this play! See it now!