Let me preface these reviews by saying I am just a person who has an opinion. If you’re reading a review about your performance, take it with a grain of salt, or just absolutely ignore it. Even if I didn’t enjoy the performance, it was clear that others in the audience did. At the end of the day, if you submitted to fringe and put on a performance, you better be so proud of yourself because you did the damn thing. Good or bad, keep creating!
The Apartment
A dramatic play that deals with the complexities of people living with mental illness, the lack of institutional help and how it effects those around them. From the beginning I was very curious about the nun character played by Jan Boase, though she says no lines her facial expressions say everything. She was a highlight of the play for me. The main character Bonnie, played by Cathy Shilton and her sister Amy played by Elizabeth Friesen were also strong characters. I liked the complexity that Cathy gave her character and how clear Elizabeth made her character, I felt I had met this character before and I immediately bought that she was this person. The male actors of this play I felt weren’t as strong as the female actors. The character of Liam performed by Joel Haszard, was very animated. It felt that he was acting in a sitcom rather than a play at times with his big gestures and larger than life reactions. Paul Bilodeau played Toby, a neighbor with his own agenda. Paul was also the writer of the play that won TMU’s Stella Award for best new play in 2022. For me the writing could of been stronger. I felt the scenes lacked subtext, and instead said the subtext to each other, leaving no subliminal tension. As far as the plot points go, I believe less is more and this play had a lot of plot points coming at you throughout which made for some loose ends especially regarding the past trauma of Bonnie. It’s hinted at but we never fully get to know what the trauma was, unless I completely missed something or keeping it a mystery was intentional. Overall, I think anyone that enters something into fringe or is able to put on a live performance should be congratulated because it’s not an easy task. The play for me was “okay” but I hope they continue to work on it because it does deal with important themes and it does have the potential to be great.
Rooted
Walking into the room the actors were already on stage warming up. Young theatre kids. I thought to myself, oh my god I hate how loud and obnoxious theatre kids are and I hate that I am one of them. But I love that the theatre is the safest space to be that loud and obnoxious kid, there’s no societal rules in a theatre. I take my seat and I’m curious as to what they’re gonna do with this talking tree. I was not disappointed. The musical poem, written by Jewelle Blackman asks the question, what does it mean to be rooted and how that changes over a lifetime. From the very first note the energy in the room is infectious! You absolutely can’t help but dance in your seat. There were no weak singers, the choreography and transitions were very smooth and very well thought out. All around a great performance put together by an incredibly talented team. Congratulations to all for a very fun, beautiful show. Click HERE for a quick chat with the writer Jewelle Blackman after the opening show!
Rosamund A New Musical
A standing ovation for the cast & musicians of Rosamund
A concert style musical, by Fringe veteran Andrew Seok was beautiful in every way. The cast consisted of musical theatre giants with AJ Bridal in the starring role. Forget everything you know about Sleeping Beauty, this is the real fairy tale we want! Beautiful music, songs about chasing dreams and not dreaming alone reminded me of the artists journey, how one of the hardest parts about being a creative is indeed feeling like you’re dreaming alone. I found out after the show that one of the cast members had jumped on the project last minute to fill in for an actor who was unable to perform, I would of never guessed! The performances were flawless, the humor in between the songs hit right on the mark and the surprise twist at the end made everyone in the audience gasp. A performance I’m not likely to forget. I can’t wait to see where this musical goes, because by looking at Andrew’s resume, I’m confident this is only the beginning for Rosamund.
See You Tomorrow
A solo show by Iris Bahr is a show about her experiences with the complicated mother-daughter relationship across time and across the world. Iris shares through humor and heart her experience with a long distance mother-daughter relationship, when emergencies happen, caring for a family member with dementia/alzheimers, a tricky road that seems to be becoming more and more common for people with older parents. Although she speaks incredibly fast she had a lot of humor sprinkled throughout her show as well as a few name drops. The lighting was an interesting choice, sometimes the lighting was distracting instead of aiding the performance, it felt over complicated. I didn’t get a chance to ask why she performs this show but I do think this show will help a lot of people who have relatives with dementia/alzheimers see themselves and feel validated.
Cabaret Of Murder
If you love true crime, you’ll love Cabaret of Murder! Created by Blair Moro and performed by Isabella Ciccone, Katie-Rose Connors & Paulina Pino Rubio they combine humor and terror into a dark humor performance that is larger than life! The three ladies switch characters, animate their performances, grab your attention with a poem or song or scene from a play and then reveal which serial killer created that piece of art. What could be a dark, serious performance is embellished with just the right amount of humor. From the beginning Isabella’s opening monologue I was hooked, not only is the performance complete with cape but she has incredible use of her eyes so if you don’t want to feel uncomfortable, aviod eye contact. Again, if you’re a true crime lover, you’ll LOVE Cabaret of Murder! Click HERE for my full interview with the cast on Creative Full Time.
Dead Right
A complicated topic, and all of the conflicting opinions. Dead Right written by Kate Barris & David Schatzky is a story about two women who are taking their lives into their own hands in their own ways. A daughter deciding to quit her job and follow her dreams of writing and her mother who has decided to create a suicide pact and their husbands who support them, as much as they can. Great topic, and very relevant to todays world. I found the play to be a little repetitive with the same argument, the daughter begging her mother not to do it, the mother insisting she’s going through with it. However with such a potentially dark subject matter the writers and performers inserted an appropriate amount of humor, it wasn’t over done and it continued the flow of the story instead of taking you out of the story for the sake of making you laugh. Casting was well done, all the performers were very good in their roles. Dead Right received Patron’s Pick.
Set for Dead Right post show
Rebel Bubbie
A case of expectation vs. reality being very different. I was expecting a one woman show, a comedy performance about this woman’s amazing, incredible life. An amazing woman and incredible life? Absolutely, but I felt I left with more questions than what I arrived with. Staged as an interview with the interviewer sitting in the front row of the audience and Bruria Cooperman on stage answering the questions. Bruria has a music stand with the script beside her but tried not to use it, resulting in the interviewer asking legitimate questions that were pre scripted and also asking questions to cue Bruria what the next line was when she couldn’t remember what came next. In the description of this performance it talks about all these things that happened in her life that sound outrageous, including getting arrested. Even during the interview she mentions falling asleep in one country and waking up in another, how did that happen? We are never told. Those are the stories that I want to hear, she seemed to just mention the incredible, outrageous things that happen without talking about HOW they happened. That is until we hear the story of how she got cast in Adam Sandlers movie. Neat story and I left wanting more stories, I felt like I didn’t get half of the stories I was promised which was disappointing. Bruria is an incredible, amazing woman, I think maybe because of time restraints her performance should of been a book of incredible tales of Rebel Bubbie to include all the stories I wanted to hear.
The Unexpected Mayfly
If you like to be utterly confused for 75 minutes this is the play for you. It starts off with an actor “filling in” for the main actor who’s running late, but the bit lasts an hour. There’s three things he’s interacting with for an hour, the sound person, who doesn’t respond at all. The audience that doesn’t want to interact because we’re just sitting there confused and an envelope that he delays opening for an inappropriate amount of time. This play stretched out the unstretchable and what was a 75 minute play could of been a 5 minute short film. At the end of the play there’s a reveal that is supposed to make everything make sense but it’s a reveal that makes this performance better as a short film than as a stage play in my opinion. As I’ve stated before just because this play was not for me doesn’t mean anything, it’s just a simple persons opinion and if you apply to fringe and put on a performance you should be proud of yourself for doing the damn thing. These performers were young and it’s only the beginning of their creative careers, so I hope they keep creating things.
The First Jew In Canada
An entertaining lecture. I’m not going to lie when I read the description I thought, wow, immigration story, a trans story, a minority story, this checks all of the boxes of what Canada loves to fund. Me thinking that this performance was chosen based on all the boxes it checked. Am I horrible person? Sometimes, yeah, but this horrible person was pleasantly surprised by this performance. First of all S. Bear Bergman did not choose this performance based on the boxes it would check, he researched this person Jacques LaFargue, shared what he learned and shared his own personal story as well. The amount of research that went into this was amazing. No one researches past a google search anymore, so the information he was able to find on this person incredible. To me it felt like an entertaining lecture, a fascinating story of how a Jewish, trans man Jacques LaFargue made his way to Canada. I learned more about the Jewish culture, and through the generosity of S. Bear Bergman sharing his experiences possibly being similar to Jacques, I also learned more about the trans experience. At the beginning, Jacques LaFargue is just a name, and then through the creative story telling by S. Bear Bergman becomes a hero in his own right and then a great mystery. S. Bear Bergman is a wonderful story teller, packed with fact, humor, and personal opinion. This was one of my favourite fringe performances. That’s right, it checked all of my boxes too.
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