Jane Franklin’s bold collaboration with percussionist Tom Teasley is Fringe at its best. Blue Moon / Red River reaches wide — part dance and part concert. The pair have managed to combine both new mediums and old to create a unique and innovative storytelling experience, connecting some of our continent’s youngest artists with some of […]
Archives for July 2014
Persephone
Here, let me tell you what I saw on opening night. It won’t spoil it for you, since each rendition of Persephone will tell a different story, with a different artist in control*. So as I give my report, keep in mind – your results will vary.
Miss Emma’s Matchmaking Agency for Literary Characters
Who would you choose if you were trying to find a date for Captain Ahab from Moby Dick? Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye? Jane Eyre from, well, duh? That’s the delightfully demented inspiration behind Miss Emma’s Matchmaking Agency for Literary Characters, a charming comedy gracing the Capital Fringe Festival.
SELF
New performance companies, still exploring their identities and fresh from birth, often emerge from the Capital Fringe Festival, testing the waters in the ultimate indie theatre environment. With SELF, relEASE chooses to literally explore themselves from the outside in, examining personal narratives, memory, and identity through a highly physical and wonderfully lyrical performance.
Brick Penguin Tries Its Best
Sketch comedy is surely one genre that’s meant to pack a punch…line, in a format that delivers comedy short and sweet. With Brick Penguin Tries Its Best, the noted sketch comedy group Brick Penguin takes a shot at tons of topics, ranging from the über-local to poking fun at Hollywood. Though the laughs were there, […]
Tour de Farce
Tour de Farce is proof that playwriting is no easy task. Its lack of craft, cohesion, and contrast make it seem like a self indulgent, tedious conversation among close friends who aren’t including us.
“Master Harold” … and the Boys
Apartheid. One of South Africa’s stains on civil rights lasted for more than four decades, with consequences that penetrated its society deeper than what met the human eye. Fred Franklin, Artistic Director for The Rude Mechanicals, adapts his own melodramatic interpretation of “Master Harold”… and the Boys, illustrating how quickly bigotry can spread when the […]
Boy Meets Girl and Other Dilemmas
Wacky interactions between two people! A zany, wacky, female and a straight-man! With a quote from Groucho Marx in their show copy, Boy Meets Girl and Other Dilemmas sets the bar high for a sketch comedy show. I’m afraid that bar was at the top of the stairs up to the Bedroom and the XY […]
The Big “A”: Scenes from a Vanishing Landscape
At the start of The Big “A”: Scenes from a Vanishing Landscape an older couple is slow dancing. It is a nice image, until you wonder why both are holding their canes while swaying together. The scene encapsulates the nature of this play which looks at the impacts of Alzheimer’s disease – sometimes there are […]
The Matty Mathews Foundation
There is a clever idea behind The Matty Matthews Foundation. But as Mies van der Rohe said, God is in the details, and playwright John McGrath and his cast will need a couple of come-to-Jesus meetings before this play is all that it can or should be.
Joiceville 101.3
Poor Bob. Interactive theatre doesn’t bode well for the shy. Improv artists Rodrigo Pool and Carrie Helton Parsons, acting brilliantly as vicious, coked up radio anchors, selected an audience member to answer questions (“HEEEEEY BOB. What’s your favorite household appliance?!”). Bob’s answers shaped the show, and in this case, inspired a dishwasher commercial.
Ben & Lucille
“That’s just like us!” The man in the front row says to his wife in a not-so-quite whisper. He’s captured the gist of the fun, quirky and insightful piece that is Ben & Lucille. This stand-out play is a relatable new approach to a familiar story. The title duo are people that we know. They feel […]