By Megan Mooney

Okay.  Cactus: The Seduction is a friggin’ weird show.  Luckily, it’s also a friggin’ awesome one.

This is a show that’s been selling out everywhere it’s gone, and the buzz clearly followed it to the 2010 Toronto Fringe Festival.  I got there close to 20 minutes before the show started and was glad I had pre-booked my ticket.  I’m pretty sure they were already sold out.

What’s particularly impressive about that is that it was the first performance of Cactus in Toronto at this year’s festival.  Sometimes it seems a bit like pulling teeth to get audiences out to the first show of the festival.  Everyone wants to wait for reviews to come out so they can choose which of the 150+ shows they’re going to go to.

If you’re looking for a traditional narrative, this isn’t the show for you.  But if you have a sense of humour that sometimes trends towards the more base pursuits, and don’t mind a touch of the absurd, then you may very well pee yourself laughing at this one.  Which would perhaps fit perfectly into this show.

I actually have no idea how to describe this show.  I feel like no description would do it justice.  Tt’s all over the place.  It’s physical comedy, it’s a bit of dance, it’s some fodder for thinking comedy, and it’s all mushed together into 60 minutes of hilarity.  What I can tell you though is that I laughed my ass off.

On top of all of that, he also managed to do audience participation that worked.  This is no small feat.  Effective audience participation often seems a bit like holy grail.  Widely believed to exist, but rarely ever found.  (Okay, the Holy Grail was never found, so this is a flawed comparison, but my brain is melted from so much Fringing and so little sleep, so we’re gonna stick with it).

Go see this show.  Oh, and, if there are any advance tickets left, go, buy them.  Otherwise there’s a darn good chance you’re not gonna make it in.

Details:

The Cactus: A Seduction Venue 6 The Solo Room

60 min.
Fri, July 2 6:30 PM – 609
Sat, July 3 3:15 PM – 611
Sun, July 4 6:15 PM – 618
Mon, July 5 4:00 PM – 620
Wed, July 7 10:00 PM – 631
Thu, July 8 9:45 PM – 635
Fri, July 9 7:00 PM – 637
Sun, July 11 12:30 PM – 644

– All individual Fringe tickets are $10 ($5 for FringeKids) at the door (cash only). Tickets are available online at www.fringetoronto.com, by Phone at 416-966-1062, in person at The Randolph Centre for the Arts, 736 Bathurst Street (Advance tickets are $11 ($10+$1 convenience fee)

– Several money-saving passes are available if you plan to see at least 5 shows