Death Ray Cabaret 2010 Toronto Fringe Review

Death Ray Cabaret is a sketch comedy show performed by a two-man troupe of the same name. Kevin Matviw and Brad Sayeau met, according to their website, at Bad Dog Theatre (formerly Theatresports) which is Toronto’s incubator for improv comedy talent.

As you enter the show you know you’re in for some darkly-tinged comedy, as the BYOV – St. Paul’s/Trinity Church’s chapel – is set up as a funeral. However the show is never morbid and there’s probably nothing in there that would offend your grandmother. Your grandmother, however, might not “get” all the jokes as a lot of them – generally the ones that work best – are pop culture references.

Fellow children of the 80’s: there’s a whole sketch in there just for us.

Some of the transitions between sketches felt loose and jumbled and some of the sketches themselves needed to be a lot shorter and quicker: I blame a lot of that on the current weather. The chapel was not air conditioned and poor Brad and Kevin were dressed in long pants and long-sleeved shirts. They threw in references to the  temperature throughout the show and you could see them dripping with sweat as they tried to maintain the high energy needed to pull off sketch comedy. They had a lot of fans trained on the audience so it was bearable for us, but no one wanted to be jumping around a stage in pants with no AC today. Unfortunately for the performance, you could tell the guys didn’t want to be doing it either. But they tried valiantly and I applaud their effort.

I have one question though: Who was the female performer? There was a woman in almost all of the sketches and she’s not credited on the Death Ray Cabaret site or the Fringe site anywhere.

Death Ray Cabaret Venue 19 Trinity St. Paul United Church – Chapel – BYOV

60 min.
Wed, June 30 5:00 PM – 1901
Fri, July 2 9:30 PM – 1903
Sat, July 3 8:00 PM – 1905
Tue, July 6 8:00 PM – 1909
Wed, July 7 5:00 PM – 1910
Thu, July 8 4:30 PM – 1912
Fri, July 9 9:30 PM – 1915
Sat, July 10 8:00 PM – 191

– 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