War Of The Clowns (Pea Green Theatre Company) 2011 Toronto Fringe Review

War of the Clowns by Pea Green Theatre Group is a fun evening, full of silliness and great performances if a somewhat slightly muddled storyline.

We are in 1653 and clowns are being outlawed because the wonderfully talented Hume Baugh’s character does not like them. We see our two main clowns find ways to fight this and there are some clever and charming theatrics that the audience (and I suspect specifically the performers in the audience) enjoyed.

I do want to discuss the use of curse words in this piece as I am still not sure what I thought about it. To explain;  the script is written of it’s time but every now and then characters will use expletives, sometimes excessively to jolt you back to the contemporary. (It sort of reminded me of Deadwood). I did find this really funny to begin with but I think it was overused. I wonder if there could have been another way to do this, having the same affect but that would have been more  family friendly as I saw this having the potential to be for younger kids too.  I also want to point out a great performance from Leora Morris who is cute as a button.

War Of The Clowns was scheduled to be in a courtyard but for some reason it is now in a gym and this is really too bad. The acoustics and setting would have been so much better outdoors and we could have really escaped with them to the era they were trying to present.

One thought on “War Of The Clowns (Pea Green Theatre Company) 2011 Toronto Fringe Review”

  1. Hi Lucy,

    Thanks for your review. There was an unforseen sound problem in the playground space – a giant air conditioner vent that could not be turned off for the performance. The effect was like acting inside a jet engine so we had to move indoors to the gym. We are currently trying to find the right indoor space at the JCC for the show.

    As always the accommodating staff at the JCC have bent over backwards to help us out. This evening’s performance will be in the ballet studio of the Al Green Theatre.

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