Green, playing at St. Vladimir’s, is a clown show minus the noses. Marie-Claire Marcotte and Rebecca Davey bring their clown personas Vran and Gertie to the stage Vran is a gamer with an obsession for bacon, Gertie is a professional blogger who won’t admit that her pet bird is actually made of cardboard. The two techie-geeks bring their terrible business acumen to The Go Green Festival in Oshawa.

The show is really funny. Marcotte and Davey are excellent clowns with great comic timing. Their supporting cast, Adam Cunningham as Willard and Kat Sandler as The Narrator, are just as excellent. Each performance is flawless and will easily have you rolling on the floor. The show itself doesn’t really make any sense at all in terms of plot but most viewers won’t care.

Green relies on audience participation, as there are at least two instances in which someone is dragged onstage, and many more when you may be centred out to answer a question. I was initially suspicious that one or two of them may have been a plant, however, I believe they just happened to select other actors – there tend to be a lot around the festival, as you can imagine. There were also a few funny video segments, though they probably could have been done live instead.

Vran and Gertie are clowns clearly aimed at poking fun at our technology-obsessed culture. The show did have an environmental message as well; however it seemed tacked on to the end. The environmental issues are mentioned very briefly during the show, but the closing song nevertheless feels like it’s saying “Oh by the way, this was the point”.

Green is an extremely funny clown show that is totally worth attending – just don’t expect it to make a whole lot of sense. But then again, what fun is sense?

Details:
– Green is playing at St. Vladimir’s Theatre (620 Spadina Avenue) until July 17, 2011.
– Show dates are July 15 at 11:30pm, July 16 at 12pm, and July 17 at 9pm.
– 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