It has often been said that being marginalized is the same as simply being invisible. Your opinions matter for very little and, often, people don’t even realize you exist.
Inspired by interviews with Toronto’s homeless population, The Invisible City journals a mysterious epidemic where, all of the sudden, people just start vanishing into thin air. Currently playing at St. Vladimir’s Theatre, this Toronto Fringe show explores the theme of what it actually means to live on the periphery of mainstream society.
I did not expect to be entertained by a 15 minute play in a shed, but, thankfully, life consistently surprises me! Red Bedroom Theatre’s production of Adam in the Alleyplays venue at this year’s Toronto Fringe Festival, is a sharp exchange between two characters performed by two up-and-coming performers.
I should mention that I particularly enjoy performances that challenge traditional notions of the ‘stage’ and the audience/viewer boundary, and I kind of get off on that feeling of chaos when my brain is asking: what… is happening right now?!
Or Be Eaten by Silent Protagonist is an “urban fairy tale” in the Fringe Festival that uses mask, puppetry and clown. It tells the story of Ash, a homeless man who journeys under the city through abandoned subway tunnels trying to find a utopian Toronto neighbourhood where no one ever goes hungry.
Scott Garland, Amy Marie Wallace and Graeme Black Robinson take on the variety of theatre forms with gusto and it all melded together charmingly. A curtained rack is the main set piece and serves many purposes.
When Ash encounters goblins who plan to eat him for dinner, the rack hides the performer’s bodies as they manipulate the goblin puppets above. Later it becomes a weapon that Ash uses against the crow Cordivia, who also intends to eat him. Even later the curtain itself becomes a rock-and-concrete monster who is trying –you guessed it! – to eat Ash. Continue reading Or Be Eaten (Silent Protagonist) 2013 Toronto Fringe Review→
Weaksauce (Sam S. Mulllins) is a sweet coming-of-age story about a teenage boy’s first love and though it is not in the Fringe program, it is definitely playing at the Toronto Fringe Festival.
Sam S. Mullins is vulnerable and lovely as he tells us about the summer he turned sixteen and traveled across the country to work at a hockey camp in Guelph. At camp, he meets a charming and charismatic Brit who he hates immediately in an irrational, jealous schoolboy way.
My friend Dick Valentine from Electric Six once told me that rock and roll without fun and danger is pointless. I think the people responsible for Kill, Sister, Kill got expelled from the same school of thought, because their Fringe play is like a big old Cadillac, barrelling down the interstate, with a jet engine bolted to the trunk. These people like fun and high-voltage danger. These are my kind of people. Continue reading Kill, Sister, Kill (Kid Switchblade) 2013 Toronto Fringe Review→
