Reviews of productions based in Toronto – theatre includes traditional definitions of theatre, as well as dance, opera, comedy, performance art, spoken word performances, and more. Productions may be in-person, or remote productions streamed online on the Internet.
For me lab le jeu inc’s production of Tikva’s Orchestra playing at Toronto Fringe Festival had a dreamlike quality which stayed with me after I left the theatre. I think it was my brain’s way of letting me appreciate the incredible beauty of the piece without being emotionally flattened by the story, which is harrowing.
Tikva is a Jewish cellist in Germany. She tries to save her fellow orchestra members from the Nazis.
Continue reading Tikva’s Orchestra (Lab Le Jeu) 2014 Toronto Fringe Review
Never Swim Alone is emerGENcee’s Toronto Fringe Festival rendition of the 1991 classic that portrays the bitter rivalry between two longtime friends and their failed pursuit of some sweet summer loving. It opens light-hearted and charismatic, with most of its lines delivered in unison, and some of the best, most intelligent one-liners I’ve heard in years (one example: “If shit had a brain, it would quote Nietzche”).
And then things get real. Oh, how things get real. If ever a play were to capture the rude awakening of adult life, where friends become enemies and spouses cuckolds; where friendly competition becomes bloody contest; if ever anything were to convey how time and age bloody us with a brutal, sudden, merciless reality, it is Never Swim Alone.
Continue reading Never Swim Alone (emerGENcee) 2014 Toronto Fringe Review
In case you haven’t had enough of the mayoral race, the Toronto Fringe Festival keeps the political humour going with Spare Drawer Productions’s Sean & Steven Run for Mayor. The show focuses on two bright young men, seeking to win the vote as co-mayors in order to make Toronto a better place. In the process they learn some valuable things about themselves and overthrow the top candidate: an evil, extremely capitalist and militaristic woman seeking to raze the city and exploit its resources.
Continue reading Sean & Steven Run for Mayor (Spare Drawer Productions) 2014 Toronto Fringe Review
You can’t walk through the Fringe Club without getting hit in the face four or five times by someone waving pamphlets for their sketch comedy show. But Fringe is nothing if not Toronto’s most bubbly cesspool of variety, and no two sketch shows are created equal. Rulers of the Universe: A Love Story, sets itself apart at this year’s Toronto Fringe Festival with its top-notch original writing, a solid cast, and an infectious sense of camaraderie.
You can’t have a proper Fringe Festival without some improv comedy. And you can’t have an improv comedy show at the Toronto Fringe Festival without the Bad Dog Theatre crew. Toronto, I Love You, their current Fringe offering, is an unexpected and guffaw-worthy ode to the city we all adore in varying degrees.
Continue reading Toronto, I Love You (Bad Dog Repertory Players) 2014 Toronto Fringe Review