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.
Lord, what a title: Sex T-Rex Presents Watch Out WildKat: Yer Dealin’ With The Devil! opened tonight at the Toronto Fringe Festival, promising a rootin’, tootin’, whiskey-swillin’ good time. Dime-novel sensation WildKat MacReady sets out to avenge her father’s death, and she’ll do whatever it takes to get the sonovabitch who killed him — including making a deal with Lucifer himself. But when she comes face-to-face with the only man dangerous enough to cheat the devil, how can she possibly win?
Theatre of the Beat’s A Bicycle Built for Two is a comedy all about love and- you guessed it-marriage. This Toronto Fringe show is overall sweet and charming, though at times it feels a bit like an after school special on relationships.
The show examines the intra-relationship conflicts of several different couples: the main characters, Will and Sarah, who are getting married and experiencing tensions; Will’s parents who are in the throes of empty nest syndrome; and a few other couples who are also connected to the family. Continue reading A Bicycle Built for Two (Theatre of the Beat) 2014 Toronto Fringe Review
Birdy…or, how not to disappear (by mouse + meadow productions currently playing at the Toronto Fringe) is a one-woman show that explores the intertwined relationship between her own mental/emotional state and the memories of her father. During the show Karie Richards discusses her childhood and family relationships which we can see have shaped her into the anxious, worried, I-can-fix-it person she is today. Continue reading Birdy…or, how not to disappear (mouse+meadow productions) 2014 Toronto Fringe Review
Fantastic Extravagance (Steady State’s Best New Play shortlistee) plumbs Toronto’s literary scene, skewering the critics, the authors, the readers, and everyone else who has so much as touched a book in the last century. In this Fringe Festival serio-satire, a neurotic novelist kills off her fifth consecutive protagonist, and finally finds the success she craves — but when that protagonist starts to appear in her apartment, following her around and pleading for salvation, can she coax forth the energy to break out of her pattern, or will inertia and her inadequacies lead to her own final chapter?
Continue reading Fantastic Extravagance (Steady State) 2014 Toronto Fringe Review
We Heart Heartbeats Productions presents Salvador, a personal journey of self-discovery and exploration at this year’s Toronto Fringe Festival. The story follows a young Hispanic gay man, Rafael Antonio Renderos, as he considers what his life would have been like if his parents hadn’t left his native home in El Salvador for a life in North America. He would have been born in the midst of a civil war, would he even be alive today?
Renderos trekked back to El Salvador to explore what their gay culture and community is like. There he meets a man named Juaquín Caceres, founder of Asociacíon Entre Amigos whose painful story sheds unexpected light on Renderos’ own.
Continue reading Salvador (We Heart Heartbeats Productions) 2014 Toronto Fringe Review