2 For Tea by Life and Depth bring comedy and a bit of improv to Randolph Theatre for Toronto Fringe 2013. The play involves six characters, two of which are played by the writers/main performers Aaron Malkin and Alastair Knowles. The other four characters are selected from the audience, most of them being cherry-picked from the front row.

The play begins with Aaron Malkin (James) and Alastair Knowles (Jamesy) having a simple tea party. The tea drinking is accompanied by Jamesy’s perfectionist habits and physical comedy. Jamesy pivots and lunges with the grace of a classical dancer, while James is the agreeable straight-man. The chemistry between the two works impeccably. Through the performing alchemy of Malkin and Knowles, tea drinking becomes fascinating.

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Every now and then, I get to see an amazing show. A show which is so outstanding, so perfect in every respect, that I want to shout it from the rooftops. I push out-of-town friends to visit just so they can bear witness to these chunks of theatre at its finest.

CALLAGHAN! & the Wings of the Butterfly is one of those shows. Don’t let the Fringe angle lower your expectations: there’s an hour of solid, consistent, awe-inspiring magic on that stage, and you’d be a fool to miss it.

Continue reading CALLAGHAN! & the Wings of the Butterfly (Sex T-Rex) 2013 Toronto Fringe Review →

Life as a Pomegranate, which plays at a laundromat as part of the Toronto Fringe Festival, is an experience.

Yes, yes, okay, fine: you’re in a laundromat, with four strangers, all nervously avoiding eye contact while the denizens of the Annex attend to their socks and panties. It’s not what theatre usually feels like.

But more importantly, as Royzee Fudge (Dawna J. Wightman) explains, this is about you. She’s going to get on stage and “open her flap”: reveal something of herself to us. She’s going to tell us secrets, teach us songs, let us poke the big blue bouncing ball that resides somewhere near her heart–and hope that, in doing so, she’ll inspire us to open up ourselves.

This isn’t therapy, nor is it audience participation: you’re perfectly welcome to sit back and passively take it all in. But as a premise for a show, it’s damn ambitious–and damn successful.
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Taking Measure of the Gay Dating   Scene

Jock, bear, daddy, twink – the lexicon used by the gay male population to describe each other’s physical attributes is a rich and varied one. But as playwright and performer Lucas Brooks points out in his play, VGL 5’4’’ TOP, these labels often serve to exclude members of the homosexual population rather than attempt to create any sense of community.

“Bitchiness,” notes Brooks in his play which is currently running at The Tarragon Theatre Solo Room, “is an art that gays have cultivated for generations.”

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Supperfesta! by Take Your Mark Productions is a hilarious force to be reckoned with at Toronto Fringe 2013. The cast of Natasha Boomer, Craig Lauzon, James Jabbour, and Jessie Behan up the comedic ante with every passing minute. It felt like Robert Gill Theatre was shaking with laughter.

Supperfesta! is about Betty (Boomer), who decides to throw a dinner party so that she can inspect her younger sister Rose’s (Behan) new beau Tim (Jabbour). With the encouragement of her husband Dean (Lauzon), the dinner party turns into more than a nice get-together. The event brings forth secrets between old and new couples, as well as the jealous nature between sisters. So, the event that begins as dinner slowly transforms into a “supperfesta”.

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