Serial killers are truly awful people.  They write some of the most excruciating prose, poetry and plays you will ever experience.  They deserve no mercy.  They also kill people.  In Cabaret of Murder; currently touring Canada with a stop at the Toronto Fringe, we are introduced to the lives and works of some of the most evil and excruciating.

The show is cleverly structured by Blair Morro and performed with great energy and skill by Bella Ciccone, Katie-Rose Connors and Paulina Pino Rubio.  They act, they sing, they dance and they do as much as anyone could to inject life into the words.  But what words.  There is poetry that lacks the elegance and wit of McGonagall and a play largely about a high school math teacher’s constipation which is best described as “crappy”.  And those are highlights.

I came out full of admiration for the energy of the cast but ultimately feeling “meh” about the experience.

Cabaret of Murder is part of the Toronto Fringe and runs at the Alumnae Theatre until July 13th.