The Toronto Fringe Next Stage festival opened on Wednesday evening at Buddies in Bad Times with Keir Cutler’s Civilized. It’s a one man tour de force in which John Huston plays a senior bureaucrat from Indian Affairs during the Laurier government who has returned from the dead to explain to contemporary Canadians why the Residential School System was entirely necessary and a Very Good Thing.
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.
Monks is a two woman clown show. It’s that one day, every five years, when the abbot isn’t around and the brothers can take a day off from praying and counting lentils. Unfortunately they have lost their donkey which is a perfect excuse for every possible permutation of ass jokes.
It’s hugely physical and highly interactive with water sprayers, lentils (yes more lentils), musical instruments and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, not to mention writhing on the floor and hiding in lentil barrels. If you don’t want to engage in the antics sit right at the back and, above all, do not come late. The full wrath of the Catholic Church awaits the Satanic evil of the tardy. Continue reading
Koli Kari by Ganesh Thava opened at the fringe on Saturday evening. It’s presented by Pink Banana Theatre and directed by Sungwon Cho. It’s built around Ravi’s (Thava) attempt to use his mother’s secret Koli Kari (chicken curry) recipe to revitalise his flagging TV cooking show. The broadcast is invaded by figures from Ravi’s past; girlfriends (more or less), his present (his mother) and a mysterious magical chicken. At times it’s quite weird and disturbing but too much of the time it turns on the obvious cringeworthy humour in the interaction between a young gay Indian man (from Scarborough natch) and his immigrant mother who is disappointed he hasn’t become a lawyer or a doctor, married a nice Indian girl and produced grandchildren.
I saw Stiff and Sons by Aidan Gouveia for Bare Theatre Collective directed by Daniel Reale at the Al Green Theatre on Saturday evening. I haven’t laughed so much for all the wrong reasons since I saw Death of Stalin. The background is a failing family owned funeral parlour. Darren Stiff is having an affair with his brother David’s wife Pam; an aspiring Hollywood actress. There is much shagging; mostly in coffins.
I started my exploration of the Fringe on Thursday night at East End United Church with You, Hamlet from DopoLavoro Teatrale directed by Daniele Bartolini. It’s an interactive show in which the three performers take the “Hamlets” (i.e. us, about 20 people) around different spaces in the church in each of which a “scene” takes place. It gets steadily more interactive as time goes by.
When I look at my calendar for July it’s all about two festivals, both of which include far more events than I could possibly cope with.
The first is the Toronto Fringe which runs July 2nd to 14th and features 77 shows in 16 venues. There really is something for everyone from clowns and comics to mass murderers and funeral directors. There’s even a musical. Most shows are $18 but that drops to $14 if one buys a ten ticket pass. I think I’ll be able to get to maybe half a dozen shows given an overlap with… Continue reading
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