The Sink
By Clarissa Fortin
The Sink is an intimate experience.
Performed in the small and cozy Tea Party Café with nothing much as a set piece beyond a wooden box, the one-man cast and crew fully immerse the audience in another world. Nick Wade plays a disillusioned factory worker with an engaging combination of charm and mania. Trapped in a bleak existence, the unnamed worker finds solace in a warped and imperfect piece of metal he finds at work one day.
However, in the world of this play every act of non-conformity has grave consequences. Not only do the wall projections effectively create the illusion of scene changes and dream sequences happening in the protagonist’s mind—they are also strangely beautiful. The eerie original musical score heightens the mood of the piece as well and makes up for a script that is occasionally simple and repetitive. Overall, this is a concise, entertaining little play.
Two Girls, One Corpse
By Clarissa Fortin
Here’s a play with a sentiment that will hit close to home for most 20-somethings.
“I can’t be a murderer!” Marissa shouts. “I finally almost have a real job! I’ve kept a plant alive for 2 weeks!”
Best friends Marissa and Michelle thought their lives would be more like an episode of Friends, but instead they’re attending the wedding of Marissa’s ex-boyfriend Andy. After a night of black-out drunken partying they wake up to discover Andy came home with them—and he’s not breathing . . .
This is an enjoyable light piece that is still finding its legs. Michelle Blanchard and Marissa Caldwell are engaging onstage and their character’s banter is enjoyably silly. Occasionally, however, their script feels static and repetitive. Nevertheless it’s a fun night out, especially for aficionados of Murder She Wrote.
The Elephant Girls
By Clarissa Fortin
Maggie Hale had very few choices in life: to become a factory worker, a whore or, most depressingly of all, a wife.
Instead she refused to make any choice at all, turned her back on propriety and became the enforcer for the 40 Elephants, a formidable female gang led by the legendary Alice Diamond. It all fell apart eventually but for a few pints at a lonely pub, Hale will tell you everything.
The premise of this show is intriguing enough—really, who doesn’t want to hear the story of an all female gang terrorizing London in the 1920’s? What makes it truly excellent is the woman telling the story. Margo McDonald is every bit as tough, intense, and vulnerable as the script requires her to be. Dressed in men’s clothes with a charismatic swagger in her walk, she makes Hale both intimidating and sympathetic.
McDonald has a glare that pierces to the back row of the theatre. Her stance is that of a woman accustomed to violence. The script does not shy away from brutality, nor does it gloss over Hale’s complicated sexuality. Her story isn’t just one of adventure and action, nor is it simply a fascinating history lesson. It’s also a compelling look at one woman’s struggle with her individual identity at a time when women were supposed to be defined by their relationships with men.
When she first cuts off her hair and puts on men’s clothes, Maggie Hale finally sees herself—and we see her too.
Hootenanny!
By Craig Lord
Grab your tickets, get in the car, and leave your kids far, far behind for the outlandish antics of Hootenanny!, everyone’s favourite crude children’s entertainers.
Will Somers and Kate Smith (Hoot & Annie) rival the Wiggles in painstaking cheesiness, but their banter between (and during) the acts is far from PG. The performers’ tensions boil over in front of an audience of unsuspecting children, unfolding into a high time at the theatre.
Hootenanny! plays well on a winning formula. Parodying the phoney, oft-unbearable sincerity of children’s acts, Smith and Somers consistently draw laughs by throwing very adult themes in between family-friendly songs. As the conflict between Hoot and Annie unravels, the performers play off the kids’ show trope and begin to drag the audience into their argument, like unstable parents using their children against each other.
The chemistry between Hoot and Annie was solid. A bit more improv with the audience could’ve brought genuine laughs. Smith and Somers certainly seemed capable of riffing off a crowd.
The biggest hindrance to the show was technical sloppiness. A projector sat at the back of the stage for the occasional video, but a misfire halfway through the show really derailed the performance, despite Smith playing it off well.
What I was most impressed by was the emotional side of the show. As the facade of Hootenanny! crumbles, the personal turmoil and motivations of Hoot and Annie shone through. In a show that so easily could have wrapped up the conflict with a carefree song at the end, Smith and Somers make the bold decision to end on a somber note.
The reality of the ending brings their characters into full dimension, and turns a fun, one-off night at the theatre into something with meaning.
I think my boyfriend should have an accent
By Craig Lord
Most of the shows I’ve seen at Fringe Fest have made immediate impressions. But with I think my boyfriend should have an accent, Emily Pearlman’s stories of understanding each other through culture, history, and open-mindedness, I took a lot more time to think and digest.
It’s not really a show about relationship troubles. Sure, that’s there, but Pearlman is more concerned with a bigger picture of human connection, not just who she’s hoping is her future husband.
She tells the audience stories about tragedies, about visiting sites of deep trauma, and how she reconciles those emotions as an outsider. She takes us to Rwanda and Auschwitz. But she also shares stories from places of love: her home neighbourhood, or a hippie “transformation” festival. What her stories boil down to are finding each other—even in the darkest places.
Pearlman is a magnificent storyteller. She’s conversational. She’s blunt. She’s clever as hell. Above all else, in the intimate space of the ODD Box Theatre, Pearlman comes across as profoundly genuine. She doesn’t manufacture drama or play on her audience’s emotions. She’s open about her insecurities, her ignorance, and her shortcomings.
She provides an honest piece of theatre, an easy show to fall in love with. It’s sitting down to coffee with an old friend and losing track of the time.
The Untitled Sam Mullins Project
By Craig Lord
Sam Mullins is open, funny, and engaging in his solo-show The Untitled Sam Mullins Project.
With a blend of storytelling and standup comedy, Mullins shares his insecurities, his failures, and what he believes to be true in what is one of the 2015 Fringe Fest’s most enthralling hours.
Mullins explores what he knows to be his four truths in the show, which begin with laughter when recalling a catastrophe of a play, but progress to deeper, emotional notes. For instance, how Mullins identified his self-destructive patterns in love, or how his father affected a struggling young baseball player’s life. The normally-upbeat show is marked well by these somber departures.
For a man who bears his anxieties to the audience early on, Mullins is commanding and confident on the stage. His speech is quick, witty, and simple. He is the archetype of a storyteller, throwing in just enough detail to hook your imagination and never quite dropping the audience’s attention. His laughter at his own expense is infectious—there is a warmth you can’t help but feel towards the lanky, curly-haired man.
The Untitled Sam Mullins Project may well be an ode to the medium, to the benefits of storytelling as a cathartic release. He notes how his burdens, exposed and offered to the audience, are lifted from his shoulders through his stories. It’s hard not to empathize, to reflect.
This is what makes Mullins such an excellent storyteller—he’s the kind of performer that inspires performance. He inspires you to go home and write. His truths encourage you to find your own.
