Who can tell what is best for another person? Sometimes, what benefits the body may be utterly damaging for the soul.

In “Under the Mango Tree,” Veenesh Dubois explores the depth of pain which starts during her early childhood and stays for the rest of her life. The main character, 10 year old girl Timal, stays with her grandparents at home in a small village on Fiji while her father leaves for Canada in search of a better life for both of them. Six years pass and the only connection she has with her father are letters from this far away land, Canada, and her undying hope that she will be joining him there soon. After she is married off, her dream is crushed, but life goes on and her hope still persists. It is only when she is an adult woman and a mother that her father asks her to visit him. Upon her arrival, she finds out that her father passed away before she could see him again. In her desperate devastation at losing him definitely, she still clings to the hope that they will meet, if not in this than surely in another life.

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Everyone has that voice in the back of their head that preys on their insecurities and whispers demoralizing things. To what extent you give in to this personal bully relies on a variety of things, from strength of character to events in your life at the time. Dead Unicorn Ink has decided to externalize this voice in the form of Chesterfield, a malicious talking couch. Sounds a bit weird? Sure, but that’s what makes the idea so good as well. It’s different and funny, while still talking about something of importance. This is the story of a young married couple, Zach and Sarah (Drake Evans and Gabrielle Lazarovitz) who are going through a hard time in their marriage due, simply, to not communicating enough. Their own fears, already formed somewhere in the back of their minds, are exacerbated by the couch, spinning the situation out of control. This is a show with a lot of potential. Unfortunately the acting was a bit imbalanced, diluting the effect. Lazarovitz gives a strong performance, while Evans and other co-star Aaron Lejeunesse are a bit off with their characterization. Better pacing and subtler changes in tone would go a long way in both of their cases. The lighting could also be fixed up, as there were scenes which were left dark for too long.

Chesterfield

A Dead Unicorn Ink production

Written by: Patrice Ann Forbes

Directed by: Sylvie Recoskie. Cast: Zach: Drake Evans, Donald: Aaron Lejeunesse, , Sarah: Gabrielle Lazarovitz

The setting is dark, the smell of beer wafts into the audience. This is naturalism at its miserably best. Set in a pub in Belfast, Northern Ireland in the 1970s where war between the Irish and the English, the Catholics and the Protestants is waging. Lives are torn apart, families are destroyed, young men become killers and women are accustomed to blood and violence. It has become second nature. The place smells like death and this production captures that feeling, enhanced by the presence of three characters. An IRA activist (Fionn) and the son of an English landowner (William), are seeing the same girl, Aislin. “Why not” she quips, with a knowing grin,” I don’t want to get involved in politics so I’m on both sides” and so far it works. However life is not that simple and when the situation comes to a violent head, and decisions must be made, Aislin decides to come clean. And later, when Fionn comes into the pub with a bag under his arm, we know what is about to happen. At that point we even wondered if the last scene following the one just mentioned, was even necessary! The play is beautifully constructed, the characters are believable. The three of them create perfect dramatic balance in that situation where a terrible malaise haunts us right up to the final moment and our attention never falters.

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I have just written a whole page on this show and I pressed the wrong button so it all disappeared and I dont have the energy to write it again.

The play needs a lot of mitigating comments about her performance style to justify  and explain why the show did not work for me  but Im too tired now.

I’m sorry.

Alvina

The Greek poet Sappho, all but erased from history save for fragments of her poetry here and there, has been used as a personification of anything and everything, from the “fallen woman,” to a feminist icon, to champion of lesbian love. Due to her very mystery, people throughout history have put their own frustrations and hopes in her. That is, until now. Sappho… in 9 Fragments, written by Jane Montgomery Griffiths and directed by Jessica Ruano give Sappho her own voice to vent about her appropriation. The set, beautiful in its simplicity, is a cage-like structure with ropes draped across the top and sides. Victoria Grove, who plays Sappho, as well as Atthis, a modern-day chorus girl embarking on her own sapphic romance with an egotistical actress, reminds you why one-person shows can be better than a full-ensemble production. She is what every actress or actor should strive to be. You barely notice as she slides seamlessly, sensually from role to role. Her magnetic stage presence draws you in as she acts with every inch of her body and voice; she has the ability to break your heart with the flick of a finger or the wink of an eye.

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Written and performed by Jeff Leard, directed by James Leard.

A surprising epic, the initiatic journey of a young actor whose experiences as part of a cross Canada tour with a company performing children’s theatre, transforms him into someone who sees sense in this life, someone who loves to do theatre for children. An intelligent, well-constructed and very theatrical savvy show by a strong young actor who keeps us glued to the trials and tribulations of this character: an actor who performs Rumpelstiltskin across the country. Much originality, much performance virtuosity by a young man who is on the way to becoming a serious actor. One suspects there is a portion of autobiography here but so much the better. A pleasure to watch because it comes from deep down inside and that, I like!

Sappho in 9 fragments by Jane Montgomery Griffiths, performed by  Victoria Grove

The public has to realize that this is a theatrical adaptation of Sappho’s poetic fragments so don’t expect to hear a reproduction of her writings. If that is clear at the outset, it is much easier to appreciate the show. A poetic transgression produced by multiple voices, gives new meaning to Sappho’s writings in today’s world. This performance within a performance, spoken by the silken and sensual voice(s) of Victoria Grove, incarnates two couples, whose poetic expressions of desire and beauty produce a portrait of the writer, so misunderstood over the centuries. Through these voices who relate their own passionate encounters with a blinding object of desire, we move between Ancient Greece and the modern world, to the point where space, time, voices and the original texts blend and Sappho the legend emerges as an eternal force of enormous power. Some of the language is magnificent. The staging is striking, even hypnotic as the poet/goddess, first appears as a fluttering shadow, murmuring her incantations in Greek, seemingly a return to the platonic vision of reality as it is reflected on the wall of that cave. Plato is immediately transgressed as Sappho removes the curtains and reveals her physical presence to all, thus imposing her own revised image of reality, which is what we then see as the actress twists herself around the lengths of twine, as she moves between those imaginary spaces in time. Greatly enhanced by the set, by the lighting and by the sound design that brings us back to the origins of time, the sensual voice of this superb actress, becomes a presence that goes far beyond the text.

See it in the Arts court Library.

Directed by Jessica Ruano

Set design, Ana Ines Jabares

Lighting, Sarah Crocker

Sound, Luca Romagnoli

The Hatter
Spired Theatre (Richmond, BC),

File this under “seemed like a good idea at the time.” Writer/performer Andrew Wade has concocted an interesting premise for his solo show: What drove Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter mad? Much less interesting is the answer – suffice to say that it’s straight out of the Psychology 101 chapter on denial – and how Wade gets there. His Hatter is unconvincing as a character, his trials and tribulations no more resonant than a door mouse’s thoughts are deep. Wade plays, briefly, the March Hare and other Wonderland characters but lacks the agility to make the transitions. There’s an improvised song based on an audience suggestion, but it does nothing except chew up time. The Hatter also reads a long poem which he’s supposedly never seen, yet Wade rattles most of it off without ever looking at the paper on which it’s written. On the plus side, the Hatter does offer fresh tea to every audience member.

The festival continues until June 30 at various downtown venues. Tickets / information: Fringe office, 2 Daly Ave., 2nd floor; 613-232-6162; ottawafringe.com.

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Fringe+Festival+Review+Enough/8566083/story.html#ixzz2XDcJg6NF

This is an amazing show! I was immediately seduced by the tightly choreographed physical comedy that director Tracey Guptill imposed on her troops, whipping them into some of the best ensemble shape I have seen at the festival. Most of the material is exceedingly clever (the founding story of the ecological movement ) which goes back to Adam and Eve’s real reason for leaving the garden of Eden: an ideological split of a special sort forced them to go their separate ways. The result, Eve travels the world to create a community of green conscious members who don’t always live up to her expectations, while Adam pops up at the most unexpected moments. Its wild and woolly, it explodes into hysterics, it satirizes the fanatics, it harnesses energy and produces tribal dancing and the musical accompaniment which also works as sound effects , created and performed by Scott Irving is perfectly suited to the action. It is an amazing flight of imagination where an uneven text is given an extremely exciting reading by this young director who shows enormous promise. Note that super Ottawa based performer Jen Vallence whom we rarely see in our city.  This “Eve” , when not preventing global warming, must be hiding out in New York doing Broadway shows or something? And of course William Beddoes is his excellent self. This show reveals a ton of talent that I never suspected. Go see this one.

Emissions. A climate comedy written by Ann Cavlovic, directed by Tracey Guptill.