Reviewed by  Ryan Pepper

Fool Muun Komming! is a hilarious, beautiful, sensual, absurdist masterpiece of comedy, drama, and physical theatre and movement bound to leave you stunned
Fool Muun Komming by Sam Kruger is probably the hardest show at Fringe to describe. That includes in writing, verbally, through mime, what have you. Which is a real shame, because it’s probably the best show at Fringe Fest. And the best invocation of the former David Bowie yet seen on stage.
The premise of Fool Muun Komming is, well, not simple, but it can be boiled down to a few key moments and ideas. The main character is a flamboyant, fabulous alien. The title character is an asteroid. The play opens with triumphant music blaring on the blackened stage.

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Reviewed by Ryan Pepper

It’s taken four hundred years since the Lord Chamberlain’s Men performed Richard III for a damning look at Richard’s wife and former queen Margaret of Anjou to appear on stage. The Lady Chamberlain, a troupe of young actresses, have given the English queen and wife of Henry VI a not-entirely-flattering portrait as a queen who fails to stand against the usurper Richard’s villainy. …

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Crowning Monkey, with Rachelle Elie. Stand-up Comedy clown solo

Reviewed by  Ryan Pepper

MAL helps us all feel the magic, with the help of corny dance numbers and a lot of butt jokes. A world premiere by Rachelle Elie, MAL is a solo show that tries to bring magic into people’s lives. The magic is definitely there, coming to us through raucous, irreverent comedy from the New Age, overbearing, mostly insane, approaching-old-age Susan, and her bitter, clownish new boyfriend Joe. …

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Reviewed by Ryan Pepper.

Ottawa theatre legend Pierre Brault returns to Fringe Fest with a comedic solo show about an ancient Spartan who just wants to enjoy art, and maybe create some too. Kaphalos is an amateur historian in a society that hates writing, and a disgraced Spartan warrior, one of the 120 Spartiates to surrender to Athenian forces at the Battle of Sphacteria in 425BC. Living in Sparta years after the battle and now working as a tanner, he is asked by Lysander, legendary Spartan admiral, to act as defence lawyer to an irreverent playwright charged with sedition and breaking Sparta’s strict laws involving what can and cannot be said in art. The play follows Kaphalos’ struggle to defend the only great playwright Sparta’s ever had, and his increasing disillusion with Spartan society that values death on the battlefield as the greatest thing in the world, and is vehemently opposed to all forms of art and culture. …

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Reviewed by Ryan Pepper

Drunk : Text gives audiences a musical theatre love letter to Broadway

It’s not surprising that Drunk Text from Miltonbone Productions started as creator Mathieu Charlebois’ graduation recital at Carleton University. The play comes across as a young person’s love letter to Broadway, complete with all the tropes that Broadway fanatics love. Over the course of the hour-long production, there are songs about following your dreams to New York City, a song about an ex-girlfriend plotting her revenge on her almost-fiance, love songs, and songs about seizing the moment. This earnest musical fully embraces the Broadway cheesiness of musicals like Dear Evan Hansen, a world full of people bursting into feelgood show tunes. …

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