A box set, a couch, a nuclear family, a dinner party; we have seen this show before, or so we think. Timmy, the Dog, Disappears, is a wickedly funny comedy by Martin Dockery, presented by Black Sheep Theatre. It is difficult to describe this show without peppering in spoilers, but in short, do not let your own misconceptions fool you; Timmy, the Dog, Disappears is neither a played-out-farce nor a skit expanded into a too-long play. Timmy, the Dog, Disappears is deeply amusing and at times nihilistic, with nuanced social commentary to spare and great performances all around. …
Mental health is a topic much discussed in contemporary media and culture, and as such, is an appropriate one to explore in the theatre. While Hamda Elmi’s self-created play Get Well Soon cracks open the door to an important conversation, it does not go far enough in detailing the implications of the scenario that it presents regarding this issue. Featuring three female university students who have all gathered together in the school psychologist’s office for a therapy session, the play makes an overt comment on the quality of mental health resources in an academic context. The women initially wait awkwardly in silence before the psychologist arrives, only to break the ice among themselves and informally start their session. …
The Last President Courtesy of the Ottawa Fringe 2019
Solo shows are Fringe’s bread and butter and offer an excellent vehicle to explore in-depth a singular, idiosyncratic character. With the Yukon Artists Collective Theatre from Whitehorse, playwright and actor Doug Rutherford does exactly that in The Last President of Canada, a monologue delivered by Paul Chartier, the real-life figure who tried to blow up the House of Commons in 1966. …
Stick or Wizard? is an old-school theatre clown show that brings the audience onto the stage for an endearing story-telling show that will have you leaving happy.
London, UK-based theatre creator Oli Weatherly hits all the marks on good theatre clowning—the audience laughs at him and with him, but we’re also left laughing at each other and ourselves. The show is highly participatory, and Weatherly, through his wizard-clown persona, knows how to bring out the hidden comedian in each of his audience members who come up on stage. He’s a funny guy on his own—his opening bit, when he repeatedly poses the question “Is there a wizard in the room? Why yeeees!” in a lovely sequined outfit had the audience laughing in the first minute of the show. But he knows how to make his audience funny too. …
Beans of Furyis a hilarious comedy about the last coffeeshop after the apocalypseBeans of Furyis a comedy built on an interesting premise—what it’s like to work for a coffeeshop in a post-apocalyptic world. On a planet ravaged by floods and fires, one of the last remaining coffeeshops is actually a pretty hilarious place. Show creator Matt Hertendy plays a robot barista alongside Sheldon Parathundyil and human barista Robin Star Breiche, a new employee (with a big secret). A lot of the comedy comes from Hertendy and Parathundyil’s deadpan robotic delivery—think the classic trope of robots attempting humour extended through a whole show. Hertendy and Parathundyil never drop the gimmick, and it’s a credit to their acting that they don’t laugh at their own jokes. …
Good detective stories are always entertaining, perhaps none more so than Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic Sherlock Holmes stories. The rendition of two specific stories, “The Red-Headed League” and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”, by seasoned performers John D. Huston and Kenneth Brown, in association with Winnipeg Thespian Fellowship Productions, is both engaging and impressive from a performance standpoint. As a two-actor production, Huston and Brown seamlessly take on the roles of different characters as they appear throughout the stories. The voice of Holmes however, is always identifiable by the actor who wears his characteristic deerstalker cap. …
GoFundYourself, presented by Ottawa’s own Black Box Comedy, is a raucous, audience-driven look into the peaks and occasional valleys often associated with improv. For the most part, GoFundYourself is amusing and self-aware; its loose “plot” advancement is contingent upon quantity, intensity, and genus of audience laughter. Sometimes, the ensemble finds its footing and earns show-stopping whoops and guffaws (a certain audience member being heckled for likely being turned away at the New York/Canada border, for instance, inspired a riotous bout of laughs). There were a few segments that dragged at the performance I attended, with the cardinal “don’t say no” rule of improv being broken often enough to be to the show’s detriment. …
Fringe Fest welcomes risk taking and testing the audience, but Pinter Stew by Third Wall Theatre might ask just a bit too much background knowledge of British playwright Harold Pinter’s oeuvre from its audience. Without it, the play leaves you confused. The show is presented as a series of mostly-unconnected scenes that are almost impossible to piece together, and that probably don’t piece together. The extended centre part about a family being interrogated is the longest connected scene in the play, but just as you begin to piece it together the play moves on to an overly long taxi cab scene. The viewer unaware of Pinter’s works is left in the dark as to what’s supposed to be going on. …
Sketch comedy is a Fringe mainstay, and the charmingly funny Pack Animals proves why. Created and acted by Holly Brinkman and S. E. Grummett, the sketch show combines cheeky Canadiana, cutesy singing, and frank yet funny discussions on queer identity and sexuality all within the premise of a Scouts-like summer camp with some serious feminist leanings.
Pack Animals is definitely geared towards a twenty- and thirty-something audience, and if you fall into that Millennial age range you’ll find a lot to enjoy. Their recurring bit where they recreate the iconic Hinterland Who’s Who—special shout-out to the virtuosic recorder playing—but profile the various types of men you probably don’t want to bring home somehow evokes both childhood nostalgia and unsavoury memories from the club. The accuracy is part of what makes it so funny—we all know men like that. The animal puppets add a lot. …
Orpheus Musical Theatre Society have brought to the stage another light-hearted musical, doing what they do best to a very receptive audience. The Meridian Theatres-based Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a piece of light fare that captures the cult status of the original film, but with its sometimes-dicey sexual and racial politics, the show seems like a bit of an odd choice in 2019.
The campy show directed by Derek Eyamie and Shaun Toohey is a fun romp, but a bit shallow. The lead actors Andy Allen-McCarthy, Toohey, and Eyamie know how to please the crowd with their extravagant pop song numbers as the larger-than-life drag queens with attitudes and costumes to match. The chemistry between the three and with other central characters, like actor Lawrence Evenchick’s delightful Bob, is also solid. In a show leaning heavily into campiness, the costuming stood in a league of its own. Colourful and over-the-top, co-costume designers Guylaine Roy and Mélanie Evans created a vibrant and hilarious series of costumes that had the audience laughing in their seats.
The large ensemble kept the party atmosphere going with their humorous song-and-dance numbers and were a particular hit in their gaudy costumes. It’s hard not to love a bunch of dancing pink paintbrushes, though there were several scenes where the choreography could have been tighter. The pit orchestra was tight and had obviously worked hard to put on a solid performance. The set, co-designed by Jenn Donnelly and Steve Jones, is also a show-stealer, particularly the detail put into Priscilla the camper van, complete with seating space, and which opens up in the final scene to reveal a beautifully-painted Ayers Rock. …
