Category: Theatre in Ottawa and the region

Banned in the USA; A Geography Teacher’s Orders; Biscuiteater

Banned in the USA; A Geography Teacher’s Orders; Biscuiteater

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Banned in the USA  Photo Ottawa Fringe 2018
Actor Gerard Harris

Reviewed by Ryan Pepper: All shows at Studio Leonard Beaulne

  1. Banned in the USA: a ramble through a comedian’s funny and bizarre life (and probably the biggest takedown of American Airlines in modern theatre)  

Gerard Harris’ work Banned in the USA tells a pretty bizarre but weirdly relatable—or at least understandable—story about working in the information technology sector, dealing with difficult bosses in not-for-profits, breaking into Fringe theatre, and the horrors of American air travel. What sets Harris’ work apart from your old pal telling a tale is his high-strung energy that grabs you and really makes you cheer for Harris as he tries his hardest to catch a flight in the nightmare world of American Airlines. …

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Becoming: promising but far too short!!!

Becoming: promising but far too short!!!

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Clocking in at only 20 minutes, Erum Khan’s self-created show Becoming seemingly starts, reaches its climax, and ends in the blink of an eye. Which is a shame, since the basic elements of this production are all intriguing and could benefit by being fleshed out more. The play centers around a single character (Khan) trapped in purgatory, who is trying to retrieve memories of herself and her girlfriend. A striking film projection (from avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren) is used to illustrate a memory of being by the beach, with Khan perfectly mimicking the movements to the actress onscreen. Upon her retrieval of these memories, the woman then jumps into presenting a bunch of philosophical questions to the audience: the nature of purgatory for one, as well as whether it is right to abandon one’s faith if it hasn’t done anything for them. …

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Lungs, A twinke of the eye of eternity!

Lungs, A twinke of the eye of eternity!

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British playwright Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs is a whirlwind of a script that takes us through the hesitant, full throttle, fractured, and deeply in love relationship of a couple who embark on the perilous journey of deciding whether or not to have a child. He is an artist musician, of sorts, and she is a PhD student who in his words ‘thinks too much’. The play, indeed their very existence, bursts into being with the suggested musing, or presumption that maybe, perhaps, ok, what if we decided to have a child. Ah, wait, but is that a wise or even reasonable thing to do given who we are, where we are, and the state of the planet! Hold on, the planet? Does that mean you’re backing off? No, but just consider for a moment, or as it turns out for an hour and twenty minutes of non-stop dialogue, the implications of such a leap of faith. (Lungs is not ‘too long’, but during the show I attended a restless audience member was obviously late for another venue, and telegraphed that fact in an irritating manner for such an intimate space.) …

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Blanket Fort – a confusing comedy.

Blanket Fort – a confusing comedy.

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In our current moment, a play about the struggles of unemployment and being unable to pay one’s rent would seem to be quite a relatable one (especially for millennials).   Beginning with three roommates who fail to make the monthly payment to the landlord, the story spirals into occasions of utter chaos and extremity (including when the group accidentally murders a bird in an odd game of ‘bird-beer’ pong). The roommates, the hard-working but dissatisfied Mark (Andy Kellie), the flighty Xan (Carley Richards) and the deadbeat Haydn (Jon Dickey) are drawn into conflict with each other as the rent remains unpaid and their illicit trips to the roof continue. …

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Start Swimming: a good look at Resistance and authoritarianism

Start Swimming: a good look at Resistance and authoritarianism

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Beginning with a gaggle of teenagers blown onstage by a powerful wind, Third Wall Academy’s (TWA) Fringe production of James Fritz’s Start Swimming (directed by James Richardson) . Kristina W att is the  Artistic Director of TWA, and was the  Creative Assistant who worked on the play.  100 Watt Productions is the co-partner of TWA, along with Third Wall and this show   instantly commands the viewer’s attention. The teenagers, all wearing blue jumpsuits, are evidently confused as to why they’re here. The first thing they are able to ask is what they’re doing there-this question, as it is soon shown, is determined by an unseen force which judges their answers as right or wrong through a dinger and buzzer. The focus of this game is the small plot of grass in the middle of the stage, which becomes the site of questioning and resistance for the bewildered young people gathered there.  This game, as it turns out, is also one which touches on political and class struggles, as the questions turns towards such subjects as the police, poor living conditions, and the endless search for employment. In spite of the pain inflicted on the teenagers for saying the wrong answers, they never give up in their quest to defy the unknown authority. …

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Langston reviews God of Carnage, …Like Nobody’s Watching, The Last Spartan.

Langston reviews God of Carnage, …Like Nobody’s Watching, The Last Spartan.

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God of Carnage
Stendhal X, Montreal

“We’re always on our own everywhere,” says one of the characters toward the end of God of Carnage, Yasmina Reza’s acute 2006 play about the fragility of our civilized veneer. That aloneness is precisely what Stendhal X’s adaptation spotlights as we witness two couples meet for the first time in an attempt to resolve the bloody outcome of a fight between their young, respective sons.

The attempt, of course, is fruitless. As alliances between the four rapidly shift and long-buried resentments claw their way to the surface, homophobia, race and general human ugliness consume the meeting, leaving the attempt at resolution in tatters. It’s a little like what you imagine the end of civilization to look like, with everyone isolated because they’ve abandoned their common humanity. …

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Agent Madeleine: A satisfying resistance

Agent Madeleine: A satisfying resistance

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Photo of Puja Uppal as Noor Inayat Khan, Agent Madeleine, by Alex Henkelman.

Recruited by an understaffed and overworked British intelligence agency, led by Leo Marks, played by Nicholas Amott, Noor Inayat Khan, code name Madeleine, played by Puja Uppal, is parachuted into France. Her mission: spy on German troops and communicate her findings by coded radio transmission back to Britain. With scant backup from British Intelligence, and despite Marks’ obvious interest in his agent’s welfare, Madeleine is soon caught and thrown into a Gestapo detention centre. After interrogation her fate is even worse.

…

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Piaf & Brel: the Impossible Concert is a delight to the ears.

Piaf & Brel: the Impossible Concert is a delight to the ears.

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Piaf & Brel   with Melanie Gall. Photo from the Ottawa Fringe Festival

French chanteuse Edith Piaf and Belgian singer Jacques Brel, two giants of romantic music in the 20th century, never shared the stage together nor even met in their lifetimes. This simple historical fact does not phase Melanie Gall, an internationally-acclaimed vocalist who brings the most famous songs by these two artists together in a performance titled Piaf and Brel: The Impossible Concert. The result is a thoroughly enjoyable and engaging musical, accompanied by insights into the two singers’ lives and Gall’s own unique (read: humorous) experiences as a performer. …

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Ditch the Netflix stand-up specials and catch Karma Karma Karma Karma Karma Chamedian at Fringe 2018

Ditch the Netflix stand-up specials and catch Karma Karma Karma Karma Karma Chamedian at Fringe 2018

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Photo Ottawa Fringe Festival  Josh Glanc  Melbourne Australia

 

Reviewed by Ryan Pepper

Performing to a packed audience, Melbourne’s Josh Glanc never missed a beat in his hilarious new stand-up/sketch comedy show Karma Karma Karma Karma Chamedian.

Glanc opens the show like all Netflix comedy specials seem to these days, with a big musical number and triumphant entrance to thunderous applause from the audience. He then dives into a rock cover as three audience members mime instruments behind them, air-performing to so much applause that it might as well have been a real rock concert. Or for that matter, a real Netflix special. One gets the impression that Glanc could have thrilled a packed house at Radio City as effortlessly as he did Arts Court Theatre. …

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All-female Anjou offers a mixed portrayal of an English queen, with performances from talented young actresses

All-female Anjou offers a mixed portrayal of an English queen, with performances from talented young actresses

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Anjou Photo from the Ottawa Fringe Theatre 2018

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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