A Girl in the Fridge pokes fun at comic book conventions!

 

Dead Unicorn Ink, by Patrice Forbes

With the advent of blockbuster superhero films and the MeToo movement, the place of women in these films and their original source material (comic books) is receiving ever greater scrutiny. A Girl in the Fridge, created and directed by Patrice Forbes and produced by Dead Unicorn Ink, attempts to investigate this very concern and bring awareness to how the media we consume influences our attitudes in real life. Centering around Eve (Forbes), a PhD student who is doing her dissertation on the treatment of women in comic books, the show is able to make its case without being overly preachy. While the show sometimes has Eve recounting statistics about the fates that various female characters face (her observation that comics offer a way for people to live out violent fantasies is particularly astute), it also lets these facts be played out in the story onstage rather simply stating them.

Unbeknownst to Eve, her boyfriend Zander (Joshua Carroll) obtains superpowers through an explosion at the plant where he works; unfortunately for her, she then becomes a target of the very fate she critiques in her thesis. Both Forbes and Carroll give credible performances as the protagonists; Forbes as the long-suffering student desperately trying to finish her paper and Carroll as the supportive but nonchalant boyfriend are equally realistic characters who one can relate to. What eventually happens to Eve in the wake of Zander’s newfound powers is made all the more truly affecting by the context of what she’s writing on. Despite its relative shortness (35 minutes), A Girl in the Fridge is a show which manages to pack a thoughtful punch in the world of comics and superheroes.

A Girl in the Fridge continues at Studio Leonard-Beaulne in the University of Ottawa Theatre Department for the Ottawa Fringe Festival. For show times and tickets, see http://ottawafringe.com/shows/a-girl-in-the-fridge/