Anishinaabe artist Josh Languedoc’s story-telling drama Rocko and Nakota: Tales From the Land (produced by Indigenized Indigenous Theatre of St. Albert, AB) is easily one of the most imaginative offerings at this year’s Fringe. Centering around the frame narrative of the play around the relationship between Nakota, a young boy who has fallen ill …
Bebe Queen’s drag-queen show starts promisingly. Bebe Queen (Bebe Brunjes), all heels and sparkly eyeliner, cavorts between the cabaret tables at Live on Elgin as Kesha’s Boogie Feet thunders through the small venue and the crowd eggs on Bebe’s enthusiastic, leggy performance. Alas, the rest of the show doesn’t measure up to its first few …
An emotional storytelling solo show, This is Step One tells a highly personal story of sexual assault and abuse, and a direct response to the Me Too movement. The story that Jess McAuley unweaves for an hour is disturbing but, unfortunately, not atypical. An updating iPhone kicks off the story, as Jess clicks …
Red Bastard is an interactive show about love, lies, and lust. A show that’s more interactive than most, it also gets you to confess to some love-related secrets—or just lie. The titular Red Bastard is a bit of a crazy jester character, dressed in bulging red pyjamas and whiteface, and sermonizing on our affection …
With the voice of a young man calling out “Hello?” against the backdrop of a completely darkened stage, Paris, France-based company 1919’s production of 25 immediately piques one’s curiosity. It only takes a few moments for another voice (that of a young woman’s) to answer the man. Back and forth, the two debate the whereabouts …
Every journey towards healing has to start with coming to terms with the past: this is the central theme of Jess McAuley’s one-woman autobiographical work This is Step One, directed by Kathy Yan Li. As a theatre piece, it is very successful at getting this point across not merely through telling but also showing; McAuley …
Beginning with a chair, table and a woman anxiously waiting for her date to arrive, Phoebe Webber’s new self-created work The Date starts off promisingly, genuinely piquing the viewer’s interest. ‘How will it go?’ is indeed the question to be asked of the play. The answer, however, is never given-all that the audience is …
Very few subjects have arguably invoked the same amount of concentrated meditation and thought as the topic of love has. How exactly people fall in love and what helps them to stay together is at the heart of American comedian Steve Budd”s solo comedy show What They Said About Love. Drawing on interviews with …
Oftentimes, it is the perspective of pets which proves to be among the most humorous and oddly insightful. The story of a family dog coming to terms adjusting to the arrival of a new puppy in House Rules is definitely no exception in this regard. The show, a new work created and directed by …
Fables warning against the dangers of greed and temptation are nearly as old as humanity itself; yet there’s perhaps no story better known that relays this lesson than Christopher Marlowe’s 1592 play The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. Plan B Productions’ #Faustus, directed by Graham Price, is an ambitious attempt …