Fringe and purge

Dropouts, hippies, bee farmers, alien
killers, eco-warriors, a bad-ass hitman
and much more: Fringe reviews to
whet your theatre appetite

IMPROV MAGIC: Blastback Babyzap

This Hour Has 88 Years

Sure, the chronology is wonky in places (presumably due to logistics), and perhaps they rely a little too heavily on teen movies to represent the ’80s (though this scores a lot of nostalgia points with a 20- or 30-something crowd). Overall, however, it’s an exciting crash course by a young, talented, local cast of triple-threat entertainers that manages its laughs, musical numbers and maudlin moments with care. (Cabaret Just for Laughs, 2111 St-Laurent)

LORRAINE CARPENTER

The Cody Rivers Show Presents: Stick to Glue

Take a memo: Ohio-based comedic duo Mike Mathieu and Andrew Connor take ADD comedy to the next level, delivering blistering humour at Formula One speeds. Stick to Glue is a series of utterly random, wildly inventive and nearly inexplicably funny comedy sketches. Bits that seem to go nowhere in the first minute begin to reveal themselves as both actors use repetition and physical comedy. One skit involves them working in a busy office where they’re the only employees, while another has them revealing increasingly ludicrous secrets to each other. At one point, they state there are only 10 types of people—everyone should enjoy this show. (MainLine Theatre, 3997 St-Laurent)

ERIK LEIJON

ADD-APPROVED: The Cody Rivers Show

I Don’t Know Where Here Is

In this play within a play, Grade eight dropout, possible idiot savant and borderline alcoholic (resort-style, fresh-from-the-coconut Pina Colada is her drink of choice), Map D.L. Row recounts various anecdotes from her life.

Set in the sparse surroundings of her Dream Factory, otherwise known as her mother’s basement, Map tells us about everything from her mother’s turn as a child star to the love poem that led to her stunted education.

Jessica Rose, who stars in and wrote the one-woman play, is utterly charming and entertaining as the astute and socially awkward Map, whose eccentricity, creative outbursts and personal mythologizing make her an endearing and memorable character. (Geordie Space, 4001 Berri)

SACHA JACKSON

The Beekeepers

Burt’s bees are dying. What do you do when 300,000 bees, handed down through three generations of bee farming, have dwindled to 33? Long-suffering worker-bee wife Wendy is starving and going stir-crazy holed up (or “grapefruited”) in their hive house. Honey rations are low and she’s sure Burt loves the queen more than her. Now, the ideal temperature is falling, the mind slips and the relationship crumbles. With this “unparalleled infrastructure breakdown,” Burt must think like a bee….

The two actors, Christine Armstrong and Andy Trithardt, are terrific in this enlighteningly dark tale set within a perfectly suited venue—a small, bring-your-own-wine and edible flower restaurant. Two-Wheeler Productions are serious, keep an eye on them. (Fuchsia, 4050 Coloniale)

JANIS KIRSHNER

Degrassi: The Musical

Writer/director Eve Thomas has carved a lean slice of nostalgia with Degrassi: The Musical!, deftly weaving the iconic show’s highlights into a 45-minute production. Punctuated by musical numbers winking at Broadway standards, the show is almost stolen by a tap-dance number about molestation to the tune of “Tea for Two.” A cast largely made up of first-timers tackles the script ably, notably Marion Elissalde as school election hopeful Stephanie Kaye and co-writer Brett Schaenfield’s turn as a silk-fetishist/substitute teacher.

Though it didn’t feel rushed, as the opening-night performance ended, I couldn’t help but wish it had gone on longer. I suppose, to quote the Zit Remedy, “everybody wants something.” (Studio Juste Pour Rire, 2109 St-Laurent)

DAVID SHAW

The Handy Man Can

Who can hack your limbs off? Shoot you between the eyes? Take swigs of JD and deliver thoughtful lines? The Handy Man! Oh, the Handy Man can! Watching a smooth-talking, ultra badass hitman debate the morality of his profession while laying the smack down on two hapless henchmen might not warrant song and dance, but the urban legend that is the Handy Man comes to life in this serious, violent showing from Houdiniman Productions.

The only unintentionally funny moment that broke the tension was a dialogue between the two main characters during which they held their guns to each other for so long, they had trouble keeping their arms straight. (Portuguese Association, 4170 St-Urbain)

ERIK LEIJON

Mating Rituals of an Urban Cougar

Andrea Thompson’s one-woman show is a sassy feminist deconstruction of the ways in which women are perceived, both by men and society in general. It’s a loosely woven anthology of Thompson’s powerful spoken word pieces in the “jazz, hip hop, funk and soul tradition,” tied together by insightful commentaries, observations and conversational asides drawn from her own life.

Thompson is a great writer, and for the purposes of Urban Cougar, she’s chosen to perform a series of poems that address specific men-friends past and present—men who might have been younger, or older, but who all suffered from a teasing short-sightedness that triggered her creative juices to the max. (4247 St-Dominique)

VINCENT TINGUELY

Jem Rolls: How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Mall

Fringe mainstay Jem Rolls presents a thrilling 10,000-word diatribe about consumerism, a little punk-rock beat poetry with a social conscience. The reluctant resignation implied in the title comes late in the game, leaving ample time for Mr. Rolls to spew bile about the small tragedies of modern life, like the proliferation of big box stores, the levelling of meadows in favour of carparks and the drudgery of buying food, the latter a particularly hate-filled rant that makes the Clash’s “Lost in the Supermarket” sound like an endorsement for Margaret Thatcher. (4247 St-Dominique)

LORRAINE CARPENTER

Robin Hood Redux—There Will Be Tights

Long before Lindsay Lohan was seen in public wearing tights without pants, a certain legendary outlaw and his band of merry men were hiding in Sherwood Forest making fashion history. Dudes never looked good in tights anyway, so Purple Doorknob has retold the tale with Hood as a female, along with her band of merry women.

A new villain was created, the rage-prone Queen Eileen, while the male sheriff has been reduced to a bumbling fool dressed like General Zod from Superman 2. Written and directed by Tali Brady, the humour is quaint and the actors are universally fun, especially the male Lord Marion as Eileen’s punching bag. (Studio Mange Mes Pieds, 10 des Pins W.)

ERIK LEIJON

Macho Man vs. Predator

The spirit is willing, but the execution is deeply flawed. Misnomers aside, this bizarre meeting of big dumb sci-fi and big dumb wrestling produces a show that is, well, dumb. Not surprising, given that the twisted minds behind previous Fringe hits like Never Surrender and the Dan-D-Lyons are responsible, and not necessarily bad either; but the hour-long show, involving an alien killer and a down-on-his-luck former wrestler, feels much longer, with jokes that are barely funny once recycled far too often and a premise milked far more than it’s worth. (Théâtre Ste-Catherine, 264 Ste-Catherine W.)

PATRICK LEJTENYI

Blastback Babyzap

Cleverly constructed, with a great lead that gets things off to a strong start, the latest show by the local Uncalled For improv troupe has its peaks, but there are too many valleys to call it commendable. Comedy can be so subjective, and some audience members seemed to enjoy themselves tremendously, so you may want to take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Uncalled For seem to rely heavily on the kind of absurdist dry humour practised by Monty Python, and subsequently done to death, then expanded and expounded by far superior comedians than these. Although it’s evident why this lot has won awards, it’s equally clear that they can do better. (Just for Laughs Studio, 2109 St-Laurent)

LORRAINE CARPENTER

Crude Love

The Alberta tar sands make for an unusual backdrop to romance, especially one between a female Newfoundland truck driver happily earning six figures and a self-absorbed eco-warrior, piously earning none. But the husband-and-wife team of Gillian and Russell Bennett, whose 2005 Fringe play The Reefer Man lit up Canada’s marijuana laws, tell a tender tale of love, activism, ideals, greed and environmental rapine, set in an ominous near future of American military presence and public apathy. Sharply written and acted, Crude Love casts an equally critical eye on the tar sands industry and the culture of activist piety and narcissism, despite its obvious political sympathies. This is a political love story that works. (Théâtre Ste-Catherine, 264 Ste-Catherine W.)

PATRICK LEJTENYI

Traces

Choreographers/dancers Zuzana Burianova and Carmen Ruiz transport us from a community centre basement with an intimate duet called Traces. Ruiz is a salsa and tango instructor originally from Columbia while Burianova is from Slovakia. The two combine forces in this short, gentle piece, which clocks in at an easily digestible half hour.

The first section is danced in silence. The pair uses a combination of contact dance, contemporary movement and tango. Here the sultry dance ditches the heels, goes barefoot, takes a 90 degree turn and they perform fluid partner work on the floor. It’s all set to original music by Narco Tango and Burianova. (Mission Santa Cruz, 60 Rachel W.)

MARITES CARINO