Fringe 2009: Blooming in the Shadows

Shadows in Bloom is one of the best, and certainly one of the bravest, shows you will have the chance to see at this year's Fringe. A woman alone on stage, in street clothes, without scenery or significant staging, with just a single prop—this is the kind of performance where there is literally no place to hide. Fortunately, Gemma Wilcox doesn't need it.

Over the course of the one-hour play Gemma tells the story of a woman named Sandra: approaching thirty, struggling with a relationship, contemplating motherhood. So far it sounds like an entirely predictable, entirely clichéd premise, a trope familiar from too many sitcoms and the annual glut of painful Valentine's Day flicks. The twist is that Wilcox tells the story not just from Sandra's point of view, monologue-style, but from the perspectives of everybody with whom she crosses paths: her boyfriend Pete, the women who flirt with him, his bratty daughter Louise, a kindly gardening next-door neighbour, and even the calla lily which sits in her windowsill. Wilcox (who wrote the play in addition to being its sole performer) alters her accent, body language, mannerisms, and diction at a rapid clip, switching between participants in a conversation as gracefully as most of us slip a glass from one hand to the other.

Our major quibble was with the portrayal of Pete, who hews a bit too closely to shallow representations of the absentee boyfriend to satisfy. The lack of nuance in his character is the only point at which Shadows in Bloom reminded us of those eye-rolling sitcoms, reverting to the predictable treatment the play otherwise manages to skilfully avoid. But in a cast of twenty characters, having just one slightly shy of the mark is still a show of which to be proud.

The next performance is Monday at 5:30 p.m. at the Glen Morris Theatre.

The Fringe runs until July 12 at various locations around the city. Check back for Torontoist's daily Fringe coverage throughout the festival.