Results tagged “fringe2007”

Jesus in Montana is a one-man show by Barry Smith detailing his actual experience as a young man of hitchhiking to Missoula, Montana where he moved in with an octogenarian claiming to be the Second Coming who also happened to be a convicted child molester. If that doesn't sound very funny, you'll just have to take Torontoist's word for it that the results are actually often hilarious.

Alon Nashman's one-man show Kafka and Son returns to Toronto for the Fringe. This is a piece he's been doing for some time, and it shows; it's one of the most professional-looking productions you're likely to see at the Fringe this year. In fact, sitting inside the Tarragon Theatre's mainspace watching the talented performer enact Kafka's famous "Letter to his Father," it's easy to imagine that you're seeing a show from the theatre's regular season.

A funny thing happened near the end of the short play "The Card Trick" last afternoon in the second variation of The Gladstone Variations. The action moved outside to the alley behind the hotel and the audience was told to stand in a driveway next to the hotel's back entrance to watch the action unfold. Unfortunately, there was an humongous Jeep parked in the driveway; the kind where the alarm goes off not because you have touched it, but because you were standing rather too close to its personal space.

The Gladstone Variations is taking the Fringe by storm. And with good reason. The 90-minute piece is by Convergence Theatre, who were the team behind last year's fantastic Autoshow, which was actually a collection of 7 ten-minute plays by different playwrights performed in and around the parking lot at Royal St. George's. The Gladstone Variations is actually more ambitious and, amazingly, even more successful. The piece is made up of four short plays by different writers and, as the title would suggest, takes place entirely in and around the historic Gladstone Hotel. The 60 audience members are broken into groups of 15 and each is made to follow the actors of one of the plays around the hotel while they perform their show. Each group sees two of the four plays in one performance, constituting one "variation." And that's the brilliant marketing strategy of the show: to be able to see the entire thing, you have to go to it twice.

The Depth of the Ocean is a site-specific Fringe show with a fabulous concept. Audience members are seated in the bleachers of the Benson pool at UofT's Athletics Centre and the actors emerge from the water, drawn to a single lifeboat anchored in the centre of the pool. A play in a pool is rare and exciting, as is the concept of actors who deliver their lines while swimming. If only the script were as exciting as the concept.

Perhaps that headline is a bit over-the-top. Then again, so was this entire show! Maybe it was just this Torontoist's own expectations that a show selling itself as a gay hip hop opera couldn't really take itself too seriously; would be ironic; would be tongue-in-cheek. Not so. BASH'd is a gay hip hop opera that wants you to know that it is a gay hip hop opera and there's nothing wrong with that!

Dishpig is a one-man show directed and co-written by Fringe fav TJ Dawe, but starring someone else entirely: Greg Landucci, who co-wrote the show with Dawe. Following a popular trend in one-man show, Dishpig is all about a dude describing how awful his job is, although in this case it's a single job: the main character Matt is a dishwasher, or "dishpig," in a restaurant. Landucci focuses on Matt/Dishpig, although he also manages to portray the other host of people that work in the restaurant, from asshole waiters, to sexy waitresses to stoner line-cooks. Anyone who has ever worked in the food service industry is advised to check out this show; it would probably be pretty cathartic.

Dad Who? is the latest in Susan Fischer's popular series of Evelyn Reese shows. If you've seen one of her other shows, you're familiar with the shtick: Evelyn is a clueless, aging harridan in sequin jumpsuits and crazy-person glasses whose one-woman shows consist of her often politically incorrect musings on her own life. Topics range from dating, to drinking to partying with her favourite "poofter" friend. Fischer's physicality is phenomenal. She entirely inhabits the bizarre posture and body of Evelyn Reese. She is obviously extremely comfortable in her character by this point, and could probably keep her personality up for hours if she wanted.

Confession: this particular Torontoist did not understand the meaning of TJ Dawe's latest Fringe show's title at all and was expecting a drama about two Frenchmen named Maxim and Cosmo to unfold inside the George Ignatieff Theatre. Instead, Dawe's one-man talk-fest is a series of monologues on the subject of men and women and the title refers to gender-barometric magazines Maxim and Cosmo.

One of the best numbers in LOTR: The Musical: The Musical! is "The Nerds Will Come," and describes the producer's faith that the much-maligned Middle Earth musical mishmash would succeed, regardless of the attention of traditional theatre-goers because of the geek dollar. Ironically, the success of this very amusing show will likely also rest on the same principle.

Atomic Vaudeville's Legoland is an absolute delight from beginning to end; a perfect Fringe experience. If you see only one of the 140 show in this year's Fringe, see this. Celine Stubel and Amitai Marmorstein play, respectively, Penny and Ezra Lamb, two bizarre teenaged siblings with a completely insane story to tell about drug trafficking and popstars. Often, they will use toys or puppets for clarification.

Jimmy Hogg's one-man show Curriculum Vitae is charming, hilarious and remarkably energetic. He begins the show in a dressing gown and with a cup of coffee and, over the course of an hour, proceeds to get dressed and ready for a job interview, all the while detailing the amusing circumstances of his previous employment with comic aplomb.

The Fringe is almost upon us! The nineteenth annual Fringe of Toronto Theatre Festival starts this Wednesday, and as any experienced Fringer can tell you, it's good to be prepared. After all, you have only twelve days to navigate your way through a record-breaking 140 pieces of theatre. And this is why your good buddy Torontoist has decided to give you a bit of a break by coming up with a few suggestions of plays that may well be less-than-missable (but it's totally not our fault if you hate them!) In fact, our Superduper Preview has even divided buzz-worthy shows into separate categories for easy perusal. How nice was that?

It's that time of year again! Anyone with dreams of conquering the Toronto stage and $700 to spare ($600 for a KidsVenue show) should probably hop along over to the Fringe website to download an application form for next summer's festival. Every year, hundreds of theatre companies apply to try to take advantage of the Toronto Fringe's venue space for seven performances along with other perks - not the least of which being a 100% return on the box office! - but the selection is entirely based on random lottery.