Fringe 2012: Botched
Photo courtesy of the company.
Friday, July 6, 6:30 p.m.
Saturday, July 7, 10:15 p.m.
Sunday, July 8, 06:15 p.m.
Tuesday, July 10, 1:30 p.m.
Wednesday, July 11, 10:00 p.m.
Friday, July 13, 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, July 15, 2:15 p.m.
Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace (16 Ryerson Avenue)
Botched, a new play by local playwright and visual artist Colleen Osborn, is plagued with problems from the outset. It’s the story of a young woman whose life is the result of a botched abortion. She’s known only as BotchedBaby34, and is trying to find her sort-of birth mother. The show is slow to start, hard to follow, and has a script so disjointed that one can’t help but wonder if crucial details were cut in order to keep down its running length.
Actor Hannah Drew almost manages to save this sinking ship, delivering a pathos-inspiring performance as both the protagonist and the woman who tried to abort her. Drew does a fine job of motoring between wide-eyed naïvete and seen-it-all jadedness. Alex Vincent, who plays one of BotchedBaby’s talking dolls, manages to inject the odd moment of levity into this otherwise dark, confusing show. (If there’s one thing that Botched has no shortage of, it’s talking dolls.) Unfortunately for Drew and Vincent, Botched‘s problems are structural and beyond their control. It’s clearly a play with a message, we’re just not quite sure what it is.