Fringe 2012: Mum and the Big C
Photo courtesy of Singing Strong.
Singing Strong
Wednesday, July 4, 8:45 p.m.
Saturday, July 7, Noon
Sunday, July 8, 8:45 p.m.
Monday, July 9, 3 p.m.
Wednesday, July 11, 11 p.m.
Friday, July 13, 1:45 p.m.
Saturday, July 14, 9:15 p.m.
Randolph Theatre (736 Bathurst Street)
Mum and the Big C is a story about a lesbian playgirl named Ripley, played by local comic stalwart Elvria Kurt, who is forced to return to the suburbs to take care of her highly opinionated, cancer-stricken mother. While serving her time in exile, Ripley winds up falling for foxy soccer mom Maddie, who, as fate would have it, is also her mother’s oncologist. If this sound familiar to you, it should. If you remove the lesbian twist, the plot is more or less the same as any one of a dozen or so romantic comedies released in the last decade. The incorrigible cad discovers that he, or, in this case, she, is capable of love after undergoing a life-changing event and meeting the perfect woman in less-than-perfect circumstances.
It’s not that the play doesn’t have redeeming features. Kurt is charmingly dickish as Ripley, and Janet-Laine Green is hilarious as her mother. Unfortunately, the whole thing just seems too easy.