THEATRE REVIEWS: Fringe theatre for frigid times
10JAN/11

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency

TORONTO - It isn’t as drastic as the polar bear plunges that are so popular, but there are, nonetheless, more than a few hardy souls in the theatre community who refuse to let a little thing like winter stand in the way of a chance to kick off a New Year with a plunge into the Fringe.

In a smaller version of the summer Fringe Festival, the Next Stage Theatre Festival limits activities to two stages at the Factory Theatre, where, over the course of 12 days, they present a slate of eight shows, chosen by jury, featuring shows and/or artists that impressed during summer runs of the Fringe. There is, by the by, a heated beer tent in which participants and audiences alike can while away the time between shows. Herewith, impressions of the eight shows that constitute the Next Stage Festival, 2011 edition, running at the Factory Theatre through next Sunday.

On The Factory Mainstage: THE GRACE PROJECT: SICK — Playwright/director Judith Thompson assembles an impressive group of young people to collectively look at the challenges life offers them — ranging from cancer and diabetes through depression, sexuality and race. But it’s not the challenges that rivet, but rather the candour with which they are discussed and the strength with which they are met. Not theatre in the finest sense of the word perhaps but certainly highly theatrical. In the end, the only quibble might be with a title that’s too negative.

FAIRY TALE ENDING: THE BIG BAD FAMILY MUSICAL — Kieran MacMillan and Jeremy Hutton show what happens when artists with Sondheim’s enthusiasm but not his talent rework one of his ideas. With Hutton directing they blend elements from an entire range of kids’ fairy tales — everything from Goldilocks and the Billy Goats Gruff to Three Blind Mice and Jack and Jill — into a sustained and enthusiastic lament for lost innocence. It’s fun, funny and ultimately forgettable and sadly, unlike INTO THE WOODS, it runs out of steam before it runs out of ideas.

AT THE SANS HOTEL — Australian Nicola Gunn is no stranger to Fringe audiences, who have developed a taste for her off-kilter theatrical sensibilities in works like AN ELEPHANT CLUB and MY FRIEND SCHADENFREUDE — but she certainly isn’t any less strange either in this four-character exploration of theatrical schizophrenia that is, in the end, so mega-meta-theatrical that it threatens to spin out of control. If you want something completely out of the ordinary, this is the ticket.

DUEL OF AGES — Ever wish that the people who make theatre would quit worrying about plot and just get on with the violence? Then, this show is tailor-made for you — 90 minutes of swash and buckle stretched over the most minimal of plot lines. But despite some fine work from a sprawling cast of stunt players, one can’t help but think that if Stratford were as sloppy at staging fights as these guys are with the more conventional aspects of theatre like lighting and voice-over, it would be a real blood bath.

On the Factory Studio Stage: THE APOLOGY — Playwright Darrah Teitel and director Audrey Dwyer give us a look at the strange and complex lives of poets Byron and Shelley and their strange menage with Frankenstein creator Mary Shelley and her step-sister Claire Clairmont. Fittingly, the timeline is one of intentional anarchy and the atmosphere one of heightened sexuality, but thanks to a hugely talented quartet of actors — Sascha Cole, Kaitlyn Riordan, David Beazely and Brendan McMurtry-Howlett — it’s compelling, sophisticated and sexy viewing.

TOM’S A-COLD — Playwright David Egan teams up with director Daryl Cloran and actors Shane Carty and Matthew MacFadzean to revisit the uniquely Canadian tragedy of the Franklin Expedition and bring it to life (and death) with both humour and horror in an intimate little show featuring two men and a boat. MacFadzean is in fine form as an upper-class twit, while Carty matches him at every turn as the common man, and though both seem a little well-fed, it all comes together as a distinctly new kind of dinner theatre.

EATING WITH LOLA — Playwright/performer Catherine Hernandez has put together a simple and touching story about a young woman’s struggle with her ailing Philippine grandmother, or Lola, but director Ann Powell carries the simplicity too far in this studiedly naive puppet presentation. That it still manages to move us is more a credit to Hernandez’s skill as a storyteller than it is to the naive “Let’s-play-dolls” staging.

SWAN SONG OF MARIA (A TRAGIC FAIRY TALE) — Playwright Carol Cece Anderson dips her pen so often in purple ink that her story of one man’s tragic love for two dancers — a Cuban ballerina (danced by Stephanie Hutchison) and a Black Canadian tap-dancer (Lili Francks) — is all but swept away on it. Under the direction of Mark Cassidy, John Blackwood does his best to keep things simple at the heart of the story, but in the end, despite some fine collaborations, it is little more than sentimental mawkishness.

For further information, visit fringetoronto.com.