The Buzz – Reviews – 2016

Falling Awake

RAGMOP—MTC Up the Alley

These two performers are both incredibly multi-talented and an absolute joy to watch. A lovely combination of gibberish and English, excellent comedic timing and extremely well done slight of hand tricks. It was definitely an odd way to start my day but I can’t say it was a bad way. If you can’t make it to this show in what’s left of the Fringe you’ll seriously be missing out.

Arden Pruden

Lantern Town

Make/Shift Theatre—The Playhouse Studio

From the first day I spent at the Fringe, I have been hearing great things about this play, so I finally fit it in at noon on Wednesday. Apparently I was not the only one hearing buzz, judging by the size of the crowd. Lantern Town has echoes of Faulkner and Harper Lee, but it has its own voice as well. A young woman reflects on a pivotal moment in her life, a time when she left childhood behind. We don’t get to choose these moments, and often it is only on reflection that we recognize these events.

Sometimes, too, what we remember isn’t real, and what we can confirm through hard evidence doesn’t mean what we think it does. The performances were great, the accent work less so, and the direction and staging helped us to create the world that the characters lived in. I hope that this play has a life beyond the Fringe, and I will certainly be on the lookout for anything else that Kristian Jordan writes.

Kevin Longfield

Erik de Waal’s Head in the Clouds

Erik de Waal—Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall (UofW)

An especially topical show this year, Erik de Waal reminds you none too gently of the racism not only active in the United States but everywhere else in the world, very specifically where you can’t see it. Mixed with his infallible storytelling, it’s impossible to not feel moved by the performance.

Arden Pruden

zahgidiwin/love

Happy Sunflower Sunshine Hour—Onstage at Pantages

I’ve been hearing for a few years now that Frances Koncan is a terrific writer, but for one reason or another, I never managed to see one of her plays until yesterday. Now I know what all the fuss was about. When you see as many plays at the Fringe as I do, it is difficult for one production to stand out in your mind as this one did. This morning I was still replaying scenes mentally and making new connections between the world we live in and the world(s) that the playwright and players created.

This script is easily worthy of its nomination to the short list for the Harry Rintoul award, but a script is just a script until the players bring it to life. The cast and crew did an almost flawless job, and although it is a little unfair to single out one performer in a strong ensemble, the woman who played the rebellious princess showed some great comic timing. (I don’t have a program, so I cannot name her.)

Kevin Longfield

DYSTOPIA! The Hungry Maze Game of Divergent Death

MTYP Summer Studio—MTYP – Richardson Hall

As the title suggests, Dystopia borrows heavily from a wide variety of survival themes. MTYP’s Summer Studio cast members demonstrates considerable verbal and physical comic chops as they journey through a budget-constrained hungry maze game with hilarious results. Heartfelt monologues are balanced beautifully by the tight, solid work and timing by the company as a whole. Choreography is clean and demanding and as fun-filled as the musical cues that keep the show tripping along. This show was a definitely a Fringe highlight. Do try to catch it before it closes.

Barbara Fawcett

Free Beer 2: Electric Brewgaloo

The Horrible Friends—Duke of Kent Legion

You can tell the Horrible Friends duo of Shawn and Luke have spent years doing improv together. They work well off each other and can pull the funny out of almost any suggestion the audience gives them. They play a number of improv games throughout the show and the games to be played are selected by audience members beating post-it notes off of them. The final game was them doing a serious scene. If anyone in the crowd laughs at what one of them says they must then stuff crackers in their mouth. As you can imagine this gets messy pretty quickly but is really fun to watch. All in all a show with some skilled practitioners at work.

Murray Hunter

The Amateur Hour Improv

Theatre Couch Productions—Dragon Arts Collective

While there was a certain lack of professionalism in the actors milling about onstage before the show it honestly set the tone alarmingly well. It’s less of a show more of a showcase and what a showcase it was. They are young performers and as such have a long road ahead of them but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. All the groups I saw worked well together and were very comfortable in front of an audience, and I’m firm in the idea that they were having just as much fun as I was. What was truly a shame was that the performers almost outnumbered the audience. There’s only one way to fix that, isn’t there?

Arden Pruden

Oedipus The King

7 Ages Productions—Tom Hendry Theatre at the MTC Warehouse

This great play by Sophocles was first performed about 429 BC and the translation used in this production was done by W.B. Yeats in 1928. This present production, from Brandon and running for about eighty minutes, has a large cast of seventeen, but many of these actors have only cameo roles or are part of the chorus. Most are dressed in office-style attire, in colors of black, white, and grey. The set, as in most Fringe shows, is rudimentary: a few folding chairs and a small table. The actor who plays Oedipus looks like Abraham Lincoln, with a similar style of facial hair and a formal jacket that looks like it was from the 1800s. He is the undisputed star of the show, with a highly disproportionate number of lines compared to everyone else, and he projects energy well. I would have preferred slightly more dynamic blocking from some of the other performers, as some of them seem to be standing around and talking without much movement most of the time. That said, and even though the show starts off slowly, it gradually builds up momentum as it progresses and the awful truth of Oedipus’s origin is revealed to him, his courtiers, and to us, the audience. Even though this play is ancient, it still feels like a relevant commentary on the perils of power.

Konrad Antony

The Beguiling Buffoonery of Jim Chiminey

Shelby Bond—ACI Manitoba

An adorable show with an exceptionally innocent protagonist being pulled through the stages of crafting a story. Plenty of audience participation and so interesting I barely took any notes. Huge props as well to the technician and the timing on the sound cues because even that added to the show. Shelby Bond is a man with incredible comedic timing and able to take anything from the audience perfectly in stride. Advertised of course as a general show but it will certainly entertain all ages.

Arden Pruden

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Theatre for the Old Stone Age—Asper Centre for Theatre and Film

There’s not much to like here. A balanced act normally has loveable or adorable (at least tolerable) characters to offset the detestable. For me, I just plain dislike both the main characters, although Mutt starts to grow on you after a while, like cancer.

The average acting did nothing to grab my attention, which make the miscues quite noticeable. To their credit, there was nothing about any of the roles that allow actors to showcase any talents.

The weakest link of this show comes with the storyline—if you can call it that. There’s no lesson to learn; there’s no character growth; there’s no powerful subject; and there’s no humour. The entire premise is impossible, which is fine for a comedy but for a drama, it makes no sense. Calling the locals Chinese once fits the ignorance of the character; repeating the mistake incessantly straddles racism.

The guide description dangles so much potential—alas, the product delivers none.

Ray Yuen