Why Not Theatre’s I’m So Close It’s Not Even Funny is an exceptional piece of theatre but it’s difficult to write about as a whole because it contains so many different parts and pieces and so many different styles and ideas. The experienced company consisting of Katrina Bugaj, Troels Hagen Findsen and Ravi Jain created the piece and perform it with vigor, ease and delight.
I'm So Close It's Not Even Funny: what time is it again?
(never underestimate) The Power, presented by One Reed Theatre and directed by Paul Thompson, is constructed from a series of monologues/vignettes created by writer-performers, Evan Webber, Frank Cox-O’Connel and Megan Flynn. An exploration of how three different characters were effected by and perceived the August 2003 Blackout (never underestimate) The Power, is set on Toronto’s Queen Street West on the day the power went out.
Frieda has Alzheimer’s or some similar memory-impairment – her nephew, Matthew, is a drug-addicted beggar who is probably homeless – they meet every Friday in a park, or they’re supposed to but Matthew has stopped showing up or maybe never showed up (it’s not quite clear) – he makes these arrangements by phone –
Maybe it should be called the Sixth Sense effect. For the third review in a row, I feel obligated to issue a spoiler warning for something that happens in the final reel – er last scene – that impacts on the whole work. Fortunately, there’s no bloodshed involved in the reveal that is meant to unlock meaning in this three-hander.
Ablaze: Rosa Laborde and Jayne Collins play sisters with bite
Does the modern world disappoint you at times? Especially when a consumerist society suggests that bought beauty is equal to integrity? Or when liberalism (a big hug to JS Mill) has been subverted by infantilism?
Vaughn Jones & Leslie Brownlee as Eros & Psyche - the perfect couple. Photo: Pink Monkey
The Play:
Flux, an in-concert reading of an operatic musical about
Scottish history and war by Margaret Sweatman. The play is almost as
confusing as the panel you are about to read.
Through his Gracing the Stage newsletter, Steve Fisher is an institution on the Toronto performing arts scene. We’re thrilled to provide Steve’s mini-reviews on this year’s SummerWorks Festival.
For the second review in a row I have to issue a spoiler warning (ironically, for similar reasons). So, if you’re seeing Crush stop reading, immediately.
How exciting to leave a performance feeling energized and smitten, only to become embroiled in a long and animated show-inspired debate in the parking lot. Standing over the gleaming, rain spattered bulk of my mother’s car, watching for the meter maid, I couldn’t resist picking my (probably smarter) friend’s brain.
Medina Hahn contemplates whether Daniel Arnold is a dream man or a creep, photo: Stephanie Hall
Through his Gracing the Stage newsletter, Steve Fisher is an institution on the Toronto performing arts scene. We’re thrilled to provide Steve’s mini-reviews on this year’s SummerWorks Festival.
We don’t usually have spoiler warnings here at Plank but I feel obliged to provide one with this review because my problem with Raising Luke is the subject of a big reveal towards the end of the play. So, if you like to be surprised and plan to see this play, come back later.
Raising Luke, take Plank's advice, Claire and dump the MoFo; photo: Keith Barker
*The Play:* Marla’s Party, an offbeat domestic comedy by Darrah Teitel.
*The Panel:*
*Alison Broverman* is a Toronto-based playwright and arts reporter.
*Andrew Templeton* is a Vancouver-based playwright and accidental reviewer
Marla's Party, nothing like a family reunion to make you realize you're nuts!
Through his Gracing the Stage newsletter, Steve Fisher is an institution on the Toronto performing arts scene. We’re thrilled to provide Steve’s mini-reviews on this year’s SummerWorks Festival.
When will you flee? This is the central question of Doug McKeag’s anxiety comedy, Doom 2012. This one-man show is an exploration of the catalogue of misery that awaits us if we don’t learn to read the signs. Although it references Biblical revelations, promises of rapture and Mayan calendars (from where the date 2012 originates) its main focus is on much more scientific or “rationale” predictions of doom such as global warming, peak oil and disease pathologies.
Doom 2012, more proof that people from Calgary are scary.
