Eugenius (played by Sean Amsing) is a dick. More specifically he's a super villain with an epic plot to rule the world. Antagonist takes us through a day in the life of an angry, angsty, outrageous evil genius.

The whole cast does a wonderful job of framing Eugenius’s frustrations with himself and the world. From the mediocre evil plots of his coworkers to the lady in the fifteen-items-or-less-lane, to his mother's attempts to get grandchildren, they all do an amazing job of igniting his rage. Even his supervillain colleagues are innocent and hurt at his outbursts, and have...

Jeff Newman has chops, that’s for sure. And he probably knows I think that about him. His show will amaze you as he peers into the minds of his subjects with his shockingly blue eyes and reads the very thoughts from them, thoughts he has no conceivable way of knowing other than clairvoyancy.  His show was sprinkled with storytelling and humor which was a mix of cheesy and clever. His charisma is palpable and he truly is a master of his art.

As the show started, the tricks were relatively simple. The usual tell a joke, pick the right...

Do you have your dancing shoes on? You’re going to need them for this show. Cydney Eva and Lindy Sisson are a mother-daughter duo that is going to explain to you the influences of dance and showmanship that have been ever present in their lives. From Ballet to Burlesque, they’ve got it all.

This really is a tribute show to Cyndey and Linda’s father/grandfather, Hal Sisson, who was in “The Biz”. Although you could tell that this show meant a lot to them, it might not mean as much to the audience. A big chunk of the show is...

Let me start with the positive things, as there were some. The most enjoyable thing about this spectacle was the music. The songs ranged from classical opera to Latin influenced music with a few more modern classical types thrown in. There wasn’t a single one I didn’t enjoy listening to and that didn’t perfectly fit the mood that Thomas 'MUDD' Monahan was going for. A new idea was presented that I’d never seen before: a clown in a war and possibly with PTSD, although I can’t say for sure that I was right on the last one. I also...

Chloe Ziner and Jessica Gabriel of Vancouver’s Mind of a Snail company have again constructed, composed, mimed, sang, and wiggled into our hearts with their unique version of how the unicorn lost its horn through a virus from a little critter whose environment has been destroyed by the unicorn’s corporate construction.  

Behind the white backdrop the magical unicorn shadow puppet appears at home in his or her high rise having coffee and ‘surreal’ before going off to bid on a contract. We won’t tell you all the fable’s treats, so go and experience the visual genius of...

NeOn (Ne.On) is about love and the way love has changed over the past seventy years. It follows the stories of a grandmother, two young women, and two young boys seeking the affection of the unattainable Miki. The stories are interwoven among time and space and the story goes through a series of fractured moments which the audience is left to piece together.

The production was touching: well conceived and executed. I really enjoyed the incredibly energetic role of Nathania Barnabe as Miki – the childlike goddess who refers to herself as “princess of the universe!” The slice of life feature also...

Joanna Gaskell plays a phenomenal role in this production. I cannot gush enough about how much intensity and passion she brings to her performance and how captivating her storytelling is. Iris O'Neill was the real star of the show however, all two feet of her!

The actual production is about Joanna, playing the role of a fighter pilot in the US military, telling the story of her journey from flying her F-15 “Tiger” in Iraq, to returning stateside as a new mother, to flying drones from Las Vegas. Sam (played by O’Neill) is her pre-school aged daughter and...

Covering all of Leo Tolstoy’s mythically long-winded novel is no task for mere mortals, but Ryan Gladstone is up to the task. War and Peace is a funny, smart, and heartfelt treatment of one of history’s greatest works of literature.

The story is told in many layers: the plot of the novel itself, often played straight but poked fun at when necessary; the echoes of Tolstoy’s own life, including his depression and his youthful habits of gambling and womanizing; the historical context of the Russian setting; and the context of Tolstoy’s own writing of the novel, including the...

Peach, a five-star, one woman, monologue show that has been travelling through Canada, has found its home at Vancouver's 2016 Fringe Festival. Danielle Roy spins a cheeky, giddy tale, woven with misadventures and brazen, laughable revelations of teen love. Peach, played masterfully by Alex Harthorn, holds the audience captive with her woes and rants, and later, her heartbreak. Peach initially masks itself as a naive tale of young love but slowly builds into a gritty expression of female victimization in all it's horror.

"Love is bullshit, but bullshit is suddenly delicious." Young and cynical Peach announces this as...

Festa! is a charming look at Portuguese culture and the way it has melded into the Canadian fabric, specifically in Vancouver. It is done in a dinner theatre environment and I would recommend coming with an appetite! The actors (Maria Cruz and Sandra Medeiros) bustle about between the tables of the small dining venue, sit at the tables and chat with the audience in a very interactive environment.

The story follows multiple generations living at the same time and fades between english, portuguese, and penglish. The fight between between a wife and her husband about him booking a...

Brought to you by Fork in the Road Theatre, One Good Marriage is part of the Dramatic Series featuring theatrical works by published playwrights. Written by Ontario playwright Sean Reycraft, this script tells a mysterious tale of two newlyweds Stewart and Steph. The first words we hear are:  “Everybody died.” But we aren’t told what that means. At least, not right away.

We meet the somewhat gregarious, laidback Stewart (Dan Willows) who is a high school librarian and Steph (Ese Atawo) who is an English teacher. They work at the same high school and have just met at...

John Grady is a consummate performer with dance, film and stage experience and awards. His show, The Old Woman, certainly exhibits his brilliance as a performer.  Grady explores the responsibility of providing care for his 87-year-old mother who suffers dementia, seizures and severe bone and joint pain and has been put in an uninspiring care home. While going through the humorous and harrowing interaction with his mother he also faces his own fear that he too, despite his agility, is losing his ability to remember. Terrifying? You bet, but Grady is too wise to drown us in misery; he...

In a subgenre known for its distinguished wackiness, The After After Party ups the ante of the classic ‘hangover plot’ where close friends try to reconstruct the gory, glorious, and ever-elusive details of Last Night. In a script loaded with rapid-fire non sequiturs, crosses-the-line-twice shock comedy, and excessive blunt force trauma to the fourth wall, Katey Hoffman and Cheyenne Mabberley deliver an inspiring performance as a pair of twelfth graders just trying to find their way to the next party (while debating the metaphysics of which parties have an ‘after’ relationship to which).

Hoffman shines as Fiona, possessed...

It’s hard to find fault with Michelle(/Ryan) Lunicke’s performance in the autobiographical piece, "Ze": Queer as Fuck! Amidst the political minefield of gender and identity politics, Lunicke’s voice is nothing but pure, personal, and honest to the point of nakedness. Lunicke’s life as presented in "Ze" is a journey from sexual repression to sexual acceptance, from society into the self, and from clarity to confusion and back.

I first encountered the concepts underlying genderqueerness in the book Feminism is Queer by Mimi Marinucci, but it was a different thing to see them unfurl in the fabric of a...

This play is a lament for the painful consequences that radiate in all directions from a violence-infused culture. It’s a reflection on frustration, anger, abandonment, hidden disabilities, and sexual violence. It reveals a struggle to understand the causes of pain across four lives: a dead American soldier, perhaps by suicide, perhaps involved in Abu Ghraib atrocities in the US/Gulf War; his wife, perhaps unloved, a young woman, now a therapist, emotionally abandoned by her father; the soldier’s artistically-inclined, identical, gay twin brother (wouldn’t they both be gay?) worrying about his life; and the father of the brothers, a Vietnam veteran...

Pages