Degrassi! The Musical

The Cody Rivers Show presents: Stick to Glue (The Cody Rivers Show)

Stick to Glue is anything but gloopy. Comedy flies at breakneck speed in the form of smart, resourceful scenes that are simply damn funny. What makes this performance unique is its desire to push the limits of imagination. With only wordplay and physicality, Mike Mathieu and Andrew Connor sketch a series of vivid storylines that all fit snugly together in the end. Along the way, they transport audiences from a frantic office to a battle with giant slugs and back again. It's humour that challenges the mind to keep up. 5/5 (BH)

Degrassi! The Musical (Lester and Eliza Productions)

Making hipsters feel nostalgic is as easy as ripped jeans and hyper-colour T-shirts. At least, that's what the stage version of everyone's favourite teenage melodrama seems to believe. A large and enthusiastic cast of newcomers sets some of Degrassi's most famous storylines - student council elections, Spike's pregnancy, Joey's fake drug-dealing - to music. Great idea, unfortunately the uninspired lyrics and lazy choice of standards, like All That Jazz from Chicago, tease only a handful of chuckles from the audience. True fans of the original will appreciate the detailed references, while fantastic costumes offer some relief for everyone else. 2.5/5 (BH)

The Diaries of Adam and Eve (Puzzle Theatre)

The Diaries of Adam and Eve

"Prosthetic Penis and a Prayer" might have been a better name. Other than the cherub-sized strap-on that appears in every scene, there's little holding The Diaries of Adam and Eve together. This absurdist piece bears only a vague resemblance to the rumination on male-female relationships suggested by the title. Instead 30-odd characters roll, float and tap dance their way through a series of tedious vignettes, sharing three distinct voices and 300 grating vocal effects. Although actors Csaba Raduly and Pavla Mano create a handful of striking images, pretty pictures can't redeem the fact that their Eden's just too crowded. 2/5 (BH)

The Dragpiper (Dragpiper Productions)

Drag queens seldom shed their wigs in public. But in The Dragpiper audiences meet both local drag legend Miss Gina and the man behind the pipes, Brent Schaus. And the play reflects the split personality of its creator. Shaky performances and awkward exposition bruise the telling of an inherently interesting story. However, once Miss Gina appears, the one-liners sharpen and the entire production picks up speed. Theatrical faults gradually disappear in a haze of burlesque numbers, cock rock poetry and highland sword dancing, achieving a respectable balance between Schaus's lyrical voice and the biting wit of his alter ego 3/5. (BH)

Throwing Gnomes (GGaGné)

Throwing Gnomes

From the kegger to the gala ball, every party has its own rhythm. Throwing Gnomes reminds audiences of this truth with one of the most innovative and enjoyable dance pieces you'll see all year. A talented quintet seamlessly electric-slides between break and contemporary styles, producing narratives of motion that range from quirky and funny to touching and sexy. The pace rises and falls as new props - sheets, high-heel shoes, sports equipment - challenge or enhance the performers' movements. The result is a highly accessible piece that captures the unabashed joy of children playing in the backyard. 5/5 (BH)

See Bob Run (Seeing Blue)

See Bob Run

The Fringe format tends to favour light-hearted fare (just look at the number of '80s cultural references in this year's edition). So when a passionate, well-performed drama pops up, it hits that much harder. Lydia Zadel treats audiences to a work of controlled mayhem in See Bob Run. She zips up her hoodie, sticks out her thumb and hitchhikes through myth, murder and molestation. As an early work by renowned Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor, the script possesses a certain immaturity. And yet this talented actress spins whatever shortcomings exist to her advantage, replacing them with empathy and innocence. 4/5 (BH)

Find Me a Primitive Man (Marysia)

Find Me a Primitive Man

Let's start with the good: Marysia Trembecka is exceedingly easy on the eyes, and you know she's most probably a really nice person, and clever, and witty, etc. But FMAPM is kind of disastrous, and by "kind of" I mean "absolutely." Jokes that might have only worked on bad '80s TV shows clunk like anvils tossed on top of other anvils, and despite Marysia's obvious charm, it's impossible to not notice how far out of her depth she is. Plays like it was the result of one piece of woefully bad advice taken far too seriously. 1/5 (DJ)

Transcendental Masturbation (Glen Callender UFA)

Transcendental Masturbation

It's impossible to dislike a show like this one, whose humour runs the gamut from "heh" to "I can't believe he fucking did that," and which shows a lot of sculpted stripper-ish ass really early on. The sweat-box of Venue B holds inside it one of the secrets of life, a cathartic experience which excites the frontal lobe, the small intestine, the left ear, the damaged soul and the perineum all at once. Musical, righteous and sly, Glen Callender should, before, after and during all of his shows, feel both ashamed and extremely proud of himself. 3/5 (DJ)

Between Takeoff and Landing (Manhattan Redhead)

When Michael left Dublin to fly home to New York, he didn't anticipate that 9/11 would reroute his plane to Gander, Newfoundland. He also didn't anticipate having to come to terms with his life (or lack thereof), or how he felt about home, or about women, or about work, and he certainly didn't expect to find any answers stranded in a place like that. In this must-see show, Michael Walsh generously plays about a dozen different characters with ease, proving with considerable skill and assuredness that the art of storytelling isn't dead. Among my favourite Fringe shows ever. 4.5/5 (DJ)

Blastback Babyzap (Uncalled For)

Blastback Babyzap

Local improv heroes Uncalled For flex their sketch com muscles with this hootenanny of a show that starts with a carnival barker and ends with... well, I won't blow it, but had you interest in the onomatopoeic word for the sound made by a seal thrown against a wall, the kind of cunning displayed by men who dot their Ds, or the origins of the ferocious Bubblestump Stubblebump, you'd do well to see this. Ferociously creative, and playful like a motherfucker, the Inuit's two words for scripted sketch comedy may very well be Blastback Babyzap. 4/5 (DJ)

Nile Séguin Is Hondomania (Third Man)

There ain't much to Nile's show other than a dude, a stool, a bottle of water and more funny than you can shake a stick at. Since the first time I saw him do anything, Ottawa's Séguin has really rounded into form, and can now confidently and capably riff on anything from race to sex to guns to drugs to the inescapability of thugs in Winnipeg, nutcases in Los Angeles, and death in general. An original, versatile comic, Séguin's unflappability and gift for improvisation will charm you silly and slap you happy, but never, ever bore you. 4.5/5 (DJ)

The Sputniks (Ko-peeka Jo-sla)

The Sputniks

This is a thing of true beauty, a bare-bones one-woman show that tells a rich and detailed story with little more than accents and mannerisms. The titular Sputniks are Russian-Jewish intelligentsia who, after the war, decide to flee Russia for, well, anywhere else, with their young daughter in tow. Little Katya is our guide, taking us through her parents' marriage, their pasts, their views and their tragedies, all the while constructing a tale of tremendous life and wispy fragility. There are performers and then there are performers, and the magnificent Elison Zasko proves she's that second one. 5/5 (DJ)

Dishpig (Chipped Paint Productions)

Dishpig

You can look around all you want, you ain't gonna find many performers that captivate you the way that the frenetic, energetic and far from splenetic Greg Landucci does in this story of one man's frustrating odyssey through the shittier parts of the restaurant industry. Former or current resto workers will recognize a lot of the Dishpig's concerns and co-workers, but you needn't have lived the life to get off on this high-energy, soulful, wonderfully profane and well-structured one-man show about how sometimes it's better to fade away than burn out. 4/5 (DJ)

The Beekeepers (Two Wheeler Productions)

The Beekeepers

A mash-up of The Anger in Ernest & Ernestine, American Gothic and Samuel Beckett, Jeremy Taylor's Beekeepers is a claustrophobic, apocalyptic duet that laments the breakdown of human communication as much as it eulogizes the world's bee population as its last holdouts succumb to colony collapse disorder. While more absurdity and less kitchen sink revelations would have kept our dysfunctional beekeepers buzzing right through to their frozen end, the company has chosen a great off-venue in flower-centric emporium Fuschia, and its visuals and set-up make it a promising little gem. 3.5/5 (JE)

Identity Crisis (inFluxdance)

There is, off the top, an infectious joy that camps out in dancers Rose Pasquarello Beauchamp and Alysia Woodruff as they dance and sign their way through the brief wisp of their new half-hour choreography. But the performance suffers from the crisis of its title. With a voiceover that gives both a tongue-in-cheek explanation of the tenets of modern dance (which, we are assured, we are not supposed to understand, and from whence the laughs in the piece are sprung) and tidbits of identity history and jargon apparently culled from Wikipedia, no thread seems to spin fully into the next, leaving a sense we're only getting half a show. Or two halves that don't quite match up. 3/5 (JE)

Fonction Phatique (Fodire Fouillis)

Fonction Phatique

The Fonction Phatique group employ an unorthodox, homegrown approach to performance. The three dancers (Patricia Leblanc, Emilie Morin and Angélique Poulin) mingle with the audience, chatting them up to remove their anonymity, and then - bang! - a drum beat is sounded and they bound on stage. The live, driving rock guitar and drums pump this playful piece. The key thematic is "keeping in touch." There's a propensity on the part of choreographer Dominique Bouchard to be alternately cute with doses of energetic and frenetic abstract dance. 2.5/5 (PS)

The Gate (Nacando Productions)

The Gate spotlights the eager ambitions of co-creators filmmaker Desh Fernando and dancer-choreographer Teoma Naccarato. The talented duo pack a full menu of their creative abilities - a compendium of alternating dance films and live performance make for visual overload. An abbreviated but vivid Lily, choreographed by Naccarato and Marianne Desjardins, with an airhead cheerleader (Naccarato) who's conflicted by darker emotions, is a highlight. Portrait is the film of choice, in which Fernando tempts the eye with a fixed frame, assured editing, and luscious colours. 3/5 (PS)

The Alley Project (Once Removed/Under/Overtaken Collective)

The Alley Project

The Alley Project presents two short works: Visceral energy fuels Emily Gualtieri's engaging and incisive look at relationships in Under/Overtaken, and builds on the strength of noteworthy performances by Hannah Dorozio, Lael Stellic, Jody Hegel and a formidable David Albert-Toth. Gualtieri is particularly adept at juxtaposing tenderness and threat with a cool hand, balancing contact, weight and support. Well-crafted lighting design is by Paul Chambers. On the same bill: Hannah Naiman's Numerology, inspired by an English ritual folk dance called "rapper sword dancing." Part medieval, part contemporary, it's a curious slice of evolving swooping spins and graceful circular movements, with a quartet of female dancers that tangle and untangle with relative ease. 3.5/5 (PS)
 
 

		Write your comment on this article!

Cobra Christ Superstar!     It's a pretty warped mix but the Extensive Enterprises troupe pulled it off--a stage musical performed by the villains of the old G.I. Joe cartoon. Yes, it is as bizarre as it sounds but it was as funny as all get go. I've seen a few of the shows that this year's Fringefest had to offer but this is the one that stuck in my mind the most. If you missed it you've no idea of what you missed.
Eric Bertrand		June 23rd, 2008

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