The Toronto Fringe’s fifth annual Next Stage Theatre Festival offers a showcase for promising indie productions, including the plays reviewed below. All shows listed run at Factory Theatre through Jan. 15.
The Tiki Bikini Beach Paradise Party A-Go-Go! (7/10)
Starring Sarah Kuzio, Thomas Duplessie, Evan Dowling. Written, directed and choreographed by Allison Beula.
Sun, sand, surf and more exposed navels than a crate of oranges—The Tiki Bikini Beach Paradise Party A-Go-Go! has everything you need to escape Toronto in the dead of winter. This family-friendly spoof of 1960s beach-party movies was one of the hits of the 2011 Fringe. While it may not be the next Drowsy Chaperone, this encore is welcome. Writer-director Allison Beula takes an affectionate poke at those inane drive-in musicals starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. Sarah Kuzio and Thomas Duplessie star as Jeannette Bowlajello and Freddie Babbleon, leaders of a pack of surf rats who are set to throw a Hawaiian beach shindig. But first they must deal with party-pooping bully The Big Tuna and his sycophantic sidekick Mini Minnow. The high-spirited cast has a blast playing the movies’ goofy teen types—Nick Nasrallah is particularly funny as a cringing nerd. They also twist and shout to vintage surf-pop tunes—and some deft parodies by Beula and composer Jeffrey Straker—played live by band the von Drats. Apart from the double-entendre jokes about “woodies” (the old slang for surfboards), it’s sweet, clean fun.
Hypnogogic Logic (8/10)
Starring Matt Goldberg, Dan Jeannotte, Colin Munch, Anders Yates. Written and directed by Uncalled For.
Montreal improv comedy troupe Uncalled For gets no marks for spelling. The title should be Hypnagogic Logic, guys. And what is that, exactly? It’s the odd mix of sense and nonsense that occurs in your brain as it drifts off to sleep—a cerebral mashup that these four dextrous comedians attempt to replicate in their 75-minute show. The result is wild, often inspired comedy. The highlights include a post-apocalyptic cooking show, a medical malpractice hearing that becomes a bizarre cross between The Truman Show and Punk’d, and a slapstick wine tasting presided over by a gun-crazy connoisseur. Occasionally, things get more illogical than funny, but there are plenty of side-splitting moments to make up for it. This is what David Lynch might have come up with had he gone into improv.
Loving the Stranger (6/10)
Starring Hume Baugh, Seth Drabinsky, Matthew Eger, Kimberly Persona, Geoff Stevens. Written and directed by Alistair Newton.
Part Berlin cabaret, part history lesson, part art show, Loving the Stranger, or: How to Recognize an Invert is a lumpy tribute to the late German-born Montreal artist Peter Flinsch. A survivor of Nazi Germany, where he was imprisoned for being gay, Flinsch (played by Hume Baugh) reflects on his past as his artworks are projected on a screen above him. Writer-director Alistair Newton juxtaposes these scenes with lectures on historical attitudes towards homosexuality and satirical digs at contemporary right-wing propaganda against gay rights—all performed in an arch style by whiteface clowns. The segments vacillate between being too dry or too heavy-handed—although the stuff about pioneering sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld is illuminating. The show works best when Baugh’s elderly Flinsch is quietly sharing his insights, or when other cast members perform amazing songs from Berlin’s prewar gay scene.
Tomasso’s Party (8/10)
Starring Simon Bracken, Leah Doz. Written by Jules Lewis. Directed by Nigel Shawn Williams.
Samuel Beckett once wrote a play (Not I) for nothing but a disembodied female mouth. With Tomasso’s Party, Jules Lewis doesn’t go quite that far, but he does ask us to spend 60 minutes staring at a woman’s naked back. It belongs to Madeleine (Leah Doz), who is trying in vain to sleep while her manic boyfriend Hugo (Simon Bracken) paces their bedroom, obsessing over a party they’ve been invited to. Lewis’ clever dark comedy plays with perceptions. Contradictory pictures emerge of Tomasso, Madeleine’s boss, while we get teasing descriptions of Madeleine’s unseen features—from ankles that resemble Jennifer Lopez’s to a mouth like a certain Mexican porn star. Bracken’s cranked-up Hugo and Doz’s brazenly promiscuous Madeleine make for an entertainingly perverse couple. But director Nigel Shawn Williams allows their performances to maintain a strident tone that gets wearisome.
Modern Love (9/10)
Written and performed by Jessica Moss. Directed by Eric Double.
The old AT&T slogan told us to “Reach out and touch someone.” But according to Jessica Moss, all you need to do now is reach out—the touching part is no longer necessary. That joke neatly sums up the irony at the centre of Modern Love, Moss’ hilarious, poignant solo show: In the digital age it’s a breeze to connect with other people, but it hasn’t made it easier to find real-life love. At least that’s the case for Moss’ Trish MacTiernan, who struggles with loneliness despite some 600 Facebook friends. As Trish trolls dating websites and pervert-filled chatrooms in search of a soulmate, Moss offers wickedly funny observations about the online world. Eric Double’s witty staging throws Trish’s internet activity onto a projection screen, allowing us to watch her exchanges with a fellow lonelyheart who’s into blanket forts and Dawson’s Creek. It’s a measure of Moss’ winning performance that, as we follow their e-banter, we can’t help hoping he’s Mr. Right.
The Washing Machine (6/10)
Starring Cydney Penner, Aparajit Bhattacharjee, Ronica Sajnani. Written by Radha S. Menon. Directed by Sasha Kovacs.
If Salman Rushdie rewrote Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, it might look something like The Washing Machine, Radha S. Menon’s ambitious soap opera about conniving Anglo-Indians on a Bangalore plantation. Cydney Penner is deliciously nasty as widowed Isabelle, back from England to reclaim her family’s Indian estate, which is being run to seed by her drunken brother/lover. Ronica Sajnani is superbly steely as their disapproving Hindu housekeeper. But overall, the eight-member cast is uneven. And while Menon excels at writing droll dialogue, she overloads her play with so many big themes that most of them emerge still wet.
Showtimes can be found on the Fringe Toronto website.
