Til’ (a whole bunch of stuff, check the box) do us part: I, Diana. A Fringe review

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

Sue Huff and Kevin Tokarsky in I, Diana, Northern Sabbatical Productions at Edmonton Fringe 2024. Photo by Axel Torres.

I, Diana (Stage 2, The Next Act Backstage Theatre)

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Narcissism requires constant maintenance and sustenance. In this light-hearted new relationship comedy, with a twist, from Linda Wood Edwards, we meet the kind of someone theatre blurbs love to call “a strong woman.”

To help support 12thnight.ca YEG theatre coverage, click here.

Diana (Sue Huff) is a prairie razzle-dazzler who styles her general demeanour and game after the Roman goddess of the hunt. The centre of the universe, as she declares cheerfully of herself.  Diana is, naturally, an indefatigable collector and discard-er of followers (all men, as you will surmise). Getting married on high holidays — like Christmas, Valentine’s Day, 9-11, or the closing night of a community theatre production of South Pacific —  “elevates” the whole affair.

A serial divorcée, Diana is her own wedding planner, as you might expect. Marriages can go south, “but wedding photos can be controlled.” So Diana’s marital career unfolds in a set of amusing wedding photos, the obverse side of her mirror in the amusing design by Huff and Kevin Tokarsky.

The light-as-air fun of Wood Edwards’ production is that all the men, eye candy for Diana, are all played by one: the game Tokarsky, in a series of wigs that will make you laugh. He’s chosen in each case by Diana for a certain resemblance to a celebrity or a celebrated type— Richard Gere, Tom Selleck Don Johnson, the quintessential rancher dude, John Denver, Harrison Ford…. And glitches, for you to have the fun of discovering, begin to occur, every time. A continuing theme is that the men are considerably more interested in her children than Diana is, which she finds both perplexing and irritating.

Wood Edwards’ writing is peppered with droll asides that are the personal property of Diana, who (as Huff knows) is funny because she says witty things with a beaming smile and unsmiling, absolute, matter-of-fact certainty.  “I love you Diana,” says one of the smitten ones. “You hold some appeal for me, too,” she allows warily.

Sometimes it’s refreshing to have validation for your worst instincts, and this is the comedy to tease you with that prospect. Is there any reason for driving a station wagon when you could be at the wheel of a Ferrari?

 

 

 

 

     

Posted in Fringe 2024, Reviews | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Til’ (a whole bunch of stuff, check the box) do us part: I, Diana. A Fringe review

Camping with “two special girls”: Let’s Not Turn On Each Other, a Fringe REVIEW

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

Jacquelin Walters and Michael Watt in Let’s Not Turn On Each Other, Walters and Watt at Edmonton Fringe 2024. Photo supplied.

Let’s Not Turn On Each Other (Stage 25, Spotlight Cabaret)

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Now, here’s a theatrical welcome to warm the heart. An appealing pair of clowns, whose resting state is high excitement, are downright ecstatic when they catch sight of us.

Bethandreth and Cownow can scarcely believe their good fortune in having company. After all, they’ve been out in the wilderness by themselves for a long time — months maybe, or years or decades, “let’s just call today Friday” — waiting for a signal from “the prophet.” We gather they’re true-believer cultists on assignment, whose outpost location, they’re convinced, is a measure of their importance to “the guild.”

In this unusual new “musical play, a clown show with occasional music by and starring the team of Jacquelin Walters and Michael Watt, they have an original patter song about that. “Two special girls….”

Every day they wait, an appealingly wide-eyed and boisterous Vladimir and Estragon (Beckett goes camping, with guitar and ukulele?). The prophet has left them with a daily ritual, specific instructions for guild-approved virgin behaviour. These include a written manual: “wash your face,” a “daily stretch,”“look out for wolves,” “listen to a tape” from a scratchy collection that includes one devoted to seven hours of the prophet breathing.

The songs, inventively folk-ish in style, have a kind of ritual significance to the characters that is very unlike the usual infrastructure of musical theatre. They’re positioned at moments of crisis when Bethandreth and Cownow are in need of reassurance. “What do we do when we’re in trouble? We sing The Trouble Song,” they tell each other other. “Turbulence is the stream in which we travel….”

When an inadvertent revelation comes their way, they set forth from their wilderness home on a scrambly journey, with an unreadable map, through hill and dale and over the bar of the Spotlight Cabaret. And they sing themselves a touching little song, “did you know?”

We meet characters who are hopeful and distractible in the clown-ly way, bouncing back from their wounds. The performances from Walters and Watt are big and bold, with southern accents that come and go. They virtually burst out of an inconclusive, open-ended story; first they’re followers, then they have to make their own choices, in tandem with nature. “We’re going to make love to Mother Nature.”

It’s an oddball, wistful little original, this one. I found it beyond my grasp, but in an appealing way.

Posted in Fringe 2024, Reviews | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Camping with “two special girls”: Let’s Not Turn On Each Other, a Fringe REVIEW

Jay-suss, saving souls, and raising money: Brother Love’s Good Time Gospel Hour, a Fringe revew

Posted on August 21, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

Brother Love’s Good Time Gospel Hour. Photo supplied.

Brother Love’s Good Time Gospel Hour (Stage 1, ATB Westbury Theatre)

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

“Edmonton, are you ready to be saved!?” asks Brother Love, travelling salvation salesman  — and purveyor of such spiritual aides as his ‘dirty preacher wives’ video series, and “Christian poppers” and other recreational enhancers. And the answer apparently is Yes.

To help support 12thnight.ca YEG theatre coverage, click here.

Brother Love (Noam Osband) and his cheery assistant Sister Alice (Edna Mira Raia) are here, along with his glum band and the Gospelettes back-up tambourine rattlers, to wrest our souls from the damnation of “secular pornography,” which is A SIN. His mission is to divert our spiritual path from the sinful competition to “Christian porn,” which is not only righteous, but for sale. Salvation, we will learn, has much to do with body orifices, created as they are by the Lord. “My god is a sexy god.”

“Someone will get touched tonight,” he and Sister Alice assure us. And there’s a catchy join-in song that pursues the thought in numerous reprises of  “glory glory glory somebody touched me,” the Stanley Brothers classic repurposed for this special occasion.

Fifteen minutes into this raucous show Brother Love and co are displeased that there have been no donations yet. The urgency of the mission on behalf of Christian porn has been upped, as Brother Love reveals, by the bad behavior of his latest ex-wife, Mrs. Love IV, who “cleared me out.” Poor woman, she just didn’t understand a preacher has to be on call 24/7 for in-person visits to troubled female members of the flock. But it’s not the money, Sister Alice hastens to add. Lack of donation shows such a lack of respect for “the Lord’s conduit.”

As you will glean, no one would accuse this satire of Christian evangelism of being in any way subtle. It has a fearless sense of humour; it identifies its satirical target early (instantly), and hammers it relentlessly for an hour. This is, of course, exactly how televangelist infomercials work, by endless repetition, in thundering demonstrations of greed and crassness that wear you down. And Brother Love does set the bar impressively high. Theatre, however, does stall under such high-pitched repetitions (even if you’re supplied with tambourines and paper money to join in).

The Lord’s conduit is a spirited, fearless performer, and his defence of Christian porn and ‘cocaine for Christ’ is unwavering. All good unclean fun, and the audience did dig in. In the end it kind of erodes your cringe threshold, and you may find it takes you a while to get it back. If audience participation tends to make you avoid eye contact, this might be a show to actively avoid.

Posted in Fringe 2024, Reviews | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Jay-suss, saving souls, and raising money: Brother Love’s Good Time Gospel Hour, a Fringe revew

And back in the Hundred Acre Wood…. Who’s Afraid Of Winnie The Pooh? A Fringe review

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

Thomas Buan in Who’s Afraid of Winnie The Pooh?, Clevername Theatre at Edmonton Fringe 2024. Photo supplied

Who’s Afraid of Winnie the Pooh? (Stage 18, FOH PRO Stage, Grindstone Venues)

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

The title alone of this play from Clevername Theatre of Minneapolis stops you in your tracks, with its sheer head-on bravado and disaster potential.

To help support 12thnight.ca YEG theatre coverage, click here.

What can this be? A parody of Edward Albee’s lacerating ‘60s relationship drama that rocked the post-war theatre world? A joke perhaps a couple of notches too goofy? No, and no. Who’s Afraid of Winnie the Pooh? might be the most surprising show at the Fringe, and one of the most memorably clever.

Alexander Gerchak’s play isn’t a spoof. Amazing as this sounds, it is actually a version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? — with the insights, the one-upmanship, the relationship exfoliation, the humiliation gamesmanship that make the Albee a shattering experience.

Stephanie Johnson and Thomas Buan in Who’s Afraid of Winnie The Pooh? Clevername Theatre at Edmonton Fringe 2024. Photo supplied.

Winnie (Thomas Buan) and Piglet (Stephanie Johnson) return home from a Hundred Acre Wood party, in warring mode. She’s invited a younger new couple, the upwardly mobile Christopher (Nick Hill) and brittle Hunny (Victoria Jones) over for more (and more) drinks. And the sniping and undercutting begin, along with the warning “not to talk about the Boy.”

Winnie, “a bear of very little brain” as his partner is fond of pointing out, is a writer of stories that have long since ceased to impress her. In his fuzzy brown cardigan, he has the slightly worn air of someone who’s taken his share of slings and arrows. And Piglet, flirtatious and hostile in equal measure, is dishing them out, along with condensed milk cocktails (the hard stuff). “Don’t mind the old fuzzball,” she cheerily advises the guests, who are finding the bickering awkward.

And so the ritual humiliation begins. “A real man is made of more than stuffing.” Let’s play Pork the Pig, Pooh suggests. Or Pin The Tail On The Donkey.

If you know the Albee play, you’ll be fascinated to see how this version is fashioned in parallel to the A.A. Milne stories, and feels dangerous in an Albee way. If you don’t, you’ll appreciate the artful way it takes us to insights about the famous Pooh stories, and “the Boy,” Christopher Robin, who will get sent off to elementary school in another dimension than the Hundred Acre Wood. If the Albee is about the high cost of life-sustaining illusions, the version in the Hundred Acre Wood is, in its own original way, a play about the end of childhood.

Did I expect to laugh, and be moved? Nope. But both happened. And I’m still thinking about it.

Posted in Fringe 2024, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on And back in the Hundred Acre Wood…. Who’s Afraid Of Winnie The Pooh? A Fringe review

Opening a portal into the dark world: Microwave Coven from Guys in Disguise, a Fringe review

Posted on August 20, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

Darrin Hagen, Jake Tkaczyk, Jason Hardwick, Trevor Schmidt in Microwave Coven, Guys in Disguise at Edmonton Fringe 2024. Photo by Ian Jackson, Epic Photography

Microwave Coven (Stage 11, Varscona Theatre)

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

At Maxine’s “contemporary split-level,” the suburban matrons of Placid Place are counting down to the stroke of 12, noon that is (much more convenient for scheduling than midnight).

To help support 12thnight.ca YEG theatre coverage, click here.

It’s 1977 and Maxine (Jake Tkaczyk), Fiona (Darrin Hagen), and Carmen (Trevor Schmidt), suburban cultists in dramatic matching robes, are preparing to open a portal into the demonic world.  They’re waiting the arrival of their new neighbour (Jason Hardwick), a perky innocent who’s “the closest thing we’ve ever had to a virgin.” And the snacks, including devilled eggs and devil’s food cake, are ready.

In this the latest from Guys in Disguise, and the writing team of Hagen and Schmidt, they worship at the altar of modernity, the microwave oven, glowing strangely in the dark. “O microwave we bow to you …” they chant, in tribute to this reasonably affordable instrument of world-wide domination.” The ding, the defrost button, the hypnotic rotating plate, the magical way a frozen hunk of something gets to be dinner (OK, maybe not chicken; that gets rubbery).

Guys in Disguise have long had a particular fascination with femininity, marriage, and the depression, dissatisfaction, and dreams of wives at home (Prepare For The Worst, Don’t Frown at the Gown, Crack in the Mirror), not to mentioned processed cheese. Suburbia, the traditional stomping ground of the married, is the playground for a sense of humour in which insights and double-entendres mingle over snacks (not hors d’oeuvres, that’s a different milieu). Fiona still remembers the moment when the neighbours came to watch her melt Velveeta for the first time in her new microwave. “I’ve never seen the entire subdivision come together like that.”

The mysterious way that small appliance worship opens the portal to the fires of hell is a pretty giddy concept, not to be explained by the likes of me. Suffice it to say this is the Guys in Disguise suburban version of Rosemary’s Baby. The performances in Schmidt’s production are, like the wigs (designer: Schmidt), amusing to see. The cast knows a lot about the comic potential of gravitas and costuming: Carmen’s rumbling baritone, the grandiloquent gestures of Maxine, the homey bustle of Fiona.

Take a break from your “serious” Fringe pursuits, and lose yourself in “the fog of distraction.”

Posted in Fringe 2024, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Opening a portal into the dark world: Microwave Coven from Guys in Disguise, a Fringe review

He had it comin’: The Black Widow Gun Club, a Fringe review

Posted on August 19, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

Kristin Johnston in The Black Widow Gun Club, Whizgiggling Productions. Photo supplied.

The Black Widow Gun Club (Stage 4, MacEwan Fine Arts Walterdale Theatre)

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

This stylish little confection devised by Trevor Schmidt for Whizgiggling Productions comes with all the film noir trimmings:  — sexy sinister music (Mason Snelgrove), atmospheric shafts of light, snarly dialogue that includes the term “low-life,” smoking “for emphasis or affection,” femmes fatales in black if not mourning), a murder.

And here’s a wrinkle: one dead husband plus not one but three widows. An invisible detective is conducting an investigation, and Hugh’s serial marital history is emerging.

Cheryl Jameson in The Black Widow Gun Club, Whizgiggling Productions. Photo supplied

Schmidt’s production reassembles the three-actor cast of comic actors — Michelle Todd, Kristin Johnston, Cheryl Jameson— who have made previous Whizgiggling Fringe appearances hits (Destination Wedding, Destination Vegas, Lady Porn). The performances in Schmidt’s production are sharp and stylish. The formidable first Mrs. Fairfax, a filthy rich red-lipsticked socialite whose copious supply of moolah was a evidently a big draw for the late Hugh, gets an incisive portrait from Johnston. She’s a veritable ice floe of grievances and resentment, with a ‘we are not amused’ glare that could congeal oil at 100 paces.

Michelle Todd in The Black Widow Gun Club, Whizgiggling Productions. Photo supplied.

The second Mrs. Fairfax (Todd) was a cocktail bar waitress on the make (“I was the only one he truly loved”) who refers to Hugh as “daddy” with the sugar implied. She was supplanted by the third Mrs. Fairfax (Jameson), a boho artiste specializing in cocaine-fuelled death-centric nudes, who admits breezily she was never in love with the guy. But hey, “I’ve done worse with worse.” Hugh gave each of his brides a pearl-handed lady-sized revolver as a wedding present. In retrospect, Hugh….

They each step from the darkness into a spotlight to tell their story. There isn’t much more I should tell you since it’s a thriller,  short, staccato, and cunningly put together by the playwright/director. But it’s entertaining, performed with flair, and fun to piece together.

Posted in Fringe 2024, Reviews | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on He had it comin’: The Black Widow Gun Club, a Fringe review

The comedy of damage control: Ducks, a Fringe review

Posted on August 19, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

Ducks (Stage 20, Blind Enthusiasm Stage at MZD – Grindstone Venues)

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

A black-hearted, knowing little comedy asks you to imagine this: a provincial government communications department that’s all about not communicating, concealing, dipsy-doodling around the Freedom of Information Act. Far-fetched, I know.

Ducks, the latest from David Heyman, references a case that sticks in the mind: the indelible ducks drowning in bitumen slime floating in a tailings pond. Duck shmuck. “A PR nightmare for the government” declares the smug, upwardly mobile communications hotshot cum fixer (Sam Free), who’d used the occasion to trounce his exasperated second-in-command (Davina Stewart).

To help support 12thnight.ca YEG theatre coverage, click here.

The nightmare has returned. It’s re-entered via embarrassing invitations, with photo, sent out by the dim and chipper receptionist (Linda Grass) to an office going-away party she’s helpfully arranged for Mitch. “I like doing invites!” She’s even invited the press. Mitch is leaving for a new job in Ottawa, “where the action is….” And he is incredulous that the photo wasn’t triple-deleted long ago.

The office, including the entirely competent press secretary (Jayce McKenzie), is in turmoil, as Patricia Darbasie’s Handmade Ivy production and a pro cast admirably convey. They have exactly 20 minutes to retrieve and destroy all the invitations before Mitch’s career is done like dinner.

This unleashes a veritable tornado of backstabbing, secret agendas and rumour-mongering, tightly wound by the playwright. The habit of denial runs deep in government communication circles, amazingly. Free, a U of A theatre grad, is a real find, funny, sharp, in a veritable buzz-saw of a performance. Stewart, a veritable repository of withering looks as the seasoned communication vet, looks like she’s eaten a bad cashew, and just can’t rid of the taste. Grass, who has a lighthouse beam smile, uses it to great comic effect as the unwitting instigator of chaos. And McKenzie as the unsmiling, unflappable, and ambitious press secretary, has perfected the contained, glinty eyeroll.   

After such a tightly wound, spring-loaded comedy set-up — and one of the great sight gags of the festival (we all laughed out loud) — Ducks could use a kick-ass ending beyond the assurance that there were crises before, and they will continue into infinity. You don’t often want a Fringe show to be longer. This is that occasion.

Posted in Fringe 2024, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on The comedy of damage control: Ducks, a Fringe review

Unzipping the red-carpet legends: ‘Golden Grind: A Hollywood Burlesque Show’. A Fringe review

Posted on August 19, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

Golden Grind: A Hollywood Burlesque Show, House of Hush Burlesque. Photo by Brennan Royt.

Golden Grind: A Hollywood Burlesque Show (Stage 11, Varscona Theatre)

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

If all dissertations were as lively as Golden Grind, academia would be the new showbiz hotspot, professors would not be wearing brown corduroy, and the Ivory Tower would have much better lighting.

To help support 12thnight.ca YEG theatre coverage, click here.

Luster Kitten, soon to be Dr. Luster Kitten (Kristi Hansen), is presenting her Film Studies dissertation as a live powerpoint in this, the latest from House of Hush Burlesque. Her subject is the Golden Age of Hollywood. And her research unzips, so to speak, the treatment of women and gender-diverse people under all the gilt-edged sequined glamour. Is it ready for its closeup?

By its very nature, burlesque is a teasing, playful sort of vaudeville, that dances to the rhythm of the cover-up and the reveal. And our intrepid film historian, who presides with arch cordiality from a lectern, has a lighthearted way with metaphor and applies it to uncorseting the careers of some of Hollywood’s legendary glamour queens. All that glitters, she points out noting the double-sided show title, is not gold.

Dr. Kitten argues that Ziegfeld in New York was the pioneer, in the 20s, of a razzle-dazzle spectacle that gave women performers financial stability, choices, and hence a certain groundbreaking autonomy. In a succession of numbers, the House of Hush cast pay tribute to stars who had something more to reveal than the Hollywood imagery that defined them. Doris Day, for example, was “more than the girl-next-door. LeTabby Lexington’s witty homage to DD’s goody-two-shoes rep, twirls the tassels and golden fringes of the all-American girl and finds a naughtier one inside.

The Wizard of Oz in 1939, “the story of a woman who kills anther woman for her shoes” as our host puts it, made a star of the young Judy Garland. And Dr. Kitten reminds us that the indelible film was an apotheosis of whiteness; “shockingly,” it wasn’t until 1975, Diana Ross in The Wiz, changed that. A House of Hush trio fashions an amusing number from that yellow brick road route to stardom.

Violette Coquette’s inventively sexy tribute to Marlene Dietrich, the sultry, radically elusive star who famously kissed another woman on the lips,  happens to a version of La Vie en rose. Sharpay Diem as Hedy Lamar, who challenged the assumption that brains and beauty couldn’t mix, gets an homage from Sharpay Diem, a stage name that can’t fail to make you smile. And the spirit of Mae West, the wiseacre star, lives on in a winking performance by Jezebel Sinclair.

Charlee Queen tributes Dorothy Dandridge, the first African-American movie star to get a best actress Oscar nomination. And the sister act, Canuck in provenance, of the Pickfords Mary and Lottie, as imagined by LeTabby Lexington and Violette Coquette, is the funniest number, a sort of double fan peekaboo that’s all about upstaging. There’s a big Marilyn Monroe finale; my lips are sealed.

Hansen’s script, which she delivers with an entertaining mix of sweet and tart, is full of droll asides and segués. And the show is an eyeful, from the costumes to Audra Dacity’s choreography. Hoot, holler, don’t turn off your cellphone. What fun.

Posted in Fringe 2024, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Unzipping the red-carpet legends: ‘Golden Grind: A Hollywood Burlesque Show’. A Fringe review

Was I dreaming? Ha Ha Da Vinci, a Fringe review

Posted on August 18, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

Ha Ha Da Vinci, Phina Pipia. Photo supplied.

Ha Ha Da Vinci (Stage 14, Café Bicyclette Stage)

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

In its way this quietly captivating show created by and starring Phina Pipia is a bit like an exotic sorbet. You can’t quite identify the flavour, but it melts in your mouth, and you find yourself wanting more.

To help support 12thnight.ca YEG theatre coverage, click here.

Kooky things happen in Ha Ha Da Vinci, uncaused, but they don’t feel kooky. They feel weirdly natural. A woman with a tuba is transported to renaissance Italy in Leonardo da Vinci’s failed time machine, and gets a message from the past. In fact she talks to the great man himself via a red radio in the bell of her tuba. Going back in time is no problem, apparently; it’s going forward into the future that’s the big challenge (a thought that recurs).

Phina Pipia in Ha Ha Da Vinci, Edmonton Fringe 2024. Photo supplied

Bits and pieces of The Mona Lisa magically reassemble themselves into the whole painting. Every step the woman takes on a rug brings forth a different note, and music happens. She’s moved to dance; she plays something from Carmen on the tuba; she picks up a guitar and sings a song. She unfolds a magic square, with amazing results. Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man drawing, hanging at the back of the stage, near an easel and paints, suddenly reveals a red heart. The man has a new, moveable face; it’s our heroine and she sings an opera aria. A sign appears: “look to the moon.” And the moon appears. “Some things are just bound to happen,” she tells us.

You should never go to any Fringe festival expecting to hear a virtuoso tuba solo (or you will, needless to say, be bound for disappointment a lot of the time). It feels special when it happens. Suddenly a lovely renaissance lantern hangs from the woman’s  tuba. You not know what will happen next.

This is a whimsical kind of enchantment, a strange free-floating assortment of music, imagery, dance, illusions. You might be dreaming, which would explain a lot, and it feels fine. I loved it.

.

Posted in Fringe 2024, Reviews | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Was I dreaming? Ha Ha Da Vinci, a Fringe review

A splintered world, from the inside out: Center of the Universe, a Fringe review

Posted on August 18, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

Jayce McKenzie in Center of the Universe, Edmonton Fringe 2024. Photo supplied.

Center of the Universe (Stage 13, Service Credit Union Théâtre at La Cité francophone)

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Maxine, at 13, is bright, smart, charming. She just doesn’t seem to be able to (in the common parlance) get her shit together.

To help support 12thnight.ca YEG theatre coverage, click here.

Which is why Maxine is in detention. Again. Writing “I will not rollerblade in the school” on the blackboard, whilst wearing rollerblades. “I don’t know why it’s so hard to do anything, and why I’m so confused all the time.”

There is a reason. And it emerges in the course of a show that sets out to actually demonstrate, from the stage, what it’s like to be an ADHD-er: hyper-alert but perpetually distractible, lacking segués, disorganized, always late, getting bright ideas and abandoning them, letting the free-associative impulse squelch any thought about causes and consequences. “I don’t feel super-connected. So, usually I just feel alone and have to distract myself.”

This deliberate evocation of a scatty world from the inside out, a world that’s very apt to disintegrate, does not, of course, make for dramatic coherence or focus in the usual sense. And Center of the Universe, by and starring actor/playwright Jayce McKenzie, who knows a lot about both ADHD and playing kids, doesn’t hang together in any conventional, explainable way. This is a play with its own kind of theatrical ADHD, and it makes you a bit dizzy.

There are long interludes of Maxine’s favourite music, there are exchanges with a mysterious and reassuring Voice, there are little outbursts of audience participation with a Ouija board. Maxine consults a family photo album tucked into her backpack, which features her sticker collection instead of family holiday shots, a troubling insight into the domestic dynamic.

Can I explain the ending to you, with Maxine gathering her resources for a reveal concerning a mystery box? Nope (and I wouldn’t even if I could). But Center of the Universe does vividly conjure a world of scattered impulses. And McKenzie is such an endearing performer: you want her to succeed.

 

Posted in Fringe 2024, Reviews | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on A splintered world, from the inside out: Center of the Universe, a Fringe review