Skip to main content

Two Plays In Two Days

So Toronto's Fringe Festival is on. I didn't go last year, and I never went in Vancouver... I always intended to, except how do you know which plays are good!?! But when someone else says, "Hey, let's go!" it is very easy to say yes.

And it turns out, we went 2 for 2.

Sunday night: Hypnogogic Logic, a comedy from the Montreal troupe "Uncalled For."

Basic premise: Man falls asleep and has crazy dreams, following the strange non-logic that we have all experienced...

Thoughts: As my date pointed out, "Dreamland kind of offers a blank slate." Nothing is off-limits, but there isn't precisely a storyline either. At least not one that makes sense in our wide-awake world. What it IS, is slightly bizarre and laugh out loud funny. And easy to relate to - we've all had dreams with that vaguely-known cousin, the house that is really a cruiseboat, and the strange conspiracy theory. And then we walk out the door onto the main stage of a concert, and WE ARE THE FAMOUS PERFORMER.

At least, I have.

Conclusion: I liked it. Laughed a lot. Surprisingly non-offensive. Worth the $10 ticket.






 


Monday night: Padre X, a one-man drama by Marc Moir, from  Winnipeg's Looking Glass Productions.

Basic Premise: A Canadian WWII chaplain tells his story.

Thoughts: In pre-show conversation, I commented that one-man shows make me nervous. You have to be really excellent to carry the audience for almost an hour and a half.

"Plus," I added, "I have a soft spot for World War II... (Date looks at me strangely) That did not come out right. I mean, it will bother me a lot if it is bad."

It wasn't. I left wanting to hug my grampie and somehow undo the hell that too many people lived through.

Conclusion: Excellent performance. Thoughtful and historical "info-tainment." Highly recommend it if you are at all interested in WWII. Worth more than the $10 admission. (if you go, just note that the intermission is not actually long enough to get up)
Labels:

Comments

  1. MLW12:57 PM

    Glad to hear you got to take in these two plays and that you enjoyed them. I am a bit envious that you have so many "cultural" opportunities at your door step.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simone Weil: On "Forms of the Implicit Love of God"

Simone Weil time again! One of the essays in Waiting for God  is entitled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Her main argument is that before a soul has "direct contact" with God, there are three types of love that are implicitly  the love of God, though they seem to have a different explicit  object. That is, in loving X, you are really loving Y. (in this case, Y = God). As for the X of the equation, she lists: Love of neighbor  Love of the beauty of the world  Love of religious practices  and a special sidebar to Friendship “Each has the virtue of a sacrament,” she writes. Each of these loves is something to be respected, honoured, and understood both symbolically and concretely. On each page of this essay, I found myself underlining profound, challenging, and thought-provoking words. There's so much to consider that I've gone back several times, mulling it over and wondering how my life would look if I truly believed even half of these thin
1 comment
Read more

I Like to Keep My Issues Drawn

It's Sunday night and I am multi-tasking. Paid some bills, catching up on free musical downloads from the past month, thinking about the mix-tape I need to make and planning my last assignment for writing class. Shortly, I will abandon the laptop to write my first draft by hand. But until then, I am thinking about music. This song played for me earlier this afternoon, as I attempted to nap. I woke up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 this morning, then lay in bed until 8 o'clock flipping sides and thinking about every part of my life that exists. It wasn't stressful, but it wasn't quite restful either...This past month, I have spent a lot of time rebuffing lies and refusing to believe that the inside of my heart and mind can never change. I feel like Florence + The Machine 's song "Shake it Out" captures many of these feelings & thoughts. (addendum: is the line "I like to keep my issues strong or drawn ?" Lyrics sites have it as "stro
2 comments
Read more

Esse - Czeslaw Milosz

I'm on a bit of a poetry binge this week, and Monday afternoon found me lying on the luxurious shag rug of a friend's tiny apartment, re-reading some of my favourite poets (ee cummings, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz). It is an adventure to re-open a collection and wonder what will pop out, knowing something you've read before will strike you afresh, or you will be reminded of a particularly moving line that you had somehow forgotten. Like this piece from Milosz, which floors me. Every. damn.* time. The first time I read it, I lay in a park with a friend (this same friend who offered me her rug as my reading burrow) and demanded that I share it with her. I spoke it carefully, and then, into the post-reading silence, I slammed the book shut, and dropped it as loudly as I could onto the grass. "I'm never reading anything again," I declared, "What else is there to say?" Esse I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro st
Post a Comment
Read more