Times Colonist reviewers Amy Smart, Adrian Chamberlain and Cory Ruf are covering the Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival, running to Sunday. All critiques use a five-star grading system.
What: Love Is for Superbeasts
Where: Langham Court Theatre
When: Saturday and Sunday
Rating: 4
Written by Victoria-based playwright Mily Mumford, the dark comedy Love Is for Superbeasts positions the audience as forensic investigators gathered in a maximum-security prison to examine the most fascinating inmates.
A duo of psychopathic serial killers, Eleanor (Mumford) and Dorian (Joseph Goble) supposedly lack compassion for other human beings.
But theirs isn't a textbook case - they're soulmates, sharing mutual respect and understanding one would expect from a longlasting model romance.
Standing in a mostly bare interrogation chamber, they recall their first meeting (appropriately, at a morgue) and their early dalliances with homicide, the lovers' favourite couple-y activity. Their scintillating repartée and brief forays into dance evoke the ironically wholesome but complicated bond between The Addams Family's lead lovers, Gomez and Morticia.
Superbeasts is like a medium steak - meaty with thought-provoking dialogue, it's well done and tender, but boasts a hint of pink to sate those with taste for blood.
-Cory Ruf
What: Honesty Hour
Where: Langham Court Theatre
When: Saturday and Sunday
Rating: 3
Penned by University of Victoria writing grad Kayla Hart and performed by Marleis Bowering, Honesty Hour is series of monologues on an eminently relatable topic: secrets and the helpful lies people tell to conceal them.
To start the 45-minute work, Bowering assumes the role of a 15-year-old girl who laments she has nothing to hide from the world, except her wish to lead a more scandalous, romantic life.
The actor then delivers a succession of characters with considerably more to hide. Their circumstances might be familiar: a woman whose fiancé reminds her of a friend she secretly adores, but could never marry; a devout Catholic who privately believes that God spoke to her through the television; a job applicant who sings her own praises to a potential employer, but in reality, doubts she's cut out for the position. The bombshells aren't criminal or even horrific, which raises the question: If secrets of this ilk are so ordinary, why do we feel compelled to keep them secret?
Unfortunately, the play has its underlying flaws. Bowering flubbed the occasional line during Saturday's performance. And the vignettes don't combine to form a riveting narrative.
But despite its missteps, Honesty Hour succeeds at fulfilling its ostensible purpose - inspiring deep self-reflection.
- CR
What: Home Free!
Where: Fairfield Hall, 1303 Fairfield Rd.
When: Today and Thursday
Rating: 4
Vancouver's Staircase XI Theatre has revived a curious little play by Lanford Wilson. Home Free! examines the odd lives of a brother and sister who have an incestuous relationship and live in a childlike world.
We meet Joanna (Maryanne Renzetti) returning from a shopping trip. Brother Lawrence, who's just finished giving an astronomy lesson to imaginary kiddies, greets her as if she's returned from a African safari. We soon realize their hothouse world is tiny and strange. Lawrence appears to be agoraphobic, while Joanna makes up stories like an imaginative child.
Disturbing changes are afoot. Joanna is pregnant (we assume her brother is the father, as they speak about themselves as husband and wife). Joanna says they must move as the landlady doesn't allow children. Lawrence cannot comprehend this. When calamity strikes during the finale, he is unable to cope.
This is one of the Victoria Fringe's more fully realized productions. The set, of a garret-like flat, is surprisingly detailed. And the professional-level acting is solid, although director Brian Cochrane encourages an energetic tone that, at times, steamrollers over nuance.
First produced in 1964, Home Free! explores dysfunctional relationships and mental illness in a slightly surreal manner. Wilson's message is a touch inscrutable - nonetheless, it's well worth seeking out.
- Adrian Chamberlain
What: Bookworm
Where: Fairfield Hall, 1303 Fairfield Rd.
When: Today, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Rating: 4 1/2
Corin Raymond has created a love letter to literature that's destined to be a hit of the Fringe.
Bookworm is a one-man show about Raymond's life-long adoration of books. He's the son of a die-hard bibliophile, a teacher and scholar who collected 15,000 volumes. There's something touching about Raymond's descriptions of how his father endeavoured to kindle a love of books within his son. Long car trips, for instance, were whiled away with the telling of Greek myths.
This sparked Raymond's lifetime passion for books - particularly Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, a novel he gives away to friends with a missionary's zeal.
The road to book-loving wasn't always smooth. His father despaired when Raymond entered a hard-core comic-book phase. And his dad despaired when his son dropped out of high school - an unthinkable thing for a man in love with education.
Yet through it all, Raymond revelled in the world of literature. Dramaturged by fringe theatre hero T.J. Dawe, Bookworm is a lovely, heartfelt offering.
- AC
