Toronto Fringe Festival 2024 Round 2

Toronto Fringe Festival: Round 2

 

A+ – A fantastic show, on my “Must See” List for the year.

A – A great show, but with a few bumps to smoothen out. Still worth seeing.

B – Has many elements of a great show, but needs work before the next production. Go into the show with an open mind. 

C – May not be the best show out there, but I can appreciate their hard work and recognize the courage it takes to put on a show. Proceed with a very open mind if attending. 

D – Needs a lot of work before giving it another go. Don’t give up, creating theatre is not easy! 

Here are my reviews from my second official day of the Toronto Fringe Festival! Even though I can’t see it all, I am delighted to get a chance to see some theatre and give you my opinions and critiques. These aren’t as in depth as my regular reviews, but they’ll give you my overall, condensed feelings. 

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Barry Potter and The Magic of Wizardry 

Rating: A/C

“Barry Potter” is a family friendly magic show centered around the idea that the now famous “Harry Potter” books and movies are based around the life of Barry. The show is filled with cheesy jokes, one liners, and cleaver versions of popular magic tricks that Barry has clearly mastered. There were a couple moments of ridiculousness for the adults in the audience, such as Barry pulling out a photo of “Snoop Dobby Dob”, a hybrid of Snoop Dog and of course, Dobby the House Elf and performing what he imagines to be Snoop Dobby Dob’s rap. This show is the first of my reviews to get a double rating: it gets an ‘A’ for kid and family audiences who want to have a fun time at a light hearted show, but it gets a ‘C’ because I don’t think the adult audiences knew what they were getting into. The description of the show is vague enough to allow the prospective audiences to fill in their own blanks, which can be problematic. I for example thought this was going to be a Harry Potter tribute show, not a Harry Potter themed kid friendly magic show. Barry also joked A LOT about how the audience didn’t react positively to his ‘magic and wonder’ which lost its humour after the first two times. You can only hear something along the lines of, “People normally clap when that happens” so much. Barry’s last trick however was truly fantastic and made up for some of the slower bits of the show. Overall, this show would be best for young audiences and their parents, or for Harry Potter fans who just want a night light night out at the theatre. Even though I like Harry Potter, this felt a little too gimmicky, and very much not for my age range of people. 

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Cabaret Of Murder

Rating: A 

We as a society have an obsession with true crime. From TV shows, movies, and podcasts, we can’t seem to get enough. Clearly that’s what the creators and performers of “Cabaret of Murder” are hoping for! This was a really excellent and unique take on exploring true crime, looking at the murderers through their own artistic words. Yeah, weird, but fascinating. Through poems, songs, and plays, Katie-Rose Connors, Bella Ciccone and Paulina Pino Rubio expose the audience to a small slice of the inner minds of some of history’s most notorious killers. They also were able to fold in good amounts of humor and comedy into 

I commend the performers for their truly committed performances. It is very clear that this show was incredibly well researched and rehearsed, because at no point did it feel slow and heavy. I will admit, the opening monologue wasn’t my favourite one, and I would almost rather see it get cut out, but that’s just my opinion. The only problem I have with the show (other than the opening monologue) is that due to time restraints, we don’t actually spend too much time on any one killer. There were many names that I didn’t recognize, and I would love to learn a little, tiny bit more about their history. But honestly, having the audience want more isn’t the worst problem to have. This was a highlight from my ‘24 Toronto Fringe so far, and I highly recommend you grab a ticket before it sells out. 

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Tape 

Rating: A-

So far in my Fringe journey, I’ve watched a fair amount of comedies, so I was a little hungry for something a little more dramatic, and I definitely got that with Jim & Grew Theatre and their production of “Tape”. 

I really appreciated the pre-show presentation of Thomas Sarigiannidis on stage in his messy hotel room, drinking beer and rolling joints leading into the show in a wonderfully smooth way (What I didn’t appreciate were the people trying to get his attention in order to say hi while he was acting in the pre-show). 

All three actors had high energy, and great timing. Joel Pettigrew and Thomas Sarigiannidis were a fantastic pair, holding down well over half of the play together. I loved Sarigiannidis’ natural, realistic acting, paired with Pettigrew’s over-the-top portrayal of his wannabe Hollywood Director character. These two really build up a lot of energy, demonstrating a very tumultuous relationship. I really wondered very early in the play why these two maintained a friendship after many years together, and why one decides to turn on the other. 

“When a taped conversation between two old friends comes to light, all parties involved have to reconcile with a sexual encounter from ten years in the past. When everyone has different memories, how do you know what the truth is?” 

This is very much a play about revenge, seeking the truth, and how the truth actually has many versions. The two men and Jada Rifkin (who is an absolute powerhouse in this show) really unpack the issues in the show beautifully, and it was a delight to see them perform. 

But Shan, why a A- rating? Well, while I loved the performances, directing choices, and set design, what I didn’t love was…well the playwriting. I felt like the playwright Stephen Belber padded the ever-loving crap out of the play. Throughout the play, the characters have to dance around issues for so long, that when issues finally get addressed, you almost forget what happened. The dialogue sometimes goes round, and around itself that just felt like the base story needed to be stretched out to a full length. Some moments are dropped in the dialogue that seem like they’re going to be important later…but are never mentioned or brought up again. For example, the female character Amy mentions that they were fat in college for “different reasons” than one of her male counterparts. It seemed like the playwright was perhaps going to make a point about a pregnancy, but instead completely drops it altogether. A lot of times, we as an audience don’t get a resolution. The characters also jump around quite a bit from one emotion to another, and from one plot point to another, which is a cool challenge as an actor, but a confusing one as an audience member. It’s a shame that the script is a little less than desired because the performances from the three actors were overall quite fantastic.  

Even though the play’s structure wasn’t my cup of tea, as a piece of modern drama, I think it was very well presented overall, and a nice breath of theatrical fresh air amongst the types of shows a Fringe festival typically attracts. 

Grab tickets for Toronto Fringe Festival from July 3-14, 2024 

[Review by Shan Fernando]