Five Fringe reviews from first-time critics
Is That How Clowns Have Sex? A One-Woman, Queer Clown Sex-Ed Show By Maximaliste Productions. Until July 14 at Kink Boutique, 975 Bloor St. W.
When I was 11, my mother explained sex as: “Girls have innies, boys have outies, and you insert file A into slot B.”
Sorry Mom, I learned more from a clown than from you. Is That How Clowns Have Sex? is a clever, hilarious and genuinely informative one-clown show featuring “sexpert” Miss Bea Haven (Fiona Ross).
Framed as a sex-ed class, Ross explores vibrators, dental dams and Freud with a charming innocence that defuses potential discomfort. Notable moments include parodies of standard sex ed’s inadequacies, using dildos as puppets; and a pantomimed one-night stand critiquing queer stereotypes.
Although the BDSM emphasis of the venue, Kink Boutique, goes overlooked, and the question-answer format quickly becomes repetitive, the show sensitively concludes with Ross answering audience questions out of character. Not to be missed! Max Fearon
SUM: A Shadow Puppet Reading of David Eagleman’s Tales from the Afterlives By David Eagleman. Until July 15 at the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse, 79A Saint George St.
This play feels like a spoken lullaby. Instead of sleepy landscapes, it calls to mind mysterious scientists, giant faces and God. Narrators Stephanie Malek and Nug Nahrgang (who alternate performances with Lisa Amerongen, Samuel Loeb and Alice Stratford-Kurus) speak stories speculating at what happens after death into a reverberating microphone while puppeteers Kyle Maenz, Carolyn Anderson and Alice Cavanagh bring their characters and concepts to life through shadow puppetry and projection. The format of the play is fantastically grounded; to the side of the screen a puppeteer’s hand occasionally peeks out, and Hans Krause and Sophia Fabiano operate sound and projection in plain view. Yet this simple arrangement leaves much to the imagination; the austere visuals and hypnotic narration allow the audience to envision their own ideas of the afterlife. Every string can be seen, yet SUM brought me into a world of weirdness where I could have dreamed forever. Shannon Kingston
One Left Hour: The Life and Work of Daniil Kharms By Daniil Kharms, Nicole Wilson, and Alexander Offord. Until July 14 at Randolph Theatre, 736 Bathurst St.
One Left Hourrefuses to spoonfeed its audience. Instead, it begs you to relinquish your expectations in order to enjoy.
The pre-show puts six performers clad in green linen pants onstage; black suspenders draw sightlines to clown makeup. The production uses abstract elements, tableaux and direct address to explore surrealist poet Daniil Kharms’s antiSoviet writings that led to his own exile.
Alexander Offord and Graeme Black Robinson offer compelling performances that grapple with art as politics and art as legacy. Nicole Wilson’s direction and design highlight both the tender and the grotesque moments of this production.
Alacklustre ending (the actors didn’t exit the stage until Fringe personnel told them their time was up) causes slight confusion, but is refreshing and demands that you continue to examine the piece post-viewing. This is art that works hard and insists that you do too. Lara de Vries
Flute Loops By Devon More. Until July 14 at the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse, 79 St. George St.
Devon More delivers a heartfelt solo show where you learn a bit about science but a lot more about yourself.
Flute Loops is a rock show with a no-show band, so instead we meet the wonderfully bumbling Wilma (More): physicist, girlfriend of the flutist, and manager of the merch table. More’s skills as both musician and actor are highlights, as “accidental” taps of the mic become a funky bass loop. Wilma treats the audience to memorable alt-rock songs that explain her PhD proposal: sound is the key to freezing time. She explains the concepts needed to understand this theory within the first 15 minutes, and for the rest of the hour takes us on a contemplative and touching musical journey that looks at our existence in the universe, with some help from her Saint Stephen (yes, that Stephen). Nicole Bell
A Perfect Romance By Marisa Buffone. Through July 15 at the Italian Cultural Institute, 496 Huron St.
Nothing is perfect, not even A Perfect Romance.
Writer/director Marisa Buffone incorporates live music, and elements of poetry and dance, into this intimate show from Art world Studio Productions. It loose ly follows the narrative that statues of Venus and Mars (Ilaria Passeri and Aldo Milea) come alive in the courtyard of the Italian Cultural Institute and subsequently reflect upon their affair and the shortcomings of contemporary society, ultimately enforcing the notion that true love is powerful.
I enjoyed some aspects of the production, like the interaction, use of outdoor setting, as well as Venus’s monologue where she addresses the #MeToo movement. Overall, however, it is quite abstract and difficult to follow. It could have benefited from a lengthier editing process, a stronger score, and formal choreography to lessen confusion and refine the production. There’s potential in
APerfect Romance; a little more sculpting will do the trick. S.G.
The writers are students in “Reviewing the Toronto Fringe,” a University of Toronto course taught by Karen Fricker and Carly Maga. The Toronto Fringe runs through July 15.