Fringe Reviews: JOSEPHINE and TRAGEDY: A TRAGEDY

Josephine
Venue 1: ATB Westbury Theatre

Something drew me to this show right from the start and I am so glad because it turned out to be a real highlight of my Fringe experience this year! I knew a little about Josephine Baker before seeing the show, but I soon realized that I didn't know very much. Her life was incredible and this one-woman show performed by the engaging and charismatic Tymesha Harris leaves you wanting more! It's hard to pack so much into 75 minutes! I left wanting to find out more - searching my wikipedia for details and looking up images online... now I'm looking for a good biography. Now that's the sign of a good show! If this makes it to hold-overs, do try and catch it, because it's Sold Out for the rest of it's performances.

Click here for tickets.

Tragedy: A Tragedy
Venue 3: Walterdale Theatre

Blarney Productions does it again with this quirky, odd piece by Will Eno. A brve news team tries to capture the unfolding event in the wake of a tragedy, but nothing much is happening... still they report... making much of nothing, until that becomes too much for them. The cast captured the style perfectly and it was hard not to laugh, so I did! Thoroughly enjoyable.

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A Steady Rain... fine, layered, complicated performances

I took in Blarney Productions' A Steady Rain last night, at C103.  It's a dark and gritty story of two cops, friends from kinnygarden, in Chicago.  The show explores the grey area morality of Joey (Jesse Gervais) and Denny (John Ullyatt) as they tumble through re-telling the events of a summer in Chicago where everything goes wrong and the rain never stops.

Both actors give layered performances as they take turns telling the events of their shared history.  As beat cops aiming for promotion to detective and getting overlooked each tries their own way to cope and try to get ahead. Denny (Ullyatt) is married with the perfect wife and two young children.  He's the alpha of this relationship but despite his perfect looking life he is also the more corrupt. Joey (Gervais) is the worrier and the peace-maker, he sees the the wrong in what Denny insists is right, but he is challenged by his own hesitancy and the pattern of their relationship to push for what is right. The tale is told back and forth, and interspersed with dialogue between the two. Narration is often a challenge, but both are born story-tellers and the twists of the story and it's horrible inevitability are handled deftly. It becomes particularly interesting when each presents the details of the same events.  There is significance in the differences.

Director Wayne Paquette has wisely cast the eminently likable Ullyatt to play the more reprehensible Denny - his natural charisma bleeds through in a way that makes you not hate him, and which makes you understand how he has gotten away with what he has.  Gervais' emotional connection is also quite wonderful when he is stuck in Joey's inertia and helplessness as some of the more horrible things play out.  Although on opening night some moments felt a touch under-rehearsed, overall it made for a compelling and engaging 90 minutes.