By Crystal Wood

You know what I love about the Fringe Festival?  I love that you can go see a post-modern retelling of Lysistrata one minute, and then go see a play about poo the next.  Isn’t theatre great?

Any play called The Fecal Monologues is going to be 60 minutes of scatological humour. Know that, accept that, and then you can just sit back and enjoy the jokes.  And I did.

True to its title, The Fecal Monologues is a series of monologues about the function that we all do, but are ashamed to talk about.  Five actors take turns portraying different characters, from a little girl scared of monsters in the toilet, to a stud who freaks out when his one-night-stand is a little kinkier than he bargained for. Providing the transitions between monologues is a rather studious-looking gentleman providing “fecal facts,” and was probably the only part of the show that I didn’t enjoy, but which seems to happen all-too-often in plays. (I don’t enjoy it because it breaks the pacing. It’s like “pause, rewind, learn a fact and… continue!”)

All the actors handle their material well (is it me, or is everything sounding like a poo pun in this review?) The stand-out performer for me was Kat Letwin, who did a wonderful job both as a mid-50’s housewife planning to leave her husband over his fecal obsession, and as a German performance artist.

 

Director: Maarika Pinkney & Colleen Osborn
Choreographer: Maarika Pinkney
Audience: Mature Audience
Warning: Content and Language
60 min

Venue 11: Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse
Wed, July 8 11:00 PM
Fri, July 10 1:45 PM
Sat, July 11 9:15 PM

 – All individual Fringe tickets are $10 at the door (cash only), or with interac and credit at the advance ticket box office at the Fringe Club (292 Brunswick Ave)

– Advance tickets are available by phone (416-966-1062) or at www.fringetoronto.com, there is a $2 service charge for these

– Several money-saving passes are available if you plan to see at least 5 shows