Dorianne is a graduate of the Theatre and Drama Studies joint program between University of Toronto, Erindale campus and Sheridan College. She writes short stories, plays and screenplays and was delighted to be accepted into the 2010 Diaspora Dialogues program and also to have her short story accepted into the 2011 edition of TOK: Writing The New Toronto collection. She is also a regularly contributing writer on http://www.sexlifecanada.ca. You can follow her on twitter @headonist if you like tweets about cats, sex, food, queer stuff and lefty politics.
One of the reasons I picked God Is a Scottish Drag Queen as one of my Fringe shows to see – besides its name – was that the press materials said that it was created by the performer, Mike Delamont, in collaboration with Jacob Richmond from Ride The Cyclone, and I had heard such rave reviews about Ride The Cyclone. By the time I actually went to see the show this afternoon I had forgotten that entirely, and my expectations were based on the title alone, so I was a little bit surprised when it started and I began to realize that Mike Delamont didn’t seem to be actually Scottish, or actually a drag queen.
I went into 2-MAN NO-SHOW from Zoot Zoot Productions expecting some high energy slapstick comedy from a polished couple of performers. What I did not expect was to hug them both and feel a sort of communion with them and everyone else in the room – those of us daring enough to go up on the stage when invited, at least, which seemed to be more than half of the people in attendance.
Erotic Tales from the Old Testament from Inque & Quille Productions begins with a very sexy man and a very sexy woman dancing an intense seduction/repulsion scene. At that point I didn’t know who in the Old Testament these characters were supposed to be but the sexiness compelled me to watch, transfixed, and to hoot and holler as the clothes came off.
Unfortunately, not many other people were doing that along with me. Perhaps many of them were Fringers who were unaccustomed to burlesque. Perhaps the lack of a bar played a part, as alcohol tends to aid in hooting and hollering. And I know from personal experience that the more raucous the crowd, the more empowered a burlesque dancer is to strut their stuff.
Play Actually–a non rom com from Idiot Presents, playing at Fringe, is a collaboration by a real life straight couple, Tim Monley and Katy Houska. They explain that they came up with the show as an anathema to Disneyesque saccharine romantic comedies.
It features a series of sketches that mostly involve Suzy, a woman with social difficulties who relies on advice from a dating book in her desperate attempts to get a man, and Gavin, who spends most of his time in a virtual world called Better Life where he has a girlfriend named Trinity who may not actually be female IRL (in real life).
Urge For Going has actors, puppets, musicians, projections and animation. That’s a lot going on in this Fringe show from Quality Slippers Productions, probably too much. Most of these elements are quite good by themselves but they don’t meld seamlessly together. Often they seemed to be there solely to distract me from the weaknesses of the script.
The story is of a fourteen year old girl named Carrie who lives in small town Saskatchewan. It is 2013, just as it is now, and her grandmother gives her a Joni Mitchell cassette tape. She somehow manages to find a way to play a cassette and falls in love with Joni and with 1960’s hippie idealism in general. She plans to run away to Toronto to become a folk singer. Continue reading Urge For Going (Quality Slippers Productions) 2013 Toronto Fringe Review→
