It’s the thing at the back of Tracey Erin Smith’s throat that’s going to kill her, warns her healer. Those stuck half-sentences: what she can’t say. THE BIG HOUSE, presented at the 2019 Toronto Fringe Festival, asks the question, “When you’re a little kid and your Dad goes to jail, does a part of you go with?” Fringe darling Smith has created smash hits from The Burning Bush to The Clergy Project with her story-based Soulo Theatre, which deals in well-crafted, heartfelt confessionals and autofiction. In 2012, Smith covered the effects of her father’s suicide in Snug Harbor. It’s something even older, though, that forms the source of the blockage: her father’s imprisonment in 1977 for fraud, when Smith was a young child. 

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Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand’s classic romantic tragedy of false identity, is given a truncated treatment by The Leslieville Players at the 2019 Toronto Fringe Festival.  A deeply proud man, with a famously long nose, desires a woman. He’s brilliant in battle and with words, but she falls for a simpler man with a beautiful face. Heartbroken, he agrees to provide the words for the other man’s wooing. The story is probably familiar: the setting is not.

I love site-specific shows that work despite and because of their limitations, and this production of Cyrano is a winning use of the form. This is a relaxed production that doesn’t take itself too seriously, yet still largely delivers a self-assured theatre experience. The audience sits under a small tent on the front lawn of 74 Jones Avenue, near Dundas. Fringe Hot Tip for Hot Days: Sit in the middle row if you can; the sun encroaches on the front row, and the back row has a tent-obscured view of the balcony, which features in a few key scenes. Jumbo freezies are also provided gratis, a very nice touch. Audience members can move, take pictures, or talk if desired, but nobody was distracted enough to speak, other than cheering.

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Love Notes, a “medley of live movement and music” on the topic of love, is presented by ZEST Creative (comprised of Zoë Kenneally, Eva Connelly-Miller, and Sarah McLennan) at the 2019 Toronto Fringe Festival.  The trio, alongside musicians Hannah Barstow, Julien Bradley-Combs, and Emily Steinwall, perform to romantic standards ranging from “Silly Love Songs” to “I’ll Be Seeing You,” celebrating the ups and downs that most often-referenced feeling brings to our lives. Given the dreaded late-night opening-day slot, the song-and-dance show overcame some early jitters to eventually become something quite effervescent and joyous.

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Through the Bamboo, presented by Uwi Collective at the 2019 Toronto Fringe Festival, is a play by husband-and-wife team Byron Abalos and Andrea Mapili based on Phillipine mythology. Directed by Nina Lee Aquino, artistic director of Factory Theatre, the show is an emotionally-resonant tale of generational connection.

The family-friendly story is a testament to the power of storytelling and memory, and the need to fully experience grief and loss, rather than to embrace denial. It is an absolutely charming piece of young people’s theatre; the writing is a bit more elevated than you’d find at a usual children’s show, but it’s still drawn in the broad, entertaining strokes that will appeal to kids. Aquino’s direction and visual sensibility is top-notch, and keeps things going at a furious pace, getting the best out of a large company of actors. Overall, it packs a huge emotional wallop, and will likely leave few of its audience with dry eyes.

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Death Ray Cabaret, presented by the eponymous company at the 2019 Toronto Fringe Festival, is a sketch comedy show created by Second City veterans Jordan Armstrong and Kevin Matviw that stages a nightly takeover of the Monarch Tavern. Though it isn’t really about death rays (or on any particular theme), it’s a very polished set of musical comedy sketches by an assured duo who know how to shoot, laser-like, right for the target.

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