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Ooga Chaka (A-)
This delightfully ridiculous piece takes us back to the Stone Age for a timeless illustration of life as a struggling artist. Overworked cave painters Bungu and Kiki grow sick of churning out stone slop for celebrity art dealer Rock (a magisterial Nick Eddie) and, in a moment of artistic genius, ask themselves… what if all the world’s a cave? And all the men and women merely paintings?! After inventing theatre itself, this eclectic troupe of creatives has to grapple with the toughest challenge of all – how do you make authentic yet profitable art under late (Paleolithic) capitalism? As the tale of Rock and his millions twists and turns and the foundation myth that Bungu and Kiki’s village holds dear falls apart, it’s easy to wonder if you or they have lost the plot – but the plot isn’t the point! The ensemble here keeps those stories moving and the laughs coming fast enough to keep you entertained throughout. As the heroic deeds of Groog teach us, it doesn’t have to make sense if it makes you happy.
Evie & Alfie: A Very British Love Story (A-)
Evie and Alfie are a walking stereotype in walking frames – your gran’s sweet old neighbours who you might manage polite conversation with for a few minutes. When we first see them, all they can talk about is the utterly banal – shambling off to make a cup of tea while speculating on why the neighbour’s bins are out. After our hour with them (brought to life by two British staples of the Fringe circuit, Alex Dallas and Jimmy Hogg), we long for more and pray that we make it that long with a partnership like theirs to gossip about the bins with. We join them for their chance encounter and clumsy courtship, marriage and childbirth, middle age and old age – all told with the giddy enthusiasm of nostalgia for more exciting times. Alfie never quite transcends his stereotype, remaining its best role model – he is so enthusiastic and sincerely good-hearted that his bumbling looks harmless. As is typical for those men and these couples, his sheer volume drowns out Evie sometimes – while she is unfailingly upstanding too. One of the most arresting moments in the show comes when Evie’s anger about feeling invisible and taken for granted as an older woman overflows – though this gets its own satisfaction soon. Things are rarely so simple or pure – but the beauty of the show is that, for an hour, you can truly believe it might be. Though it left us on a poignant note, the mood of the departing crowd was sincerely joyful – just as these cheeky buggers planned.
Gratitude (B+)
Oren Safdie’s newest dramedy (co-directed by Fatima Lopez) screams for your attention early and refuses to let go. At a private school in Montreal, firecracker Dariya (Iman Ramadan) knows her looks and charm enthrall most of the boys around her but not her crush, school heartthrob Drew (Tiernan Tajalli), who sees an opportunity in her desperation. His “friends” Ben (Isaac Wolf Silvers) and Josh (Quinlan Welch) may share his generation’s signature broccoli haircut but not his confidence and status; when Drew has Dariya turn her attention to them as a favour, the consequences spill out of the locker room and spiral out of control. Ramadan and Tajalli lead the way with assured and compelling performances that make it clear why Dariya and Drew have their peers so giddy for their approval; and the rest of the locker room talk is a sharp summary of how cruel, tender, and awkward adolescence can be for both sexes. When the stakes are raised dramatically in the final act, it feels like an unnecessary distraction from the powerful teen drama that the cast delivers with a maturity their young characters sorely lack.
Dead Lucky (B)
Writer Greg Sadler speaks from the heart in this poignant drama (directed by his daughter Cassidy) channelling his own life story. His avatar here is Andrew (Julius Chapple), a man all-too-aware that (as chatty fellow patient Wendy likes to remind him) he is far too young to be in a cardiac clinic. It takes some time for that near-death experience to come to life – the cheerfully unfiltered Bobby (Louis Adams) steals the show with his comic relief until then – but it’s worth the wait. The show leans in particular on Adams and Yolande Williams (as Andrew’s partner Jen and a clinic nurse who has seen it all before) among others in dual roles to fill out this story with a small cast but they maintain that balance well as they keep the script moving. Viewers who luckily can’t relate directly to this reminder of their own mortality will still find a lot to laugh at and think about here.
Ex-Change of Words (C)
Danny Sylvan’s work follows the uneasy flirtation and reconciliation (…or maybe just exasperation) between two gay men in Toronto who share a history with each other and very little else. Curtis is an older white man, emotionally distant and still dealing with grief over his late fiance; Derrick faces all the hardships you’d expect as a young, black, gay man shunned by his family and trying to make it as an artist but his toughest challenge right now is reaching any closure with Curtis over their messy relationship. Sylvan himself is compelling as Derrick and Ryan Kelly does a great job keeping Curtis’ walls up only to drop them for some well-timed gut punches but I didn’t find the relationship plausible enough to gaze at its scars. Therapy has opened Derrick’s eyes to the uncomfortable power dynamics of their fling and offered a script for expressing his issues but we see here how that script can limit real conversation and shield its reader from other forms of introspection. These two men are so different – in the obvious and important ways, and many others too – that, without finding either relatable, it’s hard to see why it ever worked or why staying friends is worth trying now.