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Sinner. A Musical Tragicomedy About Breaking Up With White Jesus (A-)

One of the strongest solo shows of the festival, Marla Torgerson’s rock musical about her drift away from religion after an evangelical childhood is compelling, personal, and well constructed. Even in a 90 minute time slot, Torgerson keeps the story moving and peppers in lots of satisfying original songs, sung excellently. About halfway through, the show switches from truly solo to a four-piece band with 3-5 backup singers, a transition that feels jarring though is surely meant to reflect a specific moment of transition within Torgerson’s journey. A more gradual shift may better reflect the pace of change as her story is an achingly relatable one about complex evolution rather than simple revelation.

 

First Kiss (B)

A throwback musical about being a teenager in the 80s, this solo show will surely work really well for Gen X audiences but many of its references are either slightly or possibly completely out of the grasp of some audience members. A nice message about not taking your friends for granted and a strong perspective on life as a first generation Canadian within a homogeneous beauty culture elevate the work but the 80s fun feels a little meandering if the nostalgia factor isn’t there.

 

$20 Sandwich Ruins Your Childhood (B-)

It’s odd for an improv show to run 75 minutes but nearly half an hour of this show is spent interviewing an audience member to give the troupe a framework for the improv set to come. Normally, taking that long to get into the actual show would drive me crazy but, at least at the performance I attended, the interview was actually the best part. While chatting with the chosen audience member, the cast is able to riff and banter casually as themselves. Brennan Asbridge in particular does a great job doing what is essentially standup crowd work. She’s also the standout by a mile in the actual improv scenes, perhaps at an advantage as the only woman in the troupe doing a show about a teenage girl. The male performers disappointingly slip into broad caricature playing female characters and focus on the silliest stories from the interview (sneaking shrimp while keeping kosher, opening a “lounge” with her sister in their spare room) while Asbridge takes more of an interest in the more character-driven details (like the divorcée French teacher who would overshare with the interviewee). The troupe’s secret weapon is stage manager Seann Murray in the tech booth who essentially DJs the show with near constant thematic and setting-appropriate soundtrack. Maybe the best improv work in the show is happening off stage.

 

Mirv-“ish”: An Improvised Musical (C+)

Anytime you’re reviewing improv, it’s important to add the caveat that it’s possible that you happened to see a particularly weak (or, I suppose, particularly strong) performance. Anyone reading your review will see something entirely different, but there were a few issues at the performance I attended that suggest to me some flaws in this show that might be baked in. Music director James Atin plays improvised music live onstage and he’s quick to make offers to the cast for opportunities to start a song. At the performance I attended, only one cast member consistently took him up on these offers, effectively turning his work into live score, which is still cool but not the premise. Consistently choosing to play a dialogue scene over singing a song suggests that these are maybe just not the right performers for this style. They came up with some fun concepts and were quick on their feet with a joke, but the musical element was consistently the weakness. When they did improvise a song, they relied too heavily on repetition and didn’t seem to have a great grasp on the musical structure that would help them craft the story (what should have been a finale number ended up 20 minutes before the end of their allotted time and they had to backtrack). A stronger sense of the traditional beats of musical theatre would add a framework that would greatly improve this show that currently seems to be pretty hit or miss.

 

Assembly Süggested (C)

This promising two-hander that uses assembling IKEA furniture as a metaphor for developing a relationship never quite comes together. Though thoughtfully conceived, the play is limited by a shaky structure and oddly underplayed performances with so little in the way of chemistry that the nature of the central relationship is strangely unclear.