The Toronto Fringe Festival and an Ontario-based performing arts magazine walk into a sports bar.
Over the blare of a Blue Jays game, the Fringe calls out: “Our 36th iteration runs July 3 to 14 and features 77 productions spread across 16 venues. Wanna review a couple shows?”
“How ‘bout a team of seven critics covering a total of more than 60?” replies the magazine as Bo Bichette hits a double.
The Fringe grins: “Let’s play ball.”
This year, Intermission will be publishing Fringe capsule reviews from Alethea Bakogeorge, Liam Donovan, Stephanie Fung, Robyn Grant-Moran, Ilana Lucas, Janine Marley, and Eleanor Yuneun Park.
Their pieces will be published below as they come in, so be sure to bookmark this page and check back throughout the festival to discover which shows are hitting it into the stands.
See you out there, Fringers!
Being Celine (Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace)
by Ilana Lucas
Being Celine is a very gentle parody of the life of Quebecoise chanteuse Celine Dion — so gentle, in fact, that it’s hard to tell whether it’s a satire or a tribute, or perhaps something in between. While the singer is currently the subject of a highly publicized documentary, I Am: Celine Dion, which details her struggles with stiff-person syndrome, there’s no mention of any of that here; perhaps the gentleness is a reaction to worries about sending up the singer when her illness is so in the public eye. The conceit is that we’re at a Dion concert, where Dion, between singing standards and a few covers, tells us about her likes, loves, and inspirations — much like an actual Dion concert, as the singer is known for her (carefully scripted) confessional asides.
Writer-performer Lisa Landauer captures the singer’s vocal and pronunciation eccentricities effectively and has a pleasant, clear voice. She makes the most of her physical resemblance to the original, gesturing and prancing around the stage in wickedly high heels. When she uses her expressive face to the fullest, you can see what a more exaggerated portrayal would have been like, and it’s quite entertaining.
Played to cover costume changes, the extensive video content of Landauer as Dion shifts the show’s tone more into parody territory. Showing her exercising stylishly, bending over her sewing machine, towering over and out-glamming the PTA set, or pranking her hardscrabble ancestors, the footage is professionally shot but comprises a lot of the show. The costumes may be worth it, as hardworking costume designers Alicia Zwicewicz and Susan Kee provide appropriately fabulous outfits.
Ultimately, Being Celine still needs to decide what it’s being: if it’s a satire, the jabs should be sharper, and if it’s a tribute, we should learn more about the singer’s true inner workings and the nature of celebrity, so that it’s more than a concert with chatting in between. But, speaking of the concert, don’t leave after Dion bids you “good night,” as much of the unsuspecting audience did at opening — wait for the encore.
The Apartment (Tarragon Extraspace)
by Robyn Grant-Moran
A tiny apartment in Parkdale is home to Bonnie (Cathy Shilton) and a bevy of family secrets. In The Apartment by Paul Bilodeau, Bonnie fights to maintain her independence with the support of her overbearing sister Amy (Elizabeth Frieson) and nephew Liam (Joel Haszard), until an encounter with the scheming neighbour Toby (Bilodeau) forces the family to confront those secrets they’d kept locked away.
Bilodeau’s dialogue is sensitive, finding the humour in mental illness without turning it into a punchline. Rather than over-explaining, he personifies Bonnie’s bipolar disorder as a Nun (Jan Boase) who follows Bonnie like a shadow in silent condemnation. Except for Haszard, the cast are members of Toronto Metropolitan University’s continuing education Act II Studio, a program for those over 50 who are interested in the theatre arts. A story of a working-class family featuring primarily older characters without romantic nostalgia is refreshing. The cast has an easy chemistry that gives the impression of a genuine, loving, dysfunctional family.
I am, however, left wanting to know more about this family and the events and traumas mentioned but not fully explored. Bilodeau is incredibly considerate of his characters and could dive deeper without running the risk of writing trauma porn. The Apartment, previously known as Survivors, is in its second iteration, and I hope Bilodeau continues to nurture and expand on this compelling story of family connection through the peaks and valleys of mental illness.
The Toronto Fringe Festival runs July 3 to 14. More information is available here.