Review: TORONTO FRINGE FESTIVAL REVIEW ROUNDUP 2 at Toronto Fringe

DADS (Found Objects Theatre)

In DADS, Taylor Trowbridge plumbs her complex and bittersweet relationship with her father, an insurance salesman with writer’s dreams and an impulsive streak, to create a performance about the joys, tragedies, and contradictions inherent in the father-child relationship—some unique and some nearly universal. Trowbridge, directed by her brother Dylan, vividly captures her father’s risk-seeking personality and the way that even small choices by our parents can shape the way we see ourselves for the rest of our lives.

A skilled and open performer, Trowbridge creates an engaging experience by incorporating audience participation in gentle, generous, and structured ways that encourage even the most interaction-averse to take part to the level of their comfort. Some audience members read sides of her father’s interview responses, some answer questions about their fathers’ quirks, and shyer folk can just raise a hand to agree with a statement. The method Trowbridge uses to announce these participatory moments becomes thematically important in a satisfying way. Trowbridge also leaves plenty of space for those who have no relationship with their fathers, or whose fathers have passed on.

A ten-minute set by a standup artist (rotating cast; this performance, Nikki Bon from fellow Fringe show 2% of Condoms) serves to lighten the mood after a particularly soul-baring section of the show. While the set at this performance was entertaining, particularly as Bon attempted to deliver her planned raunchy humour while painfully aware there was a 13-year-old in the room, it felt like a tonal interruption to an otherwise cohesive and moving show, extra to a strong concept that didn’t need it.

Photo of Robert Trowbridge and Taylor Trowbridge by Judy Trowbridge

BRAVA: A CABARET OF DEVOTIONS (My Fair Divas)

BRAVA is a straightforward solo cabaret show that does exactly what it sets out to do: showcase diva-themed musical theatre numbers arranged around a framework of stories of women who have impacted performer Yannik Gosselin’s life. Yes, you’ve probably seen the story of a small-town kid with big dreams many times before, but Gosselin has a strong operatic tenor to back up those ambitions and clearly delights in his own performance, sharing his pleasantly infectious exuberance with the audience.

Gosselin’s strongest stories involve his memories of his supportive lesbian aunts, and it would be wonderful to see an even clearer picture of these women emerge with additional detail. The women he celebrates are all largely seen through the lens of how they supported his journey, which is understandable, but sometimes makes one wonder who’s really being celebrated. He performs several standards with aplomb, gushing over Audra, Liza, and Celine, and showing his comedic chops in a number dedicated to Schitt’s Creek’s Moira Rose.

If you want a gentle, earnest cabaret set with operatic flair, this one’s for you, ladies (and everyone else).

Photo of Yanik Gosselin by Matt Hertendy

LADIES’ DAY (1East Productions)

We sometimes forget how recent women’s autonomy in North America is, and how precarious it remains. Women have had to fight for every step and milestone, from working outside the home to opening a bank account for financial security. What if your only way out of endless drudgery was a stolen afternoon by the side of a pool?

Jesse McQueen and Jack Creaghan’s LADIES’ DAY, set in 1966 Windsor, is based on the true story of the weekly, initially clandestine neighbourhood gatherings of women McQueen’s grandmother held at her backyard pool. Like a piscine salon, these meetings provided the women with a haven to share concerns, discuss books, tell dirty jokes and drink Labatt’s while briefly avoiding laundry duty. A moving story with complex characters and an appealingly surreal quality, LADIES’ DAY deserves a robust post-Fringe life as much as its characters deserve a break from chores.

The playwrights highlight the dual identities of each character, one the well-rounded personalities they display around each other, the other the dulled, Stepford-like persona they must adopt at home—the product of a thousand casseroles and a thousand little cuts from their husbands (all played by Carson Pinch), who range from loving but clueless to actively abusive.

It’s a treat to see Shanda Bezic as tough broad, former dancer Vera, Jennifer McEwan as uptight Protestant, former teacher Evie, Blair McMillan as eager-to-please, formerly naïve Mae, and McQueen as their erstwhile host, former dreamer Lorna, swim together against the current of the times. Their differences pale in the face of the oppression that unites them, and they manage to lean in to the surreal humour of Creaghan’s direction, which feels like the reflection of the heat on blinding white concrete, while still wringing pathos out of the situation.

The show’s epilogue, which breaks the fourth wall to tell us this is a true story, feels out of place, making the story about the playwright instead of her grandmother, and dousing the hot-concrete shimmer of the rest of the text. But don’t miss LADIES’ DAY, even if it means postponing the dishes to another week.

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