Review: TORONTO FRINGE FESTIVAL REVIEW ROUNDUP 4 at Toronto Fringe

There's one more weekend in Toronto's biggest theatre festival, with plenty of shows to check out. Read on for a six-pack of reviews.

PLAYGROUND (Soulpepper Kevin & Roger Garland Cabaret)

Juno Award-winner Jack Grunsky has been a staple of the Canadian children’s music scene since the 1980s. In PLAYGROUND, Grunsky accompanies a musical based on his oeuvre, with a charming book by Amanda Freedman about the power of imagination. New kid Eliot (a winsome Misha Sharivker) is finding it tough to cope with his family’s move from Michigan, but gradually wins over his new classmates with an adventure game featuring an elaborate hand-drawn map. Freedman’s book organically fits in Grunsky’s numbers, which teach kids about the power of imagination.

Director Olivia Daniels shines as a third grade teacher who has Miss Frizzle’s passion and drive, if not her magic school bus, and Yunike Soedarmasto imbues Eliot’s first new friend with a warm smile and a generous spirit. The gentle story is full of sympathetic characters, with just enough conflict about the difference between imagination and lying to keep things going. Quynh Diep’s set has a few creative surprises, Jason Dauvin’s costumes are bright and help colour-code each character, and Sarah Schryburt’s choreography is playful and fun. Great for kids (a large group of summer campers in the audience stayed focused for the full hour), and adults will find plenty to enjoy as well.

Extra kudos: The day I saw PLAYGROUND, there were two brand-new cast members, and it was not at all noticeable.

Photo of the cast and musicians of PLAYGROUND by Daniella McNeill

IRIS (SAYS GOODBYE) (Soulpepper Michael Young Theatre)

Winner of the 2025 Adams Prize in Musical Theatre, IRIS (SAYS GOODBYE) is a bold and beautiful experiment by Margot Greve (book) and Ben Kopp (music and lyrics), and possibly my favourite experience of the 2025 Fringe so far. Iris (Michelle Blight) has died and is in, reminiscent of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ writings on death, an eternal airport, simply waiting for the last time her name is ever spoken on Earth. (Fame here seems a punishment, condemning the talked-about to endless stasis.) While cooling her already-cool heels, she gets an unusual opportunity: she’ll be sent back and she gets to pick her new life. There’s a catch, though; the only gets to see the final moments of the lives from which she’s choosing. Audience members eventually pick 8 story endings from 20 different items, and those are the deaths we see. This means two performances might be completely different, save for the framework.

Kopp’s music has a distinctly Sondheimian flair to it without being derivative. The most exciting numbers work with satisfyingly crunchy harmonies and dissonance, my favourite being a swan song where Iris learns about the ways immortality can backfire. Clever lyrics make watching each piece worthwhile; sure, we know almost nothing about Iris except for what she might reincarnate into (it’s hinted that the future Iris possibilities are based on current character flaws), yet it still works. Future Iris is played by three different actors (Sydney Gauvin, Madelaine Hodges, and Luca McPhee), each of whom bring a different but no less focused intensity to the characters. Designer Alessia Urbani clearly delineates Iris from the chorus using red for the former and chic shades of blue for the latter, and the items up for choosing (some hard to see from the back) are tantalizing.

It’s hard to speak for the show’s every possible iteration, but the eight vignettes I saw seemed particularly well-placed, picking up repeated threads, focusing on themes of prioritizing success and greed over family and friends, and looking at the inevitable disappointments that come with trying to artificially lengthen or shorten one’s life. They range from satirical to sad to wacky to poignant, so your mileage may vary; I can see how the concept might feel gimmicky if you hit several wacky possibilities in a row, or yearn to know something about who Iris was before she passed. I was moved to tears by the time IRIS (SAYS GOODBYE) was over, and I hope it has a future beyond the Fringe so I can see Iris’ many other endings.

Poster image provided by the company

SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO (VideoCabaret Deanne Taylor Theatre)

As I wrote in an earlier interview, Fringe 2025 has been called “Griefapalooza” by some performers, including an uncommonly large number of shows that deal with how to say goodbye and cope with loss. Joanne O’Sullivan’s SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO is an effective example of the form, as O’Sullivan reminisces about a year where she lost three family members, along with her spark, as the world shut down around her. O’Sullivan is a warm, generous, and focused performer, making great use of VideoCab’s in the round format (while joking about how imposing it is to be looked at from all angles).

She details, as well, what her show is not about—the long intro before we land on her real purpose could either be cut down or incorporated into more of the rest of the show, though it's intriguing as a trailer for a future show about menopause. Taking us through her attempts to recapture her passion and come to terms with aging through stand-up comedy and podcasting, she encourages us to floor the metaphorical snowmobile of life and feel the wind in our hair. A bighearted show with an inner glow.

Photo of Joanne O’Sullivan by Ramy Arida

CHILDHOOD BY CHEAP WINE (VideoCabaret Deanne Taylor Theatre)

What do you get when you cross a family with a sketch troupe? CHILDHOOD BY CHEAP WINE investigates the positive possibilities—and the potential awkwardness—of being a comedy trio comprised of two siblings (Charlotte and Jack Creaghan) and one sibling’s spouse (Jesse McQueen). The promising company entertains when describing their familial dynamic and the performance lines they won’t cross, and their most effective sketch is also family-oriented, where three children try to play their parents’ forbidden copy of “Adult” Cranium and misunderstand every prompt.

Other sketches, particularly more extended ones with several callbacks, can be hit-or-miss, catering to fans of jokes about erections and pants-soiling—though the company repeatedly pursues the punchlines with so much commitment that they’ll earn the laugh regardless of whether the genre is your bag. Creative set-ups include a Frankensteinesque resurrection machine introduced at a series of scientific conferences, and a duo of writers trying desperately to convert their gritty family drama into a crass comedy to satisfy a producer. A scene where Jack Creaghan plays a very dignified spider with balloon legs makes excellent use of props; Jesse McQueen is particularly expressive and fun to watch.

Photo of Jack Creaghan, Charlotte Creaghan, and Jesse McQueen by Jack Creaghan

GAUMUKHI (COW) (VideoCabaret Deanne Taylor Theatre)

This is a very cow-focused year for the Fringe, with several plays pertaining to our bovine brethren. Kush Shah’s GAUMUKHI (COW), however, is the only show entirely from a cow’s perspective, set after India’s beef ban. A commentary on religious schism, what is considered “pure,” the healing power of music and education, and the ease by which we turn on each other, the unusual show is a highlight of this year’s festival. Shah, who also wrote 2024’s Elephant Song, is an expressive writer with a facility for poetic and philosophical language; his sentient cow describes his surroundings and thoughts with fluidity and precision.

Lead Deval Soni has a magnetic stage presence, and under Shah’s direction, he effectively includes the entire in-the-round audience as he describes the cow’s relationship with an irreverent pig, her tutelage under a passionate musician, and her acceptance of and even wish for death. Designer Lian Endozo effectively uses a single ear tag as a signifier instead of attempting a full cow costume, with a set consisting of scrawled chalk writing on the floor that divides the space. Indian classical music performed by Kabir Agarwal and vocalist Utsav Alok and hazy lighting by Abbey Kruse gives the play a meditative, transcendent feeling.

GAUMUKHI includes a few scenes where our lead feels a little too human; the show is most enjoyable when the perspective is slightly more alien and abstracted. Sometimes, also, the tale is described in such detail that it’s possible to lose the thread if your attention slips for even a few seconds. Luckily, Soni is compelling enough that this rarely happens.

Poster image provided by the company

SIYA: THE DEBUT (VideoCabaret Deanne Taylor Theatre)

In writer-director Marie Sotto’s SIYA: THE DEBUT (with co-director Lyara Malvar), the traditional Filipino “coming out” ceremony for a young woman on her 18th birthday becomes a different kind of coming out, as our Siya (a non-gendered Tagalog pronoun) asserts their queer femme non-binary identity—or, at least, tries to work up the courage to do so. Reimagining each moment of the debut tradition (such as the rose ceremony, cotillion dance, and grand entrance) to comment on queerness, gender, and their relationship to Filipinx culture, Sotto gently invites audience members to participate; a moment where Sotto asks us to share a wish for our past or future selves is particularly touching.

Sotto, dressed in a ruffly gown that fits them as awkwardly as traditional gender roles and that doesn’t match their sensible shoes, is most effective when reflecting on the past identities they’ve sampled, describing their love for Sailor Moon’s transformative abilities, or reciting wickedly funny “prayers” for their family members. Musings about their relationship with said family and a thread about their use of visual art for self-expression could be more clearly developed throughout; since the show is advertised at 70 minutes but comes in at closer to 45, there’s ample time to do so. In fact, there’s room for development in most of the vignettes that give the play a solid structure, on which a clearer arc could be formed. The presentation also loses some focus when it tries to address worldwide issues on a macro level or lectures instead of sitting in emotional character moments. But its sincerity can’t be denied, as Sotto reaches out to the audience to share the joy of being honest about who you are.

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