PHOTO CREDIT: Aaron Bernakevitch

Evil Dead

August 15 – September 8, 2012

Pumphouse Theatre

http://www.hitandmyth.com/

Listen to my review from this morning’s Eyeopener at http://www.cbc.ca/eyeopener/columnists/theatre/2012/08/16/theatre-review-evil-dead/

 

If I were to write a headline for this review it would go something like this:

Theatre Critic Calls For More Blood In Evil Dead The Musical

This is not to say there isn’t blood and gore and lots of campy violence in Hit and Myth’s and the Pumphouse’s production of this slasher spoof show. There is. But if it’s possible not to be disgusting enough, then I’d say this production falls a bit short.

But more on that later. First some background and plot information.

Evil Dead The Musical is based on cult horror film director Sam Rami’s 1980’s classic Evil Dead trilogy. The musical mashes up the film’s plotlines, characters and concepts to come up with a comedic rather than scary premise. So a kind of pastiche with alterations if you will. But never fear horror junkies, the show does use some real lines from the movies that have the fans in the audience madly cheering and shouting out the words along with the actors onstage.

A homegrown creation, Evil Dead the Musical is a Canadian creation that was first performed in Toronto in 2003, moved off-Broadway in 2006 and has since been performed all over the world – including Calgary in 2009 for a 7 week sold out run. By all indications it’s going to be as popular once again as the show was extended another week before it even opened.

As for the story, well anyone who’s ever seen a horror movie will know this plotline by heart. It’s textbook slasher story-telling with the added element of song and dance and intentional as opposed to by-product humour.

The show focuses on a young man named Ash who, along with sister, girlfriend, best friend and a girl his best friend recently picked up at a bar, head up to an abandoned cabin in the woods for spring break vacation. Once up there, they discover an ancient book of the dead, accidentally play an audiotape of demon summoning words and next thing you know they are one at a time being possessed by Demons from Hell. Fortunately for Ash, he’s only bitten on the hand resulting in only his appendage being possessed. I won’t ruin the fun and tell you how he deals with that, but let’s just say he manages to go on to become the ultimate demon slayer, but not without a lot of very campy blood and gore song and dance scenes to get him there.

The songs and choreography go from very witty and smartly executed to obvious and less interesting. Numbers like “What the F** was That?”, “Good Ol’ Reliable Jake”, and “All the Men in My Life” are deliciously spoofy, beautifully staged and for the most part well sung. Unfortunately for many of the other numbers, director Mike Griffin and choreographer Amber Bisonette  use brash,  in your face sexually explicit  moves that, while sure they get the easy laugh, I found took away from the delightfully droll moments in the script.

No to mention that these types of moments fly in the fact of Griffin’s  Director Notes in which say that he didn’t want his actors to fall into the easy trap of stereotypical comedy. Rather he wanted them to be real people struggling with strange situations and have the circumstances themselves be the funny part, not the over the top acting. It’s a clever direction to take, and when the cast does it well, they do it very well.

Alyssa Billingsley as Annie the sexy cabin owner does a fabulous turn at playing the doomed but smart character that holds the key to banishing the demons. Added on to her talents are singing pipes that are clear and strong and a joy to listen to.  Brent Gill as Jake, the guy in the woods, manages to turn a role that is mainly tasked with swearing and cussing into an unaffected and unforced comedic romp that results in his character getting most of the laughs. Finally Bart Kwiatkowski as Ash, (who is turning into one my favorite musical theatre actors in Calgary. Loved him in Avenue Q and he is just as good in Evil Dead)  delivers solid acting, a great singing voice, super physicality on stage as is lots of fun to watch as he goes from straight-laced S Mart employee to unhinged demon killer.

I wish I could say all the other actors could keep up. Amber Bisonette as Linda, Ash’s girlfriend had some off-key moments. Mallory Minerson as Ash’s sister Cheryl and the first one of the group to become demonized, wows us with her voice, but she lost me with her not kooky/sinister enough take on her demon self. Peter Fernandes as Ed/the bit part demon underwhelms in what should have been one of the funniest musical numbers in the show. But it was Eric Wigston as the best friend Scott that really fell flat for me. Relying almost solely on lewd gestures instead of well-timed acting for his laughs and with a thin singing voice throughout most the show, I found him to be the real weak link on stage.

Thankfully the stage itself didn’t suffer from any weaknesses. Designer Peter Higgins gives us a fully realized multi-dimensional cabin that has all sorts of secret possessed areas just waiting to come alive. I understand they had to build the stage up to create a trap door in the floor which is crucial to the show and that worked really nicely as well. It was a little unfortunate that whenever they had to pull the curtain across the stage to change scenes, it made a pretty loud screechy noise that was distracting, but I guess you work with what you got. Bottom line – from a lighting, set, and prop design angle – the show looked great.

Until the blood started flowing. And this is where I come back to my initial headline. One of the main reasons Evil Dead The Musical is so popular is the production’s Splatter Zone seating where audience members get sprayed with blood from the action on stage in the second act. It’s a great concept, but I found the execution quite anticlimactic. I mean we all know its coming.  You wait for it the entire show. But instead of gobs of blood being showered on these people, what happens is the recently slain demons hop off the stage and manually squirt blood at people from visible plastic pouches. They then fall and roll on a couple of people  and some blood rains down mildly from the ceiling.

Forgive me my blood lust here, but I found the effect to be a bit amateurish and low rent.  I wanted to see a tidal wave of blood hit the audience. I wanted drama. In all fairness, the audience seemed pleased enough and I wasn’t sitting in the splatter seats so maybe people  were relieved that  they weren’t getting overwhelmed by too much fake blood

But even with everything I can find fault with, I can’t say I didn’t’ enjoy the show. Let’s be honest, Evil Dead The Musical isn’t going to win a Pulitzer Prize – it is what it is – a spoofy foul-mouthed sexually suggestive musical send up of horror movies. If you are a fan of slasher movies, you’ll have a grand time. The hard-core horror fans in the audience were cheering their hearts out.

From a theatre point of view, the first act was a bit clunky in direction, things didn’t flow as smoothly as they should have and the narrative was a bit jerky and forced in places. But the second act is lots of fun, has much smarter dialogue and some really well choreographed song and dance numbers that are wonderfully campy.  And no, you don’t need to have seen the original Evil Dead movies to get this play. The whole thing is a fun, silly not taking itself too seriously night in the theatre. And I’m just fine with that.

 

RATING

For the guys – It’s a send up of every horror movie you ever watched with funny songs and lots of swearing. Need I say more? SEE IT

For the girls – Sure it’s bloody and gory, but it’s done as comedy and not grotesquely so. If you are up for a horror spoof, this one is it. MAYBE SEE IT

For the occasional theatre goer – Most of the people I spoke to in the audience were not regular theatre goers. They either came out because they love the movies or they heard the show is fun. Either way, it’s a high energy funny night in the theatre if you don’t mind the subject matter. MAYBE SEE IT

For the theatre junkie – I don’t think this is a must see for your theatrical cannon, but it is a nice break from the heavier or less spoofy stuff you are used to seeing. MAYBE SEE IT

 

6 Guitars

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Calgary Improv Guild

http://sixguitars.com/

 

Hope everyone has been out there Fringing their hearts out this past week. But don’ put away your appetite for shows just yet, there’s one more that is a MUST SEE you need to consider.

6 Guitars was one of my favorite shows from the 2011 Calgary Fringe (see my review here: https://applause-meter.com/2011/08/02/calgary-fringe-6-guitars-review/ )

And lucky us,  it’s coming back for one night only the day after the 2012 Fringe wraps up.

Whether you saw it and loved it or missed it the first time around, I highly recommend coming out to the show. I’ll be there with a whole gang and am very excited to experience this funny and entertaining show all over again.

Tickets for 6 Guitars are $10 cash at the door on Sunday but can also be reserved at contact@sixguitars.com.

 

 

 

Burnt at the Steak

August 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 2012

Festival Hall

http://see.calgaryfringe.ca/events/366-burnt-at-the-steak

I had a number of people tell me that Burnt at the Steak, the Best of the Fest winner at this year’s Calgary Fringe Festival was spectacular but that I might not like it due to the fact that’s it’s a musical. I dismissed this as unfair. It’s not that I don’t like musicals, I just don’t like musicals with vacuous writing, vapid lyrics and fluffy plotlines strung together for the mere purpose of increasing the moments when the characters can burst into yet another over produced song and dance number. Unfortunately for me, I feel that this describes most musicals.

Anyway, back to the play at hand. While everyone seemed to want to caution me about the music part of the show, no one was courteous enough to warn me about the fact that Burnt at the Steak was sophomoric, overly broad in its storytelling and frankly a bore. At least, that was my experience of the production.

The solo show that has Valentino playing 18 roles, is her personal story about an Italian Texas girl who wants to break into show biz and who, on the prodding of her pushy mother, moves to New York to try to make it big. What Carolann ends up doing instead, is managing one of the biggest steak houses in town and making $200,000 a year. So she’s successful, but not exactly living the dream.

During the play we get introduced to all the zany stereotypical characters Carolann has to deal with at the Steakhouse. But just because the staff and customer characters are based on real people, doesn’t mean they are funny. At least not the way Valentino writes and plays them. We meet the ditzy hostess with the hair flip, the thuggish/boorish maître d’ with the pelvic thrust , the drunk customer trying to cop a feel and so on. Not only were these depictions obvious to the extreme, the characters were so one dimensional and repetitive in their humour that I was tired of the act within the first 5 minutes.

Then there were the hackneyed Vegas-style interactive ‘make em laugh’  bits in the show where Valentino (quite the looker in a short skirt) calls men up to the stage so she can dance suggestively and write around on them for comedic effect. It had the audience roaring with laughter no doubt, but I find this kind of  cheap and lazy storytelling boring and passé.

Ironically, it was Valentino’s singing that I found was the least egregious part of the show. Armed with a fairly decent voice and some clever lyrics, including a song about the proper way to serve meat to the tune of Do Rae Me from the Sound of Music, her musical interludes were often cute and at the very least a break from the assembled cardboard characters she kept parading.

The point of the show was to illustrate how Carolann finally tires of her high paying job with all its downsides and decides to quit and follow her true passion. Good for her I suppose, life is too short not to live your dream. But by the time this moment comes in the play, I am so beaten down by poor writing and storytelling that I could care less if she never sets foot on a stage, as long as she got off this one soon.

Harsh perhaps? And with the Best of the Fest award I’m obviously the one person that didn’t like the show? Well I spent a lot of time looking around at the audience during Burnt at the Steak to see if I was in fact alone in my dislike. What I found was a distinctly polarized crowd. About ¾ of the audience was laughing hysterically and having a grand old time. But then there were the rest of us, arms crossed, unsmiling and looking at our watches impatiently. So I suppose I have no choice but to conclude that this is just one of those ‘either/or ‘ kind of shows and unfortunately for me…. I fell on the ‘or’ side this time.

RATING

For everyone – It comes down to whether you like this kind of mainstream Vegas-style comedy. The show itself is certainly energetic and Carolann Valentino’s singing voice is strong. I guess the question is whether you think a woman coming out at the start of the show holding provolone cheese tied in a string hammock saying, “do you like my balls?” is funny or not. MAYBE SEE IT

You didn’t think I could say all that I wanted to about the Fringe in one radio column did you?

I’ll be back on the air on Thursday at  7:20am talking about Tinfoil Dinosaur and Best of Fest winner Burnt at the Steak.

One I loved and the other…well…not so much.

If you missed it – you can listen here:

http://www.cbc.ca/eyeopener/columnists/theatre/2012/08/09/more-fringe-picks-from-jessica-goldman/

Happy Fringing everyone!

Redheaded Stepchild

August 4, 5, 7, 9. 10, 11, 2012

Lantern Church Gym

http://see.calgaryfringe.ca/events/353-redheaded-stepchild

I’m having a hard time putting my thoughts together on Redheaded Stepchild. The notion that keeps going round in my mind is that I think I have a love/hate relationship with this play and I’m not sure if one side wins or if they both cancel each other out. Bear with me while I try to explain.

Redheaded Stepchild is a one man show starring Johnnie Walker  about a 12 year old boy named Nicholas who is not only a red head and a stepchild, but an outcast loser who is mercilessly picked on at school and is about to get beat up. Mostly because of the colour of his hair. Or maybe there is more to it. But either way, things aren’t looking very good for this scared, awkward, not entirely likeable boy.

The show has been getting great reviews including winning the Best of Fest recently at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, and while I wasn’t excited to see what looked like another ‘watch me suffer as I make jokes about it’ kind of play, I couldn’t ignore the buzz. This to my mind was only half  right. Or more precisely, it was right only half the time.

The play opens up with a very campy and cartoonishly pompous character named Rufus Vermillion who acts as a kind of narrator for the show. From the instant this character hit the stage I wanted him off. Yes he served the narrative purpose of setting up Nicholas’s persona and getting us ready to meet him, but he was performed with such stereotypical and over the top acting that I found him neither funny nor ironic.

At first the Nicholas character wasn’t much better. Obviously ‘acted’, there was nothing natural or elegant about this performance. It’s a typical problem when actors try to portray children or young teens. Instead of relaxing into the persona, they ham up the petulance and foot stomping to show everyone just how kid-like they can play.

A scene where Nicholas bemoans that there are no redheaded heroes to look up to is mildly cute until he dons a red wig and lip-synchs to Rita Hayworth singing Put the Blame on Mame. The scene is both too long and distinctly unfunny.

But just when I was about to give up, the love kicked in. We are introduced to his stepmother Marianne (also played by Walker) , a smoking, ex-Jehovah’s Witness, golf pro who has affection for her geeky stepson but not the parental stills to care for him. Putting on a wig and affecting a fantastically annoying laugh, Walker plays the stepmom with such charm that you can’t help but like her in spite of her irritating quirks.

Unfortunately the Rufus character pops up again like a mosquito that won’t go away, but thankfully he is done with his hackneyed narration and Nicholas is back in the spotlight, less histrionic and delivering some terribly effective and touching storytelling. We learn about his trips to the guidance counselor ‘Caring Carol’ and a gym locker room scene that is the catalyst for the impending beating. It’s in these scenes that my affection for the play grows and my attraction to both the writing and the performance blossoms.

In fact the last quarter of the play, with its quieter moments and honest as opposed to showmanship acting gave off several theatre moment gems. Even when Rufus appeared in his final scene, his character seemed to be toned down and more interesting for it.

The beating is of course the climax of the play and we’ve been waiting for it all hour. Walker handles it well and we leave the show feeling satisfied that a complete story was told. But for me, that story vacillated between compelling and disappointing by virtue of the type of acting/writing we were being treated to.

Like I said… a love/hate feeling.

RATING

For the guys – Nicholas at times is funny and you will certainly feel sorry for him. But you might be turned off by his whining. MAYBE SEE IT

For the girls – You will empathize for sure. No one should be afraid of being beaten up. But I highly doubt you will say that you like the character all that much. MAYBE SEE IT

For the occasional theatre goer – The Rufus character gets in the way of a good story but Nicholas’s tale is interesting and the stepmom will appeal to you. MAYBE SEE IT

For the theatre junkie – It’s not a must see, but there are some wonderful moments in the midst of the mess. MAYBE SEE IT

Tinfoil Dinosaur

August 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 11, 2012

Artpoint Gallery

http://see.calgaryfringe.ca/events/354-melody-moore

 

Waiting to go into see the show this eve, my friend and colleague, Calgary Sun Theatre Critic, Louis Hobson and I were talking about our Fringe experience thus far and we both concluded the same thing. While we had seen several plays we liked, some we even really liked, nothing had blown us away yet.

Little did we know that was all about to change with Tinfoil Dinosaur, a one-man show about making it as an actor with a social anxiety disorder.  For those of you who regularly read my reviews, you know that I rarely gush and the number of standing ovations I’ve given can be counted on one hand. Well hold onto your hats because not only did I enthusiastically stand and clap, I actually think my love for this performance and performer is in danger of tipping the bounds of critical propriety. But I will of course attempt to rein it in professionally and give you a proper  critical analysis of the play. Just know there is a part of me that simply wants to turn in a review that says YIPPEE!!!!!

Tinfoil Dinosaur written and performed by Sam Mullins begins with, unironically, a tinfoil dinosaur. One that Sam makes onstage to the accompaniment of classical music. In spite of the obvious display of talent in being able to form such a creature, the audience has no idea why we are being treated to this feat. Once completed, the dinosaur is given to a member of the audience and Sam’s monologue commences.

The story starts when Sam is still an acting student in Victoria and is forced to play a horrendous part in a hideous play.  They play itself would have been bad enough to act in, but Sam, who is white,  is roped into playing a 1920’s southern black man in full black-face makeup and he is certain the role will cause such a stir that it will land him on the evening news, and not in a good way. He manages to avoid being personally pegged as a bigot, but the play bombs, the reviews of his performance are not pretty and the whole experience leaves Sam devastated, unsure about his talent, and full of anxiety about the future. So much so that he moves away from his beloved girlfriend, moves to Vancouver and tries to leave the whole experience behind him as he attempts to make it as an actor in the big city.

There’s just one problem. Ok, actually there are many problems from financial issues to missing his girlfriend to a building management board that keeps fining him for ridiculous infractions of some secret code his is unaware of. But the real problem is that Sam has a social anxiety disorder. He is antsy around people and he obsesses over everything he says and what people think of him. While he says he doesn’t “suffer” from the disorder (“It’s kinda like a superpower, that I wish I didn’t have”) there’s no getting around that it’s terribly undesirable for someone who wishes to make his living as an actor.

The rest of the monologue plays out in a ‘dealing with/overcoming’ kind of narrative using comedy, drama and emotional suspense as the arc. It’s a popular storytelling model that we’ve all seen before. However under the guidance of Sam’s incredibly smart, funny and erudite writing and a performance that hits the perfect emotional intensity, this popular model is turned into something glorious.

Whether Sam is playing himself or the characters in his story, his delivery is natural, subtle and elegant. Never once does he overly reach for the emotions, instead they all seem to flow effortlessly with impeccable timing whether he is causing the audience to laugh or choke up. It’s been a long time since I did both in a performance and I had forgotten how good it feels to be affected so.

Equally impressive was the writing. There is no doubt that this is an extremely intelligent writer who loves words, and he peppers his dialogue with deliciously sesquipedalian phrases that somehow never come off as pretentious. (Unlike that last sentence I just wrote.) Ahhhh….a comedic writer doesn’t underestimate the intelligence of his audience. Hallelujah!

So enthralled was I with this entire production I could have happily sat through another hour of Sam continuing to talk about his life. But eventually the story must end and the tinfoil dinosaur must be explained and even though I wanted more, being taken on such a perfect journey by such an extraordinary artist was a gift that I won’t soon forget.

 

RATING

For the guys – This isn’t a woe is me kind of story. While Sam does struggle, he does so with humour and class. You will respect him immensely for it. SEE IT

For the girls – You will laugh and your heart will break and I defy you not to end up with a crush on him. SEE IT

For the occasional theatre goers – It’s wordy and talky but there is a definite story line and it’s one that you’ll find compellingly funny and touching at the same time. SEE IT

For the theatre junkie – These are the theatre moments we hope for. SEE IT

It was a fantastically fun night and I’m so thrilled that the Calgary theatre community embraced the awards so generously. Thank you again to all our sponsors and to everyone who came out to help us celebrate the great artists that keep us coming out to the theatre night after night.

Enjoy the photos! And if you see one that you’d like a copy of, just shoot me a note and let me know. Happy to arrange!

Quick note to say I’ll be on air Tuesday August 7th at around 7:40 am to talk about the Fringe Festival – and of course give my reviews on some of the shows.

To be discussed – Preparation Hex, Loon and She Has a Name.

Plus what’s next on my schedule.

Tune in the hear the reviews live or listen online at http://www.cbc.ca/eyeopener/

I will post links to the audio here once they become available.

See you on the radio!

**If you missed the reviews live, you can listen to them here http://www.cbc.ca/eyeopener/columnists/theatre/2012/08/07/jessica-goldman-heads-to-the-fringe/

Loon

August 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11, 2012

Lantern Church Sanctuary

http://see.calgaryfringe.ca/events/376-loon

 

The physical theatre duo Wonderheads, comprised of Andrew Phoenix and Kate Braidwood, brought the house down at the 2011 Fringe Festival with their full face mask comedy Grim and Fishcer,  eventually winning the coveted “best of Fest” award.  This year they are back with Loon, a solo show featuring Braidwood again in a full giant mask, this time playing a lonely man who substitutes the love of a real woman for a fantasy love affair with the moon.

Performed without any dialogue, the play uses recorded music, occasional movie soundtracks, a dating service recording and the immense talent of Braidwood’s ability to mime her way through the plot with a gigantic oversized full head mask providing her only expression.

If it sounds surreal, it’s because it is. Don’t look for easy meaning or obvious plot arc in this show. The basic premise is this – following the death of his beloved mother, the lonely man is, well, lonely. He signs up with a dating service, making what is perhaps one of the more pathetic video recorded introductions ever seen. His  favorite colour is plaid and his favorite person is his mother. He then waits andwait  to hear if he’s been picked by anyone and when he finally does secure a date, it ends with him being stood up. Our hearts break for him.

But for me, that’s where my engagement with the piece ended. The lonely man buries his sorrow in his childhood sci-fi comic books and somehow gets the idea that the moon would make a good romantic partner. From there it all gets very odd. Don’t get me wrong, I really like odd and otherworldly. But for some reason when the lonely man slips into sci-fi fantasy mode and eventually does capture the moon and bring it home to be his love interest, I wasn’t feeling it. The anthropomorphism wasn’t cute or compelling or even active. The moon was simply the moon and the lonely man was projecting without anything in return. It was a frigid love (although I think they made love at some point?!) that left me feeling nothing but a little bored.

The moon and the lonely man do all the things that couples do together, and without a doubt the whole scenario was beautifully staged by Andrew Phoenix and performed by Braidwood. But for me the beauty in the production couldn’t erase the fact that I just didn’t care about the fantasy love affair or the lonely man’s growing frustration at the worldly realities of what happens when the moon is no longer in the sky doing its job.

Given what  I had seen these two do last year I was ready to be once again overwhelmed, instead I was whelmed…..but not overly.

 

RATING

For the guys and the girls – There are sweet and funny moments in this surreal and very unique show even if the end result is much less than its parts. MAYBE SEE IT

For the occasional theatre goer – Way too weird and hard to follow. SKIP IT

For the theatre junkie – if you haven’t seen a Wonderhead production it is worth your while even if this isn’t one of their best. MAYBE SEE IT

Peter ‘n Chris and the Hungry Heart Motel

August 4 to 9, 2012

Lantern Church Gym

http://see.calgaryfringe.ca/events/357-peter-n-chris-save-the-world

 

It’s campy, spoofy, wildly physical and thanks to the talents of its two stars, lots of fun. Peter ‘n Chris and the Hungry Heart Motel is one of those perfectly silly shows that’s just smart enough to be taken seriously and enjoyed.

The show begins with a decrepit elderly male narrator (played by Peter) greeting us and promising that what we are about to witness is a very creepy story of murder. The setting he explains is the Hungry Heart Motel,” where some say the motel manager does all the murdering and the others say nothing because they are murdered”. Yes, he says, he may have just ruined the plot for us, but hold onto your hats because we are going to enjoy the ride even though we now know ‘who done it.’

It’s a clever set up for a send-up of every horror/suspense movie you’ve ever seen and the writing takes aim at not only the familiar tropes, but at some of the classic scenarios we’ve come to know and love from Nicholson’s insanity in The Shining to the shower scene in Psycho.

This is all done via the story of Peter and Chris who decide to drive somewhere only to be stranded in a car crash. Anyone who has seen a slasher flick knows that this is when all the good stuff starts, but in this show, the drive itself is well worth a ticket. The duo’s incredible physical performance in these scenes which range from pure mime to slo-mo farce to one of the best fast forward mimics I’ve ever seen, takes corporal humour to a level way above slapstick and elevates it into stupendously clever wordless storytelling.

But back to the motel. The pair checks in with the murderous manager (played by Chris) and are shown to a room with one tiny bed stained in blood. Sensing that something is amiss, Chris claims to have the heebie-jeebies (believe me, you’ve never seen them presented in this fashion) but they decide to stay put as Peter loves a good mystery and is determined to figure out what the story is with the odd motel. Spoofs abound, murders happen, the pair goes through all the clichéd paces of the typical slasher film with both the required innocence of a real horror movie and sarcastic observances of a spoof, leaving us laughing with and at them the entire time.

Even as we are giggling however, it’s not hard to see that the writing, while clever and fun, is not the real source of our delight. That accolade goes directly to the two men up on stage whose comedic, spot-on timing, charisma, obvious enjoyment of the process and each other and pure physical performance is the real reason this show works. Take the boys out of the show and I think no one would have had as good a time. Give them richer material and I have no doubt that their talent would shine even brighter.

 

RATING

For the guys – Admit it, you may watch horror flicks, but you know how silly they are. Here’s a chance to watch two very talented guys hysterically and smartly shred the genre while still paying homage to all that’s great about these kinds of movies. SEE IT

For the girls – Even if you hate slasher films, the duo is so endearingly funny, with so much to say about suspense films that you can’t help but laugh. SEE IT

For the occasional theatre goer – Simple, silly, very funny, well performed. The perfect Fringe show to sit back and enjoy. SEE IT

For the theatre junkie – Yes, these kinds of spoofs have been done before. But probably not this well and certainly not with the talent these two show on stage. SEE IT