I had another fabulous day at Fringe! I spent the whole day at Soulpepper, and got to see so many friends! It’s so great bumping into folks and getting to connect with them at the Fringe!

Next Stage Festival – Justice for Maurice Henry Carter – Arbez Drama Projects

What can you do when the justice system fails you? Maurice Henry Carter spent 30 years of his life in prison trying to figure out the answer. Thankfully, the answer came in the form of chosen family, a man named Doug Tjapkes who works for 10 years to help free his newfound brother. With soulful music and a gripping story, Justice for Maurice Henry Carter is a great addition to the Next Stage Festival line up at Fringe. 

Donald Molnar & Alicia Payne have clearly made this a passion project; with plenty of research, facts, and not shying away from the harsh realities of the American prison system, they’re telling Maurice Henry Carter’s story as entirely as they can. The details of Maurice Henry Carter’s poorly handled trial and erroneous incarceration are enough to make your blood boil – it creates the perfect dramatic tension for this play as you’re so ardently hoping for Carter’s eventual release. 

Walter Borden and R.H. Thompson star as Maurice and Doug. Borden is so charismatic and with his deep, resonant voice I feel like I could happily spend all day just listening to him speak. Thompson is a perfect scene partner for Borden; the two have excellent chemistry and Thompson’s stage presence is unmistakable.

Johevah Cobby, Ryan Downey, Alexandra Garrison, Andy Marshall, and Alicia Payne form a sort of Greek Chorus seated alongside the main action. They play the other figures in Carter’s case, while also providing the haunting and beautiful spirituals which punctuate the main story. Their harmonies give me goosebumps and I loved how at times they’d interject into the situations happening on stage.

While Justice for Maurice Henry Carter could use a little tightening up, it’s a fascinating and emotional story told by two absolute legends of the stage.

Justice For Maurice Henry Carter | Toronto Fringe Festival

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Bitty Bat and Friends – Snacks Provided

What happens when you combine clowning with a David Attenborough-style documentary? You get Bitty Bat and Friends! Leaving out all of the guilt about climate change and instead infusing the maximum amount of hilarity and silliness, Bitty Bat and Friends is exactly what I’ve come to expect from clown shows at the Fringe. 

Bitty Bat’s friend at my performance was Peep, performed by Michelle Blight. Peep wants to become the new Pope, and they’re truly giving this new job their all…with some slightly disastrous consequences. Peep is loveable and so funny, and she makes for a perfect segue into Bitty Bat’s main show.

I have never seen someone make a room laugh so hard by just being quiet and looking around as Emily Jeffers is able to do as Bitty Bat. All she had to do was walk out on stage in that amazing bat costume with her wings all folded up and her tiny claws at the end of the wings on either shoulder and everyone was HOOKED. We are then taken through a day in Bitty Bat’s life: eating, mating, giving birth, parenting – you name it and we get to witness it. All accompanied by Bitty Bat’s little squeaks and a narrator. Both educational and hilarious, Bitty Bat and Friends has it all!

This was the perfect break for me during my day; having just seen something heavy and emotional, to come into a fun and relaxed environment to see such delightful joy was what I needed!

Bitty-Bat and Friends | Toronto Fringe Festival

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Next Stage Festival – Siranoush – CorpOluz Theatre

“What traditions do you pack in your suitcase when you’re forced to leave?” The heart of Lara Arabian’s Siranoush is perfectly summarized in this phrase. Never feeling Canadian enough but also never feeling Armenian enough, Arabian is searching for others like herself, and then she finds Siranoush. A brilliantly told journey through memory, history, past, and present, Siranoush left me inspired, curious, and profoundly moved. 

Arabian begins the play by performing one of my favourite, and one of the most heartbreaking, scenes from Shakespeare – when Ophelia doles out the flowers to her loved ones. Yet she’s performing this piece in Armenian. I could tell it was Shakespeare by the cadence and rhythm of the words, and I was fascinated by how absolutely beautiful it sounds. All of the excerpts from other works are performed in a foreign language, as Siranoush would have done herself. These tastes of theatre in other languages make me immediately hunger for more, as the excitement and theatricality of those moments transcend language.

Arabian is a passionate and entrancing performer, easily holding us from minute one until the end without letting us go for a single moment. Seamlessly transitioning from versions of herself to Siranoush and back, Arabian’s physicality and powerful voice are all she needs. She openly talks about the struggles she faces as a person of the diaspora and that vulnerability is heartrending and inspirational. 

It’s taken everything for me to not stay up all night looking into Siranoush; by the sounds of it she’s got all of the feistiness I’d expect from a fierce Arabic lady mixed with an unprecedented talent. Yet we know so very little about her. Siranoush is going to stay with me for a very long time, and I thank Lara for giving me two new strong, passionate, incredible artists to look up to.

Siranoush | Toronto Fringe Festival

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Next Stage Festival – Have Fun Kids – Convection Productions

Grief is such a funny thing, isn’t it? It unites us all yet we all deal with it so extremely differently. Laura Anne Harris is channeling some of her grief into Have Fun Kids, part tribute, part preservation, she’s ensuring that some of her friend Jordan Mechano’s unpublished and unperformed works get heard by an audience. Exploring loss through unique and intriguing storytelling methods, Have Fun Kids is heartbreakingly beautiful and had me silently crying in the back row of the theatre.

Before the show, some of the creative team go around the lobby with a tray of small items, asking audience members of that night’s performance to pick which one speaks to them. Ultimately, the most popular four items become that show’s stories, and Harris doesn’t know which stories she’ll be telling until she gets up on stage and reveals them one by one. The glee in Harris’ face as she unveils the objects, ready to tell the stories attached to them is delightful to witness; it immediately makes you anticipate the story that’s to come. 

Interspersed within the piece are snippets of Jordan Mechano’s works which he recorded.  Harris fills in the rest of the story with the details of the day she found out that Jordan had passed; the anxiety filled hours of trying to contact friends and family of a person who kept his private life very guarded. 

Watching Harris relive this day is difficult, and I give her so much credit for being able to do it over and over for Next Stage. She handles it with such grace, and she’s a charismatic storyteller.

I’m crying again as I write this review. Have Fun Kids speaks directly to my heart and my past experiences, yet it felt so cathartic to think about and grapple with that grief. Check in on your friends, folks. You never know what that might mean to them.

Have Fun Kids | Toronto Fringe Festival

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Thank you to my Patrons:

N. Bushnik, S. Fisher, B. Kinnon, D. Moyes, E. O’Brien

And to my supporters who’ve bought me a coffee:

Angelica and Paul, Anonymous, Adrianna, Caitlin, Jonathan, and Jada

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