Toronto Fringe’s New Young Reviewers 2024 | Round Two

Reviews

/By Toronto Fringe New Young Reviewers Program / Jul 15, 2024

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The second round of reviews from the Toronto Fringe’s New Young Reviewers program is here!

Led by Signy Lynch (Contemporary Theatre Review, Canadian Theatre Review, Intermission Magazine) and Stephanie Fung (Kingston Theatre Alliance, Canadian Theatre Review, Single Thread Theatre), the New Young Reviewers program is a workshop series and writing group for emerging theatre and performance reviewers across Canada. Open to participants ages 15 and up, this program introduces participants to the basics of theatre reviewing, helping them develop responses to Toronto Fringe Festival performances. With support from the Jon Kaplan Legacy Fund, the program encourages participants to explore emerging creative approaches to criticism and to begin to define themselves as critics and reviewers.

The shows included in this round are 86 Me: The Restaurant Play, Rosamund — A New Musical, Bus Stop, 1 Santosh Santosh 2 Go: Tosh Finds His Groove, Moe: A Rap Opera, Far-Flung Peoples, See You Tomorrow: A True Story, Gulp, Before We Go, Death of a Starman, and The First Jew In Canada: A Trans Tale.

For more information on this year’s reviewers, check out their photos and bios on the Fringe site here.

For more Fringe coverage, you can access Intermission‘s other reviews here.

**Charming and fresh, 86 Me is a feast for the eyes**

by Catie Thorne

Dead Raccoon’s 86 Me: The Restaurant Play is an ode to every seedy bar you’ve ever been to.

Written and directed by Jackson Doner, the show transforms Supermarket into Our Lady Kensington, a washed-up pub held together by a motley crew of staff who burst into the dining room, discussing recent developments including a suspicious firing and some dubious workplace relationships.

This unconventional setting sees Doner’s directing prowess in full force. This is not a show that just happens to be staged in a bar, it lives in every corner of the establishment. Actors ricochet around the space like seasoned wait staff, enveloping the audience in the story and the bustling action of service. While the staging is ingenious, what I find most compelling is how the creative team gamifies the show.

86 Me is an actor’s dream (and nightmare), featuring a live tipping mechanism in which guests chuck dimes into plastic cups to show their gratitude. You can also order drinks from the ensemble mid-scene in a choice that reveals itself to be dramaturgically perfect. As anyone who’s worked in customer service knows, people always demand service when you’re in the middle of the juiciest conversation. Just when they’re about to salvage their relationship or cuss out their co-worker, these characters stop in their tracks and serve us. It’s a choice that gets at the realities of working in customer service while validating the dimensionality of these servers as they balance their work and personal lives.

While juggling tips and serving drinks, the ensemble delivers strong performances. I particularly enjoyed the work of Elizabeth Rodenburg and Mia Hay.

Rodenburg plays jaded barkeep Laurie, beautifully capturing a woman desperate for more, willing to bite and claw her way out of her former life. Rodenburg’s Laurie is full of contradictions, both abrasive and caring, ambitious yet passive.

Hay shines as Eva, the entitled hostess, exuding a warmth and swagger that crumbles away to reveal a young person in desperate need of love. When Eva asks Laurie if they’re friends, you can’t help but feel for her.

While 86 Me illuminates the untold story of hospitality workers, I would have liked further examination of the show’s darker themes. These lovably fallible characters struggle with substance abuse, self worth, and toxic relationships and I wanted to sit in those places longer, really engaging with the severity of those realities.

The production is not without faults, but at the end of the day it’s not my gripes that stick with me — it’s the joy that moments like a rousing a capella “O Canada” brought me.

86 Me is a show about the search for human connection in an industry that relies on it. Both a love letter to the hospitality industry and an indictment of its toxic practices, the show celebrates the act of being together. Whether you’re in a theatre or a bar, 86 Me proves that connection is a gift. After just one visit, I’d happily become a regular.

Rosamund: a new musical, an old archetype

by Chase Thomson

Mounting a new musical at the Fringe is an ambitious feat — one perhaps made smoother when you have a 10-person cast with multiple Dora Award nominations to their names.

Chaos & Light’s Rosamund — A New Musical, written and directed by Andrew Seok, brings together an impressive array of performers and musicians in this unique reimagining of Sleeping Beauty.

This unique tale follows Princess Rosamund (AJ Bridel) as she sets out to break a sleeping curse placed upon her by the evil fairy Parisa (Gabi Epstein) as an act of revenge against Rosamund’s parents, King Alrod (Andrew Seok) and Queen Alexandra (Rhoslynne Bugay), for a famine they inflicted on her people. There are also three good fairies (Lily Librach, Heeyun Park, and Saphire Demitro) who protect Rosamund from Parisa’s curse — the source of which is an amulet around her neck. This causes the King and Queen to force Rosamund into an arranged marriage with the classically handsome Prince Kasem (Jeff Irving) to combine armies and seize the amulet, freeing Rosamund. Also, Rosamund hates all of this patriarchal performativity and seeks out to get the amulet herself.

Oof, that was a lot.

Due to Fringe constraints, this iteration of the musical is mounted as a concert performance: no props, costumes, or sets. However, much to the testament of Seok and assistant director Emily Lukasik’s direction, the cast use their physicality to make you feel as though you are watching a full-fledged Broadway production. Bridel and Epstein have some of the most powerhouse voices I have ever heard in person, and Kyle Brown brings much-needed levity as various supporting characters.

Where Rosamund slightly misses the mark is in its music. The songs are beautiful, and Andrew Ascenzo, Patrick Bowman, and Alex Toskov are stellar as the small-but-mighty band (under Bowman’s musical direction); however, Seok’s music lacks differentiation.

By the halfway point, nearly every character performs a slow ballad wrought with internal turmoil. Yes, the coveted “I Want Song” is imperative, and Bridel’s solo nearly moved me to tears, but not every character can be the emotional focus of the show.

For example, King Alrod is a pretty bad dude: does he need to have a sympathetic ballad? Or Parisa, the true victim of the plot: why couldn’t her song be as dynamic and fabulous as Epstein’s portrayal of her? There are moments, such as a fun yet predictable duet between Rosamund and Kasem, that begin with more upbeat orchestration but fall back into a ballad by the chorus.

By the end of the show, the songs begin to blend together and I found myself fatigued.

In the end, Rosamund delivers some wonderful acting and orchestration, but this Fringe iteration fails to rise to the dynamism of other modern retellings or Fringe offerings. Take & Juliet for example, which is able to bring Shakespeare into today with flashy design and queer characters. Or Toronto Fringe’s Sheila! The Musical, a one-drag-queen show with far fewer resources yet far more to say.

Rosamund could benefit from similar innovations, as the feminist-independent-princess-who-still-ends-up-marrying-the-handsome-prince narrative seems to have run its course.

Bus Stop: art isn’t dead and Helen Ho proved it (or if art was dead, Helen Ho brought it back)

by Libin Ahmed

You know how after you get some really good news, everything just seems… better?

The sun is shining brighter, the sky is bluer, and everyone in the city seems a little bit friendlier — even though it’s rush hour on Spadina Avenue and the 510 streetcars have been replaced with the slowest, most densely populated buses that you’ve ever seen?

That’s how I felt after I saw this play. This play made me feel like I just got good news.

Bus Stop by Helen Ho is an hour-long comedy that follows two girls who played detectives on TV when they were children and are currently estranged friends. Emily (Jobina Sitoh) and Daniela (Màiri Jacobs) are on a bus back to Toronto from New York for a graduation trip, when a body discovered in the bus bathroom propels them into the thick of a murder mystery. Hilarious, clever, and touching, the show navigates the decisions that are imposed on children, the connection between fans and artists, and just how far we would go for the ones we love.

I liked everything about this show, so I don’t even know where to begin, but I only have so many words so I’ll talk about the characters.

A starving artist who can’t decide if he loves or hates live theatre (Yuvi Randhawa); an unlovable zealous father (Ethan Magnus) and his lovable, reasonable son (Isaac Kuk), another TV detective duo; a bus driver (Christina Gross) whose birthday it is; and a mysterious woman on the run from the police (Julia Edda Pape) make up the cast of fun characters alongside our protagonists. Each character has reason to resent the scientist who was discovered dead in the bathroom… but do they have good enough reason to kill? For the right person, maybe.

Emily and Daniela’s relationship is one of the best parts of the show. From the start, it’s not hard to notice Daniela’s frantic desire for Emily’s approval, attention, and the way she used to smile when they were kids. Emily seems distant and uninterested in her friend’s pursuits but reluctantly plays along to solve the case, just like the good old times. But as the show develops, it’s clear that the magic Daniela is so desperate to recreate what is long gone, and for good reason: the past is in the past.

Our childhoods are not always as ideal and shiny as we remember them to be; we weren’t necessarily happy, we were just kids. However, it’s clear that realization missed Daniela altogether, resulting in dire consequences.

Ho’s writing is masterful, funny, and sentimental, seamlessly reflecting the kind of people Emily and Daniela are, how they got to where they are now and why they can never return. There’s very little I wouldn’t do to see this show again in a bigger production.

Overall, this show is an absolute delight. Even typing this review now, I’m stealing glances at my schedule to see if I have time to catch it one more time before the festival concludes. It’s rare to have something that instantly brightens your day so powerfully.Thank you Helen Ho and a little body productions for Bus Stop. Thank you for making my day!

Your parents may be disappointed but I’m not

by Riel Reddick-Stevens

Please note that this review contains spoilers.

Living up to parental expectations can be tough, but Santosh (Srutika Sabu) and his awkward charm made me proud.

Created and performed by Sabu and directed by Ken Hall, 1 Santosh Santosh 2 Go: Tosh Finds His Groove is a clown and drag solo comedy, following a day in the life of used car salesmen Santosh. Using his homemade success meter, he attempts to prove his success to himself (and more importantly, his South Asian parents) by measuring his accomplishments in comparison to his neurosurgeon sisters. Narrated by a magic voice (Mahdi Mozafari in an all-black morphsuit), Santosh gets higher on his board by proving himself in a series of hilarious antics.

Like trying to prove he can find love by using his new dating technique “Fringe,” which involves going on a series of blind dates with various audience members. His search for a doctor to fall in love with was fun to watch, but had me praying I wouldn’t be invited to participate.

Or saving the day by “defeating” the housing crisis, making everyone cheer and eventually “awwww” when Santosh can’t also defeat parental expectations.

Or eating various hot sauces to cope after being stood up by his parents, which also had everyone concerned when a patron almost drank the bottle of extremely hot sauce themselves, and Mozafari joked, “We don’t have insurance for that LOL… no, really, we don’t have insurance for that!”

These bits are sometimes drawn out or overpowered by loud sound effects, but Sabu and Mozafari’s chemistry and stage presence allow them to recover promptly. There is a tone of campy dry humour from the start, with every awkward moment still matching their comedic style.

With ridiculous costume choices (like a flesh-coloured tank top with drawn-on nipples and chest hair to signify shirtlessness), along with handmade props and set, the production design really solidifies the silliness of the production.

This homemade quality was sometimes very effective (when balled-up tissue paper resembling fire burnt up the success board, giving Santosh a new perspective) and at other times felt a little crowded (when Santosh was dealing with so many props at once that they fell and remained on the floor).

But it didn’t bother me too much as the performers had the audience hooked from the start. And, because this piece heavily relies on improvisation and audience engagement, it will change from night to night. I do wonder, though: with a more tentative audience, would this piece land?

Personally, 1 Santosh Santosh 2 Go had me laughing way too loud and reminded me to release my own expectations and enjoy some silly fun every once in a while!

Moe: A Rap Opera swings for epic fences

by Jonnie Lombard

From baseball free agent to secret agent on the nuclear stage, Moe Berg was an ambitious man, brimming with potential. This just as well describes Teen Fringe’s rhymed-through odyssey Moe: A Rap Opera. While the musical has an unpolished edge, an ambitious vision motivates this hip-hop history lesson turned hubristic character study. Though not quite a home run, it’s an exciting swing from this all-adolescent creative team, who themselves acknowledge the show is a work-in-process.

Writer Cyrus Sarfaty takes an episodic, life-spanning approach to Moe’s pursuits, from Brooklyn baseball diamond beginnings to the depths of WWII Europe. Moe, played with boastful zeal by Lucas Umali, is a character who can’t sit still, his eye always on a prize elsewhere. Dubbed “the brainiest guy in baseball,” he is recruited into the newly formed Office of Strategic Services to spy on German nuclear programs, his adventurous dreams confronted with the intense psychological realities of espionage.

A Moe-of-all-trades, master of none, Berg’s ambition and inability to enjoy stability often sets him adrift. In a compelling framing device, Sarfaty, Leo Favero, and Paul Karras cycle through multiple characters — reporters and relatives alike reflect from the present on Berg’s disinterest in a life of quiet normalcy. It contextualizes the musical as an in-world act of storytelling adding to Moe’s status as “International Man of Mystery,” questioning how we write ourselves into history.

The production is clearly well researched, but perhaps too dense for a 60-minute show. Intricate, dialogue-like rhymes pack humour and elicit many an “Oh snap!” by way of historical details delivered via rap-battle burns, as well as pop culture references from Canada Dry to Katniss Everdeen. But with so much story to cover, lyrics speed by with a tempo and textual density that can be hard to follow, no matter the performers’ efforts to keep pace.

The rhythmic instrumentals are equally double-edged. Captivating in their intermixture of baseball-field organs and ‘40s jazz brass with high-hats and deep drill-style 808s, they are projected at a volume that often drowns out those onstage. A minimal set with wandering staging often confuses where in time and space we are in our jumps from one historical beat to the next.

The lyrical excerpts offered in the program reveal just how clever and historically precise Sarfaty’s rhymes are, if not always understood in the self-admittedly rushed production. The musical is at its best when given moments to breathe that let these words shine clear; future development may benefit from prioritizing text over staging, honing in on the detailed storytelling about a compellingly overzealous, self-dissatisfied figure.

Moe capitalizes on the strengths of rap as a storytelling tool, its momentum and lyrical wit folding historical context of baseball and bombs into our central character’s journey with informative flair. There is much to appreciate and feel inspired by in witnessing young-in-craft theatre makers telling a story they care about with ambitious passion, a context that adds a layer of charm to Moe’s less developed edges. I hope this team steps up to the plate again soon.

Politics is nothing but a joke: A review of Far-Flung Peoples

by Kosar Dhakilalian

Whether it’s an apartment, city, or country, what is it that truly makes you feel you belong somewhere?

Written and directed by Aylin Oyan Salahshoor, Far-Flung Peoples is a political satire capturing the frustrations, hopes, and resilience of five refugees who have ended up in Canada — by chance or by choice. Angeer (Salahshoor) and Elias (Parsa Hasanzadeh), from Iran and Turkey respectively, are looking for a roommate to alleviate their rent costs, but unforeseen consequences bring them three new tenants instead. Tariq (Fadi Dalloul) from Syria, Forêt (Skylar Petrah) from Uganda, and later Zoya (Kimia Kalantari) from Afghanistan join the apartment, which Angeer has humorously renamed the “Refugee Quarter”.

Far-Flung Peoples emphasizes the varied experiences of the refugee community, which might include having to wait years until a decision is made on their file, spending all their savings to get to a safe place, and then starting from scratch. In an interview with CBC’s Metro Morning, Salahshoor shared that she cast actors with lived experiences as refugees, or those with similar backgrounds, to infuse the play with authenticity.

The play is mostly in English, but there are cleverly integrated multilingual moments that are able to amuse audience members whether or not they understand the languages spoken in the play. As Tariq says, “frustration is the same in any language.” The story also critiques the dehumanizing language of politics, highlighting how terms like “asylum seeker” reduce individuals to mere definitions and reinforce certain power dynamics.

Salahshoor opens a lighthearted socio-political debate about conflicts in the Middle East through a humorous discussion on the origins of foods. Who truly holds the claim to kebab and baklava? Is it Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, or is it somewhere in the Arab world?

Conflict still finds the roommates in Canada amid the xenophobia of the Refugee Quarter’s English and French neighbours. Elias notes: “You would think they hate each other but they don’t. When it comes to us, they’re actually allies.”

Despite the hardships, they find belonging in their small apartment. Morteza Sotbakhsh’s set (a warm living room with round shapes, soft corners, and bright colours) creates an inviting space, and Honey Hosseiny’s lighting design and Sina Shoaie’s sound design complement the narrative’s emotional and hilarious beats.

Far-Flung Peoples offers a fresh perspective on the struggles refugees continue to face even after arriving to a safer land, all while eliciting genuine laughter and empathy. With its lasting impression, it’s no wonder this production was the second-place winner of the 2024 Hamilton Fringe New Canadian Play Contest. As I left the Alumnae Theatre, I too wanted to share 33 per cent of half of an apartment with these people!

On my worry back to mom — See You Tomorrow: A True Story

by Lulu Liu

While some of us were binge-watching Netflix and navigating what it means for our kids to attend Zoom kindergarten, the so-called “unprecedented times” seemed to have handed Iris Bahr the absolute worst of it.

In her autobiographical solo show See You Tomorrow, Bahr speaks of helplessly watching her mother suffer a stroke over a cross-continental WhatsApp call. She then grapples with the reality of her mother’s illness all while being put through the gauntlet — navigating the Israeli health care system and dealing with hard-headed elderly neighbours, a stream of unfortunate mishaps hilariously enhanced through biased narration akin to classic 2000s American sitcoms.

Quick and witty, Bahr (who by no surprise is also a standup comedian) lures a crowd by means of oversharing her aggravating codependent relationship with her mother, and embodying the likes of her “hairy egg” of an ex-husband, among other brilliantly spoofed members of her life. Despite how her comedic star power can fill a room, it alone did not feel enough to create a balanced and well-rounded Fringe show. As a result, See You Tomorrow is really no different from a Netflix standup special.

The anxiety building in Bahr’s narrative is what drives the action, and while the journey is admirably efficient and sharp, the story’s pacing creates a sense of neglect for its passengers. The speed of events comes with no stops, jumping from one non sequitur to the next before we get the opportunity to grieve with her or reflect.

The show ends with a hard stomp on the brakes despite running five minutes short of its expected duration at the performance I attended. Bahr concludes that while her mother’s worry felt like “suffocation without boundary” growing up, it is simply how a mother’s love manifests. She then quickly departs, leaving unsettled audience members with only a thank you card for hearing her story. How did or didn’t she reconcile with the grievances she discloses at the start? What are we supposed to do with all these feelings she’s left to us? Bahr spoke to us throughout the show like how I may let a friend rant to me after a tough week. And while I recognize the catharsis for Bahr, See You Tomorrow needs to bear the responsibility as a production to be more patient, and to meet its audience where they are at both highs and lows.

In spite of its pace, See You Tomorrow deserves recognition for being unabashedly honest and transparent. Like the recipe for any good comedy, this show finds buoyancy in the heaviest wrenches life throws our way. Bahr’s story is not only a treasured diary entry to one of her toughest moments, but a rare, amusing angle on a complex mother-daughter relationship — a relationship she would still fight tooth and nail for.

**If you’ve ever eavesdropped at your therapist’s office, Gulp is sure to draw you in**

by Ferron Delcy

Black box theatre at its most resourceful, Gulp (written by Frosina Pejcinovska and directed by William Dao) uses the archival ephemera of a lost friendship to explore the high stakes of intimacy.

If Sunday (Pejcinovska) wants Dr. Champion (Dmitry Chepovetsky, voice only) to continue seeing her, she needs to explain how her best friend (Brynn Bonne, voice only) died — and why she feels responsible. Alone on stage, Sunday oscillates between practising her story with cue cards and divulging the details of her therapist/patient situationship to the audience. Meanwhile, telephone messages play intermittently, documenting an erratic friendship in unanswered calls. Ultimately, Sunday will need to make a choice between the narrative she’s rehearsed and the one recorded on her answering machine.

This show balances a wealth of topics: second-generation identity, the intensity of young adult relationships, the pleasure of submission and pain of self-definition. And although Pejcinovska’s writing is dense and fast-paced, the production never feels overstuffed — as Sunday’s story develops, its themes cohere.

In contrast to its thematic maximalism, Gulp’s stage design (by Brad Gira) in the Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace is slight: a tape player, landline telephone, and chair are the only set pieces present. A pre-show audio note specifies that the play takes place in Sunday’s “inner world:” does this mean the retro hardware is a metaphor for memory? Or are the messages playing in external reality? It’s not quite clear, but I didn’t need a definitive answer for the show to keep me enthralled.

In other words, Gulp does a lot with very few props and only one performer on stage. Although Pejcinovska is alone, both absent characters feel strongly realized through their respective audio recordings (sound design by Matt Lalonde) and Sunday’s episodic storytelling. As Sunday jumps between cue cards and responds to the answering machine’s interjections, one thing does not lead to the next so much as memories accumulate, like the detritus collected at the bottom of her purse. The result is a rich but patchy portrait of Sunday’s unnamed friend, in a way that feels true to life while building curiosity about the other side of the story.

This structure suits the intensity of the relationship. Sunday and her friend are directionless; they’re young and broke and they need one another. Their codependency almost feels nostalgic, a side-effect of the landline’s grainy audio. Indeed, like bulky pre-smartphone tech, young adults often operate with joyful inefficiency.

But as phone messages pile up, discomfort builds. The friend threatens to overwhelm in her need for a caregiver. When the production reaches its surprising conclusion, Pejcinovska embodies her character’s conflicting desires with poignant emotional realism. Wouldn’t it be easier if the person you loved could crawl inside your skin? Wouldn’t it be perfect if you could give all of yourself and yet remain whole?

This show won’t be for everyone; Pejcinovska and Dao have centred the production around an abstract concept that leaves several plot points open to interpretation. Producing company Lady Luck trusts their audience to stay with them for the show’s exploration of what we owe our loved ones, without adjudicating the ethics of each character’s choices. You may not have a moment to reflect during the show’s hurtling 60 minutes, but you’ll inevitably be turning this production over in your mind for weeks.

**Existentialism for beginners: Before We Go in review**

by Jenna James

Whether the end is to come by heat death, a flaming asteroid, or something else entirely is not quite clear, but what is clear is that it’s coming quickly — in six hours, in fact! Don’t worry though: the panic has long since subsided, so all that’s left to do is get drunk, get weird, or get married.

Save for what came of my lockdown-era fascination with Middleditch & Schwartz, I brought only an elementary knowledge of improv to Shy Lil Guy’s production of Before We Go.

That and the creeping fear of falling victim to crowd work, though the cast is quick to assure its audience that the show depends exclusively on volunteer participation. Phew.

Soundtracked by a charmingly nihilistic radio host-turned-referee undergoing a last-minute identity crisis, this ad libbed show follows a cast of Torontonians as they try to decide how to spend the last day in their beloved city. With audience prompts including the recently closed Ontario Science Centre, an Eiffel Tower keychain, and one throwaway snippet about the human colon, Before We Go makes imminent death a proper party.

To my untrained improvisational eye, the cast didn’t immediately fall into a natural pace. At the July 6 show, the players seemed to race to the punchline instead of letting the prompts trickle into the show organically, sometimes claiming a reference to an audience prompt just to forget it or move on to a different one.

The crew found their rhythm, though. At one point while the actors were navigating the ruins of the financial district, a performer mentioned that the CN Tower had taken up residency on the ground. The explanation? Someone had simply “put it down.” Naturally, this and the accompanying thunk as a black box was toppled over was received with a robust reaction from the audience — there is something satisfyingly cathartic about the idea of euthanizing the CN Tower like a senile family pet.

Director and host Alec Toller brings a suave streak to existentialism with his quippy audience interactions as he invites the crowd to ponder what they’d be most sad to do without. Keep an eye out for the inimitable Patricia Tab, too: during the show I was lucky enough to attend, she hilariously accepted an “I <3 Toronto” shirt with the line “I love to wear the shirt of the place where I am.”

Before We Go is a joyful ode to Toronto. Both the love and contempt come through plainly, with each cast member cheering the city’s demise while hating to see it go. However, this civil dedication might leave audience members from outside the GTA only pretending to get some jokes. I for one had no idea about the roof of the Ontario Science Centre being the scapegoat for its closure, but the vibes were high and the delivery was stellar so I will admit that I laughed along with those in on the gag.

If you’ve never seen an improv show before, you should start with this one. Take your friends, your family, your theatre-savvy neighbour, and I assure you that you’ll leave the Tarragon Theatre Solo Space feeling grateful for how much time you do have left. If you’re already an improv aficionado… go anyway! It’s the end of the world — what do you have to lose?

Watch this Fringe show and find out what the stars have written in your fate

by Nate Ives (and the stars)

We’ve all had bad days… especially during Mercury Retrograde, whether it’s stubbing your toe (ouchie) or being hunted down by the mob. Death of a Starman is a show about that, and thankfully the stars and I have been consulting on the production and how it ties into your fate!

Pisces: You are going to see Star Stuff Productions’ Death of a Starman at the Tarragon Theatre Extraspace. You may not be fully prepared for what is to come.

Aries: You will also go see Death of a Starman, and upon arrival, you may be pleasantly surprised to be greeted by washed-up astrologer Sal Solomon (Zaid Bustami). Quickly you will find yourself immersed in a world of astrology-based fame and ego.

Taurus: Honestly, I think it’s safe to say all of us will be going to see Death of a Starman, OK?

Gemini: You admire Bustami’s versatility and commitment as a performer, playing a rotating cast of characters, including his charismatic plastic fish of a best friend Herman and a gaggle of gangsters out to be repaid.

Cancer: While all the characters have a unique voice and physicality, you occasionally have a hard time differentiating which characters are speaking and to whom due to the fast-paced asides.

Leo: While your Cancer friend struggles to understand communication, you will be focused on listening to the quick-witted script written by Bustami, Kay Komizara, and Peter Malloch. But you occasionally feel the scenes repeat the cycle of enter a place, make someone mad, leave, repeat.

Virgo: You like perfection, and you may find it when you hear an almost constant underscoring of music that lines up exceptionally well with the stage action.

Libra: You notice the set design resembles exactly what you thought the set of an astrology TV show’s live studio space would look like, and might appreciate it better with some slightly wider lighting so that Sal is always well-lit.

Scorpio: After Sal pisses everyone off and blames it on Mercury Retrograde, the show nears its crescendo. With all the personal revelations, a mob at the door, and a best friend who won’t speak, you wonder how on earth Sal might get out of this — and note, this is where the script really starts to hit its stride.

Sagittarius: You will be rewarded for your patience. After a rather frightening descent into madness that you’ll wish wasn’t so quick to run away, you get treated to one of the simplest, most creative bits of puppetry you have seen.

Capricorn: You don’t quite know where you are. As the comic show quickly moves along to a monologue filled with sensational language and bizarre conspiracy theories, you feel like you’re being hit over the head, leaving you a little confused.

Aquarius: You’ll converse with your 11 friends of different zodiac signs and the stars will align into constellations. What did it all mean? Overall, you will deduce that this is an incredibly fun production with a captivating star (pun intended) as an assortment of well-written characters. The plot occasionally wanders, but Death of a Starman keeps you on your toes, ensuring you’re never bored.

**Redefining history and conventional storytelling, The First Jew in Canada: A Trans Tale puts the ‘trans’ in ‘transcendent’**

by Gus Lederman

Trans-ness is not a modern concept, but when queer histories are erased from history, we have no road map to know what paths our lives can take beyond survival. How can we carry these stories as reminders that we’ve always been here?

In The First Jew in Canada: A Trans Tale, creator and performer S. Bear Bergman takes the few recorded facts about Jacques LaFargue — a Jewish trans man in the 1700s — and fills in the blanks with his own life story. Bergman carries this solo show with a sense of heart and honesty that’ll leave your cheeks wet and your chest warm.

Immediately, Bergman puts the audience at ease, confessing his performance anxiety and showing off the tie he wore to appear “extra gay.” Even with a small audience, the Al Green Theatre fills with giggles and the resounding hums of recognition. The thought behind meeting accessibility needs before the show establishes the space as one of care and community that refuses to leave anyone (historical figure or present-day Fringe-goer) behind.

The show interweaves Bergman’s personal history with the nine facts he’s gathered about LaFargue. From recorded history, we know that Jacques LaFargue, a Jewish baby presumed to be a girl, was born in 1718 near Bayonne, France at a time when practising Judaism was illegal. At 20 years old, he boarded a ship to colonial New France (now Quebec City) where he is believed to have been the first Jewish immigrant in Canada.

Bergman, a trans Jewish man who immigrated here from the States, can relate. On a practically empty stage, he bares his soul through stories of him failing to be a girl, leaving home as a teenager, falling in love; these become the connective tissue between the nine facts, wielding empathy and collective trans experiences to imagine the full scope of LaFargue’s life.

A stool with a water bottle and a mic stand give the impression of a classic standup comedy show, but this show is anything but classic. It’s a tapestry the vulnerably honest Bergman mends with every word, providing a resting place for trans people of the past, present, and future.

With a hearty helping of kvetching, the show is undoubtedly Jewish. Bergman peppers the story with complaints about the “trans denial machine,” hermeneutical injustice (a term I learned from this show) and the exploitation of queer trauma. He ties the Jewish superstition of the Angel of Death into anecdotes about chosen names and jokes about Rabbis eating dates for breakfast. Even if you’ve never opened the Talmud, you’ll likely still find yourself chuckling at Bergman’s charismatic jesting.

The First Jew in Canada: A Trans Tale is simple in its nature, yet the impact of its storytelling is profound. Whether you’re trans, Jewish, both, or neither, Bergman will pull you in with his soothing words and vulnerability. At most, this show will heal something in you that you didn’t know was there, and at the very least, you’ll learn about a history you likely had no idea existed.

The 2024 Toronto Fringe Festival ran from July 3 to 14. More information is available here.

WRITTEN BY

Toronto Fringe New Young Reviewers Program

The New Young Reviewers Program (previously, Teenjur Young Critics), supported by the Jon Kaplan Legacy Fund, is a workshop series and writing group for emerging theatre and performance reviewers Canada-wide, ages 15 and up.

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