Dead-End
(Victoria College Dramatic Society)
While there’s little new that can be brought to the zombie genre, the creative minds behind Dead-End gave it their best shot. What seemed at first to be a standard zombie script was instead revealed to be a character-exploring buddy comedy. Taking refuge in an abandoned school, two young men (identified only as “Gun” and “No Gun”) are confronted by a lone zombie barring their most immediate escape route by standing at the end of a corridor and very gradually moving toward them.
Beginning as a debate over their next course of action, the play becomes an involved dialogue on the undead experience, Nazis, homophobia, and whether zombies are like jellyfish. The play is filled with knowing winks and nods—forays into controversial territory while skirting offensiveness with plenty of good humour. The dialogue was largely nonsensical, however, and sounded improvised—sometimes meandering into mere semantics. With a re-write and more solid performances, this could be an excellent piece. For now, it was barely more than your standard zom-com.—Rae Matthews
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Electric Chair
(St. Michael’s College)
Some projects blow their whole creative wad on their title. Attempting not to fall into that category, the kids from St. Michael’s College bit off a project more ambitious than they could chew. Humour, action, wit, pathos, mystery, suspense, political commentary, and moral ambiguity were all crammed into less than an hour’s running time. To their credit, these are all met with limited success, but the unwieldy effort becomes a bit of a mess.
The actors delivered their dialogue so quickly that it was almost unintelligible, presumably just to fit it all into the time allowed. Scene changes relied heavily on lighting effects, with the occasional failure leaving actors speaking in the dark. The large ensemble meant that some characters had little to do, and Katie Blundell’s “Mona Vandoum” ended up vamping it up in a tight dress for seemingly no reason other than to show off her nice legs.
That said, there are the occasional inspired moments and memorable lines that make this show rather entertaining—“Does everyone in this prison have a gun except me?” asked the warden during a particularly complicated hostage situation. The crew from St. Mike’s ought to be commended for their ambition, but not their execution.—RM
Forgive Us Our Trespasses
(Mississauga Campus)
Directed by Brandon Gillespie, Forgive Us Our Trespasses follows Father Patrick (Marcus Haccius) in his attempt to take over as the new pastor of a neighbourhood church. As he attempts to help his young, troubled churchgoers, the Father is forced to confront adversity. For the most part, the play was well-directed and delivered, but there were a few bumps along the way. At times, the storyline was a bit choppy, causing relationships between characters to be unclear. The play had a primarily serious tone, bringing forth issues of drug addiction and abuse, and attempts at comic relief were therefore sometimes ineffective. Although the dialogue and emotional attachment needed some polishing, the overall performance was effective.—Jessica Tomlinson
Civilization and its Dissed Contents
(St. Michael’s College)
Directed by Lucy Coren, this multi-dimensional play centres on a crime committed by the convoluted Dr. Freud (Matt Mcgrath) and the endeavour of Detective Innocent (Quintin Peirce) to solve the mystery. The play invited the audience inside the brain of Dr. Freud by introducing his Id (Brittany Picard), Ego (Natalia Pujalte), and Superego (Vanessa Rowlin). The stage direction and set design were masterfully incorporated into the piece, and the transitions between the two plots were carried out cleverly. Although certain characters were not developed to their full potential, and a few line deliveries were unclear, the cast was very talented and kept the audience laughing.—JT
Faith
(Mississauga Campus)
Ben Hayward and Ali Richardson’s production of Faith was simply excellent. The play centred on a rebellious teenager, Faith (Tanya Filipopolous), who casually narrated her life story and offered brief flashbacks to her adulterous relationship with local minister Dave (Owen Fawcett). The spot-lighting and stage direction worked hand-in-hand, and the intentional audience interaction gave a very conversational feel to the narration. Faith’s dialogue was both sarcastic and witty, and it was easy to relate to her eloquently delivered anecdotes about cheating parents, kids picking their nose in the ball-pit at McDonald’s, and other random thoughts. The play was inappropriately funny, and the crowd loved it.—JT
Life Boat
(New College Dramatic Society)
New College’s Life Boat featured five dissimilar men stranded and awaiting rescue after their boat went down. As heatstroke and frustration set in, revelations about their unfulfilling lives begin to emerge. Although much of the acting lacked pace and appeal, Christian Glas as the happy-go-lucky Frank held the piece together (and definitely deserved the Award of Merit for his performance at Saturday night’s award ceremony).—Ceara East
Tangent on a Tangent
(Trinity College Dramatic Society)
The Trinity College Dramatic Society followed the New College production with a very different, more light-hearted mood. The show follows two dorky middle-aged men as they attempt to convince a couple of unsuspecting foreign women that they are attending a spiritual new-age convention. Although the cast played their characters with conviction and sincerity, the stereotyping and gags were a little forced at times.—CE
