META-FRINGE – Three thumbs up for new David Belke play Forsooth, My Lovely
Now we have Vue Weekly magazine to add to our critical conflations of the Edmonton International Fringe Festival – creating a Frankensteinian meta-critic with three thumbs. Enjoy the best of the best, and if you’re into that sort of thing, the worst of the worst.
THREE THUMBS UP
FORSOOTH MY LOVELY, BYOV 29 (mixture of published reviews by Colin Maclean, Edmonton Sun, Paul Blinov, Vue Weekly, and Iain Ilich, Edmonton Journal) Sequel to (David Belke’s) Shakespeare-meets-hard-boiled-detective play Maltese Bodkin (is) absolutely hilarious (thanks to) a whipcrack cast of actors (which has) the time of their lives (as) gimlet-eyed gumshoe collides with the Shakespearian blank verse. (Also) a solid detective story (that) rarely sags or drops its comic kinetics. (You) don’t have to know a lot about Shakespeare to enjoy this (but it helps). It’s over the top (but) just right. AGGREGATE RATING: 4.5 out of 5
TWO THUMBS UP
THE COCKWHISPERER – A LOVE STORY: Venue 2 (Catherine Griwkowsky, Sun, and Kathleen Bell, Vue magazine) A women’s quest to navigate relationships via the penis … good grip on her subject … fearless storyteller … much more about the discovery of her own sexuality and emotional well-being … funny and striking, among the dick jokes … truly a story about what it means to love. AGGREGATE RATING: 4.5 out of 5
ZASTROZZI: MASTER OF DISCIPLINE, Venue 5 (Mike Ross, Sun and Madeline Smith, Vue) Darkly comic melodrama (about) charismatic rogue (should) be major Hollywood motion picture starring Johnny Depp … Dark exploration of the line between good and evil (comes off like a) parody (of) standard swashbuckler yarn (filled with) clever zingers that can cut down any opponent as surely as (a) sword … malevolent mood and sense of eerie sexuality make it oddly captivating … (With) acting consistently strong, (this) edge-of-your-seat thriller will cut you up. AGGREGATE RATING: 4 out of 5
THREE THUMBS DOWN
TIRED, WAVE, STOP, Venue 3 (Michelle Thompson, Sun, Gordon Kent, Journal, and Fawnda Mithrush, Vue) Tales (of) sea captain (aren’t) particularly thrilling (because) story never really lifts anchor … Long-winded and self-indulgent ramblings (make) an hour-long head-scratcher (that’s) just plain weird … Relationship (with mermaid) quite literally ends up on the rocks … filled with murky motivations, flashbacks that sometimes leave the audience wondering what’s going on and plot threads that don’t go anywhere … script needs to be taken into dry dock to have the holes patched and the barnacles scraped. AGGREGATE RATING: 1.83 out of 5
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