Review — Kingston Theatre Alliance

Delivering commendable storytelling and attention to detail, Through the Fairy Circle offers something for all ages. While the grassy stretch we have come to know as Wolfe Island offers the people of Kingston a beautiful daytrip, a sandy beach and one heck of a bakery, one performance at the Storefront Fringe Festival sees it also serving as theatrical inspiration.

Charismatic and captivating to a fault, Mark Cassidy and Hume Baugh provide an escapist nostalgia trip accompanied and magnified by a veritable smorgasbord of 70s hits. Allistonian Brockvillian Dionysian sports a jigsaw puzzle of a story that isn’t so much a cohesive narrative, but rather a man flicking through periods of his childhood as he quite literally takes a trip down memory lane to the motel that shaped him into the person he is today. Allistonian Brockvillian Dionysian is Presented by Threshold Theatre and Theatre Kingston Storefront Fringe Festival, supported in part by the Kick and Push Festival. This love letter to the playgrounds of wonder that were the local hotel and motel serves as the bittersweet farewell to a childhood that lives on in memory. 

n’s Storefront Fringe, supported in part by the Kick & Push Festival, with their misguided attempt at existential absurdity created and directed by Tyler Mathews. Although Cranz and Bernardo goes places, and with fervour, it does so in no specific direction.

Jim Garrard and SALONTheatre deliver a textbook performance of Krapp’s Last Tape worthy of Beckett’s legacy. Needless to say, Jim Garrard had notable names to compete with in his portrayal of Krapp, and yet, he more than held his own in the scope of the play’s notoriety.

As the play finds its narrative structure in Maria’s three-card reading, I find it suitable, being a Tarot reader myself, to provide a three-card response.

Blue Canoe Productions presents their newest work Sharing Stories: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. While there continues to be phenomenal creativity in digital performance, with this production, there is nothing quite like watching actors work together to tell a story in a shared space.

Created and performed by Beau Dixon, Beneath Springhill: The Maurice Ruddick Story follows the story of Maurice Ruddick (or “the singing miner”), an African-Canadian who survived the 1958 mining disaster when an underground earthquake hit Springhill, Nova Scotia. Originally premiering at the Thousand Islands Playhouse, this multi-award-winning play (directed by Linda Kash) now marks the return of the Festival Players’ Six Feet Festival at the Eddie Hotel & Farm’s BMO Pavilion.

The Harrowing of Brimstone McReedy is Eldritch Theatre’s modern take on Marlowe’s own Doctor Faustus while being infinitely more engaging and entertaining for the modern audience. Partnered with Kick & Push, Theatre Kingston’s Storefront Fringe is certainly kicking off the festival with a strong show.

Fn (dir. Alex Bulmer and Tristan Whiston) reflects on how Ting comes to terms with her and her mother’s respective urgency to be understood on their own terms, in conversation with the lives and works of composers John Cage and Beethoven.

Described as a part-techno concert and part autobiographical, the musical innovatively tells the entertaining and captivating story of Collier’s life, starting at the beginning of the universe.

Good Things To Do is an immersive virtual experience “blending dreamy sonic landscape, solitary physical environment and an unexpected use of technology” in order to explore the softness within ourselves the world demands we abandon. From its initial workshop implementing digital design into the live installation at foldA in 2018 to its adaptation for COVID-19 today, Good Things To Do’s full embrace of a computerized form is the very thing that potentiates the theatricality of dream logic.

In the first few months of the pandemic, virtual activities were beyond popular. From Zoom drinks to Club Quarantine to the rise of TikTok, people around the globe were craving a sense of togetherness that the pandemic was devoid of. Cabin Fever PROTOTYPE seeks to address this phenomenon: can virtual events create a sense of togetherness and unity?