Reviews 2006
Reviews 2006
✭✭✭✭✩
by Anna Chatterton & Evalyn Perry,
directed by Karin Randoja
Independent Aunties, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Toronto
March 16-April 2, 2006
Clean Irene & Dirty Maxine, winner of Best Play at the 2003 SummerWorks Festival, is a kind of woman’s own Shockheaded Peter. In this wickedly funny hour-long performance piece, writer/performers Anna Chatterton and Evalyn Parry, dressed as Girl Guides, escort us alphabetically through the deaths of 21 women done in by their own obsessions. There is Trendy Wendy (Chatterton), who proves you really can be too cool, and competitive multiculturalist Yoga Lola (Parry), who takes up the bridge position and gets stuck there. Herbal Mabel (Parry) cures herself to death and Efficient Millicent (Chatterton) crosses herself off her own “To Do” list. When smoker Firefighter Myra Mighter (Parry) falls for Gassy Lassy (Chatterton), you just know their relationship will be, um, explosive.
Chatterton and Parry, both adept at physical comedy, morph instantly from one persona to the next. They deliver their supposedly cautionary verse narratives with a delectably wry faux-naïveté that suggests less moral rigor than a perverse delight in morbidity. As they announce each death, they turn the deceased’s initial on designer Sherri Hay’s clever Wheel of Fortune-inspired wall of letters to hide it and simultaneously reveal part of a secret painting. Likewise, beneath the show’s whimsy lies a subtle, satirical sting that spares no one.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2006-03-23.
Photo: Anna Chatterton and Evalyn Perry.
2006-03-23
Clean Irene & Dirty Maxine