✭✭✭✩✩

by Kat Sandler, directed by Jonathan Heppner

Knockabout Theatre Co., Toronto Fringe Festival,

Factory Studio Theatre, Toronto

July 2-11, 2009

If you fancy a dose of meaningless silliness, try Dirty Girls, a fractured fairy-tale based on a “moral interlude” by Edna St. Vincent Millay.  Adam Barrett, like an effeminate Charles Laughton, plays an immune-deficient King, who must marry a clean virgin before his 30th birthday.  The King’s secretary Tidy (a very funny Sasha Kovacs) would like to propose herself but is countered by the filthy, aptly-named Slut (the energetic Kat Sandler), who plans to win despite all odds.  It is all settled by a bout of mud-slinging and pie-throwing.  (Watch out in the front row!) 

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2009-07-03.

Photo: Kat Dandler and Sasha Kovacs.