✭✭✭✭✩

by Njo Kong Kie, directed by Kico González-Risso

Music Picnic, SummerWorks Theatre Festival,

The Theatre Centre, Toronto

August 7-16, 2008

Don’t let the words “operatic” or “allegory” put you off this immensely entertaining musical gem.  Njo Kong Kie’s electronic music, played on a laptop, is full of good tunes and dance beats with wonderfully rich voices floating on waves of techno and trance.  Julius (Keith Klassen) is celebrating his 40th birthday, but an uninvited guest (Vilma Vitols), the Spanish title’s “Miss World,” drops in.  We can guess the many things she might represent long before her unmasking, but the fun is in the duo’s sizzling flirtation and Julius’s sudden awakening from party-time narcissism to a glimpse of life’s mystery.  Let’s hope for a second run.   

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2009-08-08.

Photo: Vilma Vitols and Keith Klassen. ©Lydia Charak.