Reviews 2011
Reviews 2011
✭✭✭✩✩
by Jonathon Neville & Carlynn Reed,
directed by Dennis Hassell
Imagiscape, Toronto Fringe Festival,
George Ignatieff Theatre, Toronto
July 8-17, 2011
This piece is a brave attempt to combine theatre and dance to lend hope to caregivers. Based on their real life experiences, Jonathon Neville and Carlynn Reed play both themselves and their suffering family members – he caring for his mother with Alzheimer’s, she for her son paralyzed through somatoform disorder.
Both realize that accepting rather than struggling against the disease is the best solution. The spoken sections can be dull, but the emotion-laden, highly imaginative dance parts give the show its power. The pairing of Neville with the much older Reed in all the movement sequences makes the positive statement that in dance age should be no barrier to self-expression.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in NOW Magazine, July 14, 2011.
Photo: Jonathon Neville (foreground) and Carlynn Reed (background). ©2011 Imagiscape.
For tickets, visit www.fringetoronto.com.
2011-07-14
Let’s Play House