Reviews 2011
Reviews 2011
✭✭✭✭✩
written by José Rivera, directed by Brandon Thomas
Clownfire and Column 13 Actors Company,
Toronto Fringe Festival, Annex Theatre, Toronto
July 8-16, 2011
Written in the year 2000, this unusual American play is not a conventional drama but a series of monologues for seventeen actors. A group of seventeen waits in an antechamber to the afterlife. We discover that they need only sum up their life in words in order to depart. The characters represent a microcosm of humanity and react to their situation in unpredictable ways. Some speeches are short, some long; some seeking forgiveness, some unrepentant; some full of hope, some with despair. They serve as a reminder of the injustices of the previous century and as a tonic to brace us for the shocks of the present. Gradually, recurring themes of anger, loss and regret, build to a moving conclusion that we have no choice but to accept life’s manifold contradictions--including death.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in NOW Magazine, July 14, 2011.
Photo: Poster for Sonnets for an Old Century. ©2011.
For tickets, visit www.fringetoronto.com.
2011-07-14
Sonnets for an Old Century