✭✭✭✭✩

written and directed by Johnny Wideman

Theatre of the Beat, Toronto Fringe Festival, Robert Gill Theatre, Toronto

July 3-13, 2013

In Johnny Wideman's neo-absurdist play, a visitor (the solid Benjamin Wert) tunnels his way into a prison to rescue a half-mad inmate (Wideman) who's soon to be executed for a crime he did not commit. Contrary to expectation, the inmate views the visitor's arrival as an imposition and has no wish to be rescued. He's been incarcerated so long, he's come to think of prison as home and of the authorities who put him there as right.

Wert draws us into the visitor's complex emotions of pity and frustration, while Wideman, whose histrionics are at first off-putting, almost brings us around, scarily enough, to his point of view. The struggle between the two men over the nature of oppression and freedom is as hilarious as it is intellectually astute.

              

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in NOW Magazine 2013-07-11.

Photo: Johnny Wideman and Benjamin Wert.  ©2013 Theatre of the Beat.

For tickets, visit http://fringetoronto.com.