✭✭✭✭✩

written by the Keystone Ensemble, directed by Richard Beaune

Keystone Theatre, Toronto Fringe Festival, Al Green Theatre, Toronto

July 2-13, 2014

Keystone Theatre brings its silent film-inspired style to the story of men and women caught up in the Yukon Gold Rush.  The narrative would benefit from establishing at the start, as would a silent film, who the main characters are in the action.  Stephen LaFrenie plays the villain Dagger Windswept to steals other gold panners’ claims until he comes upon the innocent, milk-drinking Gormless Joe, played with sympathetic naïveté by Phil Rickaby.  The miners all hang out at a saloon opened by the fearless Stella played by swaggering Dana Fradkin and the delicate Titi McGibbons, whom life toughens up, played with abundant humour by Sarah Joy Bennett. 

Among the numerous highlights are the cast recreating the gruelling trek of pioneers climbing the Chilnook Pass in winter, the two women miming a wild kayak journey down a stream and the marvellous live piano accompaniment of David Atkinson.

Gold Fever is preceded by a short curtain raiser called Scarborough Fever by Keystone’s Young Collective.  There the warning of a modern mother (Kimberly Beaune) to her daughter (Christol Bryan) is reinforced with an example from Scarborough history. 

              

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in NOW Magazine 2014-07-10.

Photo: Phil Rickaby.  ©2014 Christian Potenza.

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