Reviews 2017
Reviews 2017
✭✭✭✩✩
by the company, directed by Robin Henderson
Robin Henderson Productions, Toronto Fringe Festival, Factory Theatre Mainspace, 125 Bathurst St.
July 7-16, 2017
Anyone hoping Robin Henderson’s latest creation, Pineapple Club, will have the same high energy and camp as her 2016 Fringe hit Dance Animal will be disappointed. None of the 2016 cast returns and the collection of comic dance, skits, live music performances and monologues has stop-and-start pacing and no overriding theme.
The show begins well with a comic dance number where the three-member cast – Paul Barnes, Jonathan Shaboo and Pascale Yensen – interpret David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” in moves alternating between athletic angst and balletic frivolity.
Yet all other comic dance is connected to verbal skits. Of these the best depicts an adverse physical reaction to any mention of 2016 which causes the hearer to flail wildly to “Boogie Wonderland”. Generally, however, too many routines depend on acting, not dance, and therefore do not play to the cast’s strength.
Show length: 60 min.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review appeared in NOW Magazine on July 8, 2017.
Photo: Paul Barnes, Pascale Yensen and Jonathan Shaboo. ©2017 Katherine Fogler Photography.
For tickets, visit https://fringetoronto.com.
2017-07-08
Pineapple Club