Reviews 2016
Reviews 2016
✭✭✭✭✭
written and directed by Kat Sandler
Theatre Brouhaha, Toronto Fringe Festival, Tarragon Theatre Mainspace, Toronto
June 29-July 10, 2016;
Toronto Centre for the Arts
August 6-7, 2016
Kat Sandler’s latest play sold out within days of its opening. Its credits alone place it on any frequent Fringe-goers list of must-sees. Not only is Sandler a popular writer of comedy who just won a Dora for best play, but the show features Amy Lee and Heather Marie Annis, aka the Fringe’s favourite clown sisters Morro and Jasp, and Peter Carlone and Chris Wilson, aka the Fringe’s favourite comic duo Peter n’ Chris. Sandler has harnessed this powerhouse cast to drive one of the best one-act farces seen at any Fringe.
Amy Lee as the seven-month pregnant Laurel pads about setting up what looks like a church basement for some kind of meeting, we have no idea how radically this ordinary location will be transformed. Next Annis as a hesitant, self-conscious Zoe arrives, unsure if she should even have come. She’s followed by Carlone as the militantly aggressive Dave and Wilson as the self-obsessed Wayne, who can’t let anyone forget that he was once a child star on a now-cancelled TV law show.
As they wait for their group leader Ross (Colin Munch) to arrive it gradually emerges that this is a support group for survivors of alien abductions. That might be enough comic fodder for any playwright, but Sandler has much more in her sights. When Ross finally arrives, Zoe is terrified. Ross looks and speaks exactly like one of the aliens who abducted Zoe, but he denies he was ever there.
The group now faces a major crisis. Do they believe the story of this newcomer or do they believe the denials of the person who formed and leads the group? Dave, who had taken an instant dislike to Zoe, now turns on Ross, because the idea that Ross may be an alien feeds so well into his mind already prone to conspiracy theories. The group hilarious forces Ross to prove he’s human.
Sandler masterfully orchestrates the others’ vacillation in support of either Zoe or Ross and escalates the mounting destruction of everything that holds the group together. If Ross’s abduction experience can be doubted, so can the abduction experience of everyone, the one experience that gives them all their identity and has made them come together to chant “We believe you”.
As the director Sandler draws committed performances from the entire cast. As expected it is a treat to see Lee and Annis, Wilson and Carlone in roles outside of those in their own comic twosomes. Munch, a Sandler regular, is marvellous as the nerdy founder who turns on his followers when it’s every man for himself.
Bright Lights may be a farce, but Sandler packs more into one hour than many writers do in twice or three times that length. Underpinning the comic surface are serious ideas. Ross calls the group’s turning on him a “witch-hunt” and on stage that immediately conjures up Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (1953) where merely to be accused is to be guilty. Here, however, there is no hierarchy and any of the five is able to accuse the other four. The comic disintegration of the group illustrates what happens when people no longer trust each other or value the belief that gives each his or her identity.
Bright Lights proves how incisive comedy can be as a social critique. You will be lucky to get a ticket to see it, but it’s a play that you will wish to see again if only to appreciate how skilfully Sandler has constructed it.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Peter Carlone, Heather Marie Annis, Colin Munch, Amy Lee and Chris Wilson. ©2016 John Gundy.
For tickets, visit http://fringetoronto.com or www.tocentre.com/whats-on.
2016-07-07
Bright Lights