Night three of Infringement was the most varied so far: comedy and tragedy, plays and musicals, prose and poetry – even a wide range of accents.
Flight or Fight is a post-apocalyptic play with a mystery. Claris Figueira’s simple script, directed by Lucy Campbell and Katie Godfrey, draws the audience into a pilot’s test gone wrong before catapulting them into a bleak and, frankly, terrifying world. The transitions in the two characters’ conversation are a bit jarring, but the actors carry it off well.
Next up, Pistols at Dawn by Bryn Shaffer and Geoff Myette. “Sir? Someone approaches.” A true ensemble production, the play is tied together by that single line. Shaffer made great use of the space and even better use of running gags. While the time period and location are a bit hard to follow — starting with Elizabethan dress and ending with a pizza delivery guy — midway through, you get the impression that it’s all part of the fun.
Once you get used to the handmade melodrama of this Wicked/Edward Scissorhands cross, Clipped Wings is a hilarious musical performed well by its cast. Everything kitschy about this show is made loveable by the over-the-top libretto and the actors’ complete commitment. The Styrofoam car and tinfoil knife feet are highlights.
ManCat: Revolution is the return of Jonny Bolduc and his ever-so-slightly-psychotic revolutionary mancat saga to the Infringement stage. After a year on tour night, it’s back, now transformed from a one-cat show to a multi-act play with a full ensemble. Bolduc brings his now-trademark never-off-book style along. The play is fun and full-on, if a bit chaotic. It is what it is – a show for loyal KTS members both in the audience and onstage – and it does it well.
| More reviews of Infringement Festival Tour Night Night 2 Night 5 |
After a poetic interlude by Dalhousie English professor Ron Huebert’s poetry, Justine Christensen’s Murder Sleep changed the pace. Easily the heaviest play of the night, this show felt oddly placed and would have benefited from an earlier billing. The idea of the script is chilling, and Christensen has several intriguing plot points with a generally strong cast. However, the play lacks focus and has too many characters, which often leaves moments loaded with potential wanting for poignancy.
Freaking Dead was on its second performance of the festival, and Jacob Baker-Kretzmar reviewed its Tuesday showing.
You can see Flight or Fight, as well as Tuesday’s The Weight, tonight, alongside Lily Ross-Millard’s The Little Things, Tom Lute and Haydn Watters’s The Ballad of Rob Ford, and General Surgeon the Surgeon General: I am the very model of modern Surgeon General (which, in typical last-night-of-Infringement fashion, does not have its playwrights listed anywhere).
