During last Saturday’s (February 26) final shows at Bad Dog Theatre’s Danforth location, the theatre, lobby and hallways were so packed with fans and performers you couldn’t, er, swing a dead cat.
Turn around and you’d inevitably spot someone who’d been onstage or behind the scenes during the venue’s nearly eight years.
The penultimate show, It Ain’t Over, began with some pretty good sketch work. 2-Man No-Show presented their bit about a guy (Isaac Kessler) recreating the movie Jurassic Park for his date (Ken Hall). Kessler rose to the scene’s outrageous physical demands, but Hall’s blackout line didn’t work as well as it did when the duo played the Fringe.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen Cream of Comedy winners Fast & Dirty perform, but their musical work is as funny and fresh as ever – even though Gord Oxley admitted at the outset that his voice was growing hoarse. They ended their set with an affectionate ditty to Bad Dog, referencing its shows, awards and successfully getting the audience to join in on the chorus.
Two-thirds of Punch in the Box reprised several sketches from their hit 2010 Fringe show, making us salivate at the possibility of a full remount. Rumour has it the troupe’s mounting a new show at the end of the month at the Rivoli.
The show ended with a set by the theatre’s founding artistic directors Marcel St. Pierre, Kerry Griffin and Ralph McLeod, who improvised a long scene involving a washroom, wrestling, injectable meat and groping each other’s genitals. Yes, you had to be there.
At 11 pm, Jan Caruana and James Gangl hosted Hasta La Vista, Danforth!, a series of quickie two-person improv scenes by veterans like Sandy Jobin-Bevans and Alistair Forbes, Lisa Merchant and Alex Hatz and Paul Bates and Rob Norman and Griffin and Caruana, all followed by a free-for-all that included much kicking of the theatre walls.
Perhaps unintentionally, there was an elegiac feel to many of the scenes. Griffin played an out-of-work lobster fisherman and Caruana his embittered wife who was forced to serve up beef jerky (“filled with nitrates and pig anus”) to survive. Their richly detailed scene was funny and moving, and a metaphor for something coming to an end – until the surprise appearance at the end of Jobin-Bevans’s lobster.
A scene about a man (Gangl) seeking a confessional turned into a brilliant gotcha reality TV spoof. A tense scene between two sisters (Caruana and Merchant) turned into a soap operaish spoof when the blind sister’s husband (Griffin) turned up and knew the secret combination on a decanter.
This was terrific short-form improv, full of sharp turns, full stops and great scenery. The best improvisers bring back that sense of play and endless possibilities from childhood.
May Bad Dog Theatre and its talented artists find another home soon – and give us more life, like Jobin-Bevans’s lobster, who turned out (in a hilarious and subtle callback) to be pregnant.
Follow baddogtheatre.com for developments.
Face off
David Henry Hwang is best known for his plays like FOB and the Tony Award-winning M. Butterfly, which chronicle the Asian experience from a knowing, first-hand perspective.
His 2007 play Yellow Face is an autobiographical work inspired by his play Face Value, which in turn was a response to the casting of Caucasian actor Jonathan Pryce being cast as the Eurasian lead in the musical Miss Saigon.
Fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre, in partnership with Hart House Theatre, presents a new production of the play from tomorrow (Friday, March 4), directed by Esther Jun and featuring Ben Wong, Charmaine Lau, Daniel Krolik and David Fujino.
In addition, Fu-GEN’s artistic director David Yee (lady in the red dress) talks with Hwang about his life, work and philosophy on Tuesday (March 8), and after the Wednesday (March 9) performance, Hwang and the Yellow Face company will take part in a talk-back session with the audience.
See Listings.
stage@nowtoronto.com
