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Culture Stage

SummerWorks review: Love + Hate

LOVE + HATE

Factory Mainspace (125 Bathurst)

Rating: NNN

Aug 9 at 4:30 pm, Aug 10 at 7 pm, Aug 12 at 9:45 pm, Aug 13 at 7:30 pm, Aug 14 at 9:30 pm, Aug 16 at 4:30 pm. 1-888-328-8384, summerworks.ca.


If you approach Love + Hate as a concert and not a piece of theatre, you’ll be happy. The PepTides are a group of five colourfully clad singers who, backed by a four piece band, belt out some toe-tapping, infectiously enjoyable numbers.

Unfortunately, the sound system isn’t kind to them, and the lyrics (by Claude Marquis, who also wrote the music) are often lost in the Factory Mainspace. What lyrics you can hear sound pretty banal, and the text, by Scott Irving, does little to create a context for the songs. There’s dialogue about Big Pharma, global disasters and the study of primates. But it doesn’t amount to much. This show desperately needs a dramaturge.

Still, the singers are full of energy and the choreography by the Peptides is lively and fun.

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