THE WEIGHT OF IT ALL by Gillian Bartolucci (Haggard B Productions/Fringe). At Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace. Jul 7 at 2:45 pm, Jul 8 at 10:45 pm, Jul 9 at 3:15 pm, Jul 11 at 8 pm, Jul 13 at 4:30 pm. See listing. Rating: NNNN
It’s always thrilling when a comic finds her voice. And Gillian Bartolucci, whose risky (but often unfocused) work I’ve admired in troupes like the Sketchersons and Panacea, and in her own unique solo bits, has finally found her voice in The Weight Of It All.
Her frank and fearless solo show deals with the pressures of being a smart, sensitive woman in an insane world. With savage insights, she examines themes like diet culture, infertility, annoying social media influencers and even illness – and produces dark laughs.
I can’t think of another local performer who so successfully channels anger into comedy. Whether she’s playing a woman upset with her new Keurig coffee machine or a perky restaurant server hawking “sexy salads,” there’s always a dark subtext. One of the sharpest sketches, about a substitute teacher bringing her own around-the-block wisdom to a high school health class, is obviously fuelled by the recent changes to Ontario schools’ sex-ed curricula.
And Bartolucci’s references are delightfully off-kilter. I bet no other Fringe show alludes to the angel from the Philadelphia Cream Cheese commercials and Karen Carpenter.
Director Carly Heffernan ensures the pacing is swift and each sketch has its own look and feel. (The sex-ed bit is particularly vivid.) But it’s the sharpness of Bartolucci’s writing – a phrase like “pub crawl for weight loss” is genius – and the depths of emotions she plumbs in her acting that are truly remarkable.
