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Culture Stage

Fringe Review: Happiness

HAPPINESS™ by Tony Adams, Cory Thibert and Madeleine Boyes-Manseau. Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace. July 2 at 11:30 pm, July 3 at 5:45 pm, July 5 at 6:15 pm, July 6 at 2:15 pm, July 8 at 5:45 pm, July 9 at 1:45 pm. Buy tickets. Rating: NNN


Buying and selling happiness has always been a chump’s game. In this two-hander, Tony Adams and Cory Thibert play salesmen getting pumped up to sell the hell out of happiness aids such as the Happy Hookup (facilitates a perma-smile) and Sleep Scape (to erase the thoughts that make you unique) to desperate seminar attendees.

As their pre-presentation prep disintegrates, they’re revealed to be just as needy as everyone else. It’s a great premise and the performers (with a vocal assist from as an off-stage tech named Ted) deliver the choreography and rhetoric of their pitch with convincing and often hilarious energy.

But the more sensitive backstage crisis of confidence is less believably handled. Too many confusing details mess with the story’s momentum.

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