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Culture Theatre

Fringe review: News Play

NEWS PLAY by Madeleine Brown (Theatre ARTaud/Lal Mirch in association with Prairie Fire, Please/Fringe). At the Annex Theatre. Jul 9 at 7:30 pm, Jul 10 at 5 pm, Jul 12 at 3 pm, Jul 13 at 12:45 pm. See listing. Rating: NN


Fake news and millennial job anxiety meet the struggling journalism industry in Madeleine Brown‘s (Everyone Wants A T-Shirt!) latest absurdist comedy. 

Toronto children’s book writers and siblings Joy (Charlin McIssac) and Phoebus (Greg Solomon) return to their hometown of Peterborough to support their pyromaniac cousin, Winny (Brown), and help out the town’s struggling newspaper, run by their former yearbook colleague Art (Andrew Cromwell). Everyone ends up exploiting Winny to drive up circulation.

The play’s inciting incident and premise aren’t established very clearly, although Brown and director Aaron Jan cleverly insert a background scene in which the actors wear handbands sporting the word “Flashback.” I wish there had been more such scenes. 

Brown has a gift for quirky dialogue, and as a performer she brings a depth and impeccable sense of timing to her line readings. But the significance of the play’s allegory never becomes clear, and there are too many unanswered questions and unexplored plotlines to care about what happens to anyone.

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