Halifax Fringe: Day 3

I was back at Neptune Theatre for Day #3 of Halifax Fringe. I started this Saturday with Jake Wilke’s Edgar Allan Poe’s Puppet Show at the Imperial Studio. 

Will, played by Lorenzo Dylan Castro-Tytelman, a contemporary young writer, has writer’s block when the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe arrives in his attic apartment begging to help alleviate it by leading Will through a puppet show performance of his short story “The Cask of Amontillado.” Throughout this interaction between Will and Poe they learn that, incredibly, they are more connected to one another than it initially appears. 

While there are tidbits of information from Poe’s real life peppered in this piece, Wilke also takes some poetic license- and we hear a lot about the alcoholism and erratic behaviour that certainly plagued the real Poe after the death of his wife, and this allows Wilke, who also plays Poe, to justify all manner of odd behaviour regarding the puppets. I will say, though, this is probably the most cheerful Poe has ever been depicted as being. He has really mellowed out a lot in the afterlife. 

“The Cask of Amontillado” is performed by shadow puppets. This is a story characteristic of Poe, centring on a murderer taking revenge on someone who trusts them, by burying them alive, and the action is told from the murderer’s perspective. Like in Mating Habits of Common Mammals Wilke is exploring the power of play- here in harnessing creativity. I think there is room for Wilke to keep exploring how the themes of the short story might connect even more ardently to the connection that links Will and Poe. There’s room also for Wilke to keep thinking about how the relationship with Will and Poe unfolds throughout the play. At the beginning Will both admits that he is a fan of Poe’s but he is also quite underwhelmed having his ghost in his apartment to the point that he overtly shrugs Poe’s legacy off, which seems a bit hard to believe unless we are given a clearer reason why Will behaves this way. 

This is a very imaginative idea from Jake Wilke, and I love the concept of the puppet show, and this aspect of the play is well rendered. Between “The Cask of Amontillado” and Poe’s own tumultuous life I think there’s so many more interesting things for Wilke to delve into if he chooses to keep exploring the backstory between his two protagonists. 

Artmageddon Theatre’s Edgar Allan Poe’s Puppet Show plays at Neptune Theatre’s Imperial Studio Theatre (1589 Argyle Street) at the following times: September 3rd: 7:00pm, September 5th: 7:30pm, and September 7th: 6:45pm.

Next I saw Of Self, the only performance of this show presented by inesS® Circus. This is an aerial circus show performed with use of aerial silks, mixed with some dance and movement in between the aerial acts. According to the program the show “explores identity and the shadows we cast,” and half of the four performers are dressed all in white costumes, while the other two are dressed in black, and we see that those dressed in black are the shadows. This becomes most apparent when all four dance together and we see them mirror one another. 

The aerial silks performances are done one at a time, and feature incredible feats of daring, proficiency, and supreme flexibility. Some highlights include performers who balanced with the silks under their thighs, doing the splits, but their legs were at different heights. They reminded me of the horses in a carousel. One performer climbed to the very top of the apparatus and then free fell down to nearly the bottom and caught themself upside down. Some performers did beautiful routines organized around spinning and one performer did that same carousel horse move, except she was upside down. The upper body strength on display is unreal, and when you add in the lights and the music and the literal shadows, their bodies create beautiful and intriguing pictures. 

I assume it is hard for aerial performers to sustain a more overt narrative storytelling style because the performers have to continuously reorient the silks to keep themselves safe, which makes watching them a more technically fascinating experience because, regardless of how thorough they are with them, the entire thing to an outsider like me always looks so incredibly precarious. 

I love having a bit of circus in the Fringe Festival as it helps to make the festival more of a multidisciplinary event, and for folks like me who are deep into the Fringe Binge it can be really refreshing to completely change up the art forms every once and awhile. 

Of Self by inesS® Circus.has closed at Halifax Fringe.

Next I remained at the Neptune Theatre Scotiabank Studio Theatre to see August Van Meekeren’s new murder mystery Did You Just Kill This Man?, which, like the film version of Clue, has multiple different endings. It also features a cast of NINE actors and gorgeous period costumes by Sarah Cooper, and also via Theatre Arts Guild. 

I have never actually seen the Broadway musical A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, but I’m familiar with the cast album, and this play has a similar vibe. We find ourselves in some sort of fancy British estate, the home of Duke Partridge, his wife Bunny, and his mother in law Lady Diana. They have a full house of guests and it’s immediately clear that very few of the people milling about like one another, and there are few relationships that are without complications. A murder is committed: in our version it was Lady Diana who was killed, Detective Coldwell and Assistant Detective Maria arrive (perhaps a bit too promptly) and they commence their investigation. Complications continue to arise: can the audience deduce what really happened before Detective Coldwell? 

This show is a real feat from August Van Meekeren. The dialouge is witty and suits the genre perfectly, and like in an Agatha Christie mystery the characters are all a little bit wacky, and harbouring their own secrets. All the performances in the play are strong, but Jen Daniels is especially excellent at exuding very specific British propriety, which works so well for Lady Diana, the matriarch. Dylan Jackson is doing some great, nuanced and unique character work as the brainy but hapless Harold Villain. The ensemble cast also features Hal Rotman, Ben Burchell, Jake Wilke, Moneesha Bakshi, Daisy Rayne, Margaret Hild, and Geneviève Richer. 

I think there’s room for Van Meekeren to clarify just a smidgen the relationships between the characters a bit earlier in the play, and there’s room, I think, for some of the characters to be more warm and hospitable to the detectives when they first arrive in attempt to endear themselves as being above suspicion in the crime. 

I’m so impressed that this play has multiple different endings, and it’s always incredible to see such a large cast in a Fringe show. You have just one more chance to catch this show, and I definitely recommend that you jump at it. 

TWISI Fringe Rating: Two Thumbs Up

Did You Just Kill This Man plays September 2nd at 9:15pm at Neptune Theatre’s Scotiabank Studio Theatre.

In the programme for Trans-Sensory Cruelty, a performance art piece facilitated/directed by Sheena Day there is a “Neurodiverse Invocation” which says, in part, “A performance not to be understood- but to be felt,” and so I feel like I have been let off the hook because I would have a very difficult time trying to gauge what this piece was “about,” and to try to offer any sort of definitive perspective, even a highly objective one. The piece was extremely evocative though, that is for absolute certain. 

It started out with Karyssa Levere singing “Painting Her Portrait” by Paul Gordon with John Caird from Jane Eyre: The Musical, and this was relatively linear. Levere has a lovely voice and she sang as she pretended to paint alternating between two canvases with a single pallet. On the stage with her were a number of different performers all sitting around the stage in black clothes, fading into the set, and also a big conspicuous pile of props. Once she finished her song, much of the soundscape became more overlapping, discordant sounds that melded together into loud, at times obnoxious, at times just irritating or even painful noise. Max Miller put on denim overalls and spoke-sung Stephen Sondheim’s “Finishing The Hat” from Sunday in the Park With George while destroying a styrofoam mannequin head on a skeleton’s body. His technical ability was in contrast to the complexity of the song, in contrast to the version musical theatre aficionados know so well of Mandy Patinkin’s depth of emotional intensity, his soaring tenor, both of which are so iconic. How do we feel when confronted with this kind of dissonance? 

In a similar vein the ensemble then found musical instruments which they explored like toddlers might be encouraged to explore new instruments, finding ways to play them that aren’t the conventional ways. But how do you feel when you see an actor rolling a drum around like a wheel, or smashing a trombone on the floor? Does the irreverence give you anxiety? Why? Surely this is all part of being curious and playing and allowing yourself to divest from the pressure of perfection. Right?

I am fairly neurotypical but I know from neurospicy friends, former students, and babysitting charges that some folks on the spectrum are especially sensitive to sound- and that they often feel like the world is too much all at once from an auditory perspective alone.I was thinking of this as I experienced this show, because it very much felt like too much all at once in a way that was grating and overwhelming and that made it impossible to focus on any one thing.  

Day and the ensemble of performers are exploring theatre artist Antonin Artaud’s theory of The Theatre of Cruelty, which seeks to present action on stage so unexpected that it shocks the audience into communing more deeply with the performers and having a deeper more intimate experience that might even delve into the subconscious. In this way, I think Trans-Sensory Cruelty succeeds in its premise, as I think it evokes some subliminal responses- whether that be the cringe of hearing a blade sawing through styrofoam, to the stress inherent in the incessant wailing of a baby, to the way that laughter is infectious, even within an otherwise strange environment. 

This is pure performance art and it is a piece that leaves a lasting impression. 

Trans-Sensory Cruelty has Closed at Halifax Fringe

Next I went to see Shwing Entertainment’s The Anytime Hour, written and performed by Alex Austin-Boyd, Lewis Coverdale, and Connor Locke (and ideally with films by Elijah Boulton and Justin White, along with Locke and Coverdale, but I’ll get to that later). This is a sketch comedy show where the sketches build on one another, the characters cross over into other sketches, and an overarching narrative is successfully achieved. 

This is the third Shwing Entertainment show that I’ve seen at Fringe and every time I am dazzled by their quirky and creative sense of humour. I find that not only can I never predict which direction a sketch is going to go, or where they’re going to find their jokes, but they’re often so far afield from what I’m expecting that it’s an impressive surprise. They are also incredibly self aware and self deprecating, and they love to play with the audience’s expectation- pushing the boundaries of their own talents in the process. 

Highlights from the show include a robbery sketch with a twist, a cancelled game show host’s explosive interview, and Locke and Austin-Boyd reading a sketch they have never seen before while Coverdale lurks awkwardly behind them for a reason I won’t spoil. 

As I mentioned these performers like to subvert the audience’s experience so that they are never quite sure what is real and what is actually just part of the show. At the performance tonight there was a real significant technical issue, the audience was about 15 minutes late getting into the theatre, and we weren’t able to see the aforementioned films in the show- we will have to wait to see them in a couple of weeks on YouTube. The performers alluded to the missing films several times during the show, and, having seen two of their previous works, I was convinced that there were not actually any films, that this entire thing, including being held at the top of the show in line, was the way that the comedy show had been conceived and written. It wasn’t until the very end when I realized that no, in fact, they had been telling me the truth the whole evening. Yet, I actually think that the show was brilliant the way it was tonight. I loved the way it ended. Even being held at the door felt like it added something special to the ambiance of the performance. If the projector doesn’t work for their next two shows (it probably will, since the next two performances are well into this coming week), I think the ensemble should continue to lean into it and play it up as just another chaotic aspect of the chaotic, frenetic world that they have created with Shwing. (I’m also excited to see the films on YouTube, don’t get me wrong!).

TWISI Fringe Rating: Two Thumbs Up

You have two more chances to see The Anything Hour at Halifax Fringe- September 6th at 10:15pm and September 7th at 4:30pm.

I have been writing about the theatre that I see for almost eighteen years and I can honestly say that in all that time I have never ever seen a show like Affair of Honour’s Multi-Vs. You need to stop reading this and go book your tickets right this very moment and then come back.

We meet the alter egos of two people inside of a video game where you can play in a series of different multiverses. There is a strange glitch: these two keep being matched up to play together, even though their settings are supposed to shuffle them through thousands of random different users. Most of what we in the audience see is these two alter egos playing together, either fighting against one another, or fighting in tandem against a common enemy, but then something unexpected happens and we are transported to the outside world where we see glimmers of a devolving relationship between two stressed sisters. As the play progresses the alter ego for Natalie (Nathania Bernabe) becomes more and more desperate to be unmatched with the alter ego played by Jackie T. Hanlin- but the video game seems to have other plans.

I know very little about the genres that Multi-vs is touching on, but regardless, I don’t think I blinked one time during the hour long show. The performance combat in this show was mesmerizing, Cirque du Soleil level awe-inspiring, and one of the most soul satisfying things I have ever seen both in a Fringe Festival and just in general. The level of mastery on display caused the audience tonight to continuously audibly gasp, shout out in surprise or amazement, and cheer to the point that they were sometimes drowning out the actors’ lines a bit. Bernabe and Hanlin used a wide array of props including staffs, swords, shields, knives, and their own bodies to fight with one another with extreme precision, as it seems at least to the audience that if the actors misjudge by just a few millimetres they could be seriously hurt. At times they move in slow motion, and you begin to see them really walking and blurring the line between martial arts, stage combat, physical theatre, and dance. 

Each of the different multiverses come to vivid life, mostly through the physicality of the two performers, but also with an excellent soundscape and some incredible lighting changes. Some of the most memorable universes include a post-apocalyptic world where people have embraced a hyper-individualistic form of survival, a highly realistic trench warfare scene that harkened back to the early or mid 20th Century, and some sort of war between goblins. Sometimes the physicality of the performers is accompanied by the sound effects from specific real video games or associated media, and sometimes the ways that the characters fight are in a specific genre style that is, obviously, immediately familiar to fans gauging from the screaming from certain gamers in the audience. I definitely recommend if you’re able to deliberately go see this show with fans of this genre, absolutely do because the reactions around you will only enhance your enjoyment of the piece. 

To nitpick I found the big clarifying reveal at the end just a smidgen heavy handed. I think the performers are doing such a beautiful job at establishing the relationship between the sisters without words throughout the flashbacks that they can get away with explaining a tiny bit less at the end. I wasn’t always sure how the flashbacks were fitting into the video game narrative, but I found that the twist at the end and the big reveal satisfied my curiosity and quelled that confusion. 

Multi-vs is a literally breathtaking theatrical adventure that I think few people in the world could replicate with such prowess. We are lucky to have Affair of Honor here in Halifax this Fringe; I am certain that they are going to inspire an entire generation of stage combat and physical theatre practitioners here over the next seven days. 

TWISI Fringe Rating: Two Thumbs Jump!

Multi-vs plays at the Neptune Theatre Scotiabank Studio Theatre at the following times: September 2nd: 6:00pm, September 3rd: 5:30pm, September 4th: 5:45pm, September 5th: 7:45pm, September 6th: 4:45pm, September 7th: 7:00pm.

Halifax Fringe runs from August 27th to September 7th, 2025 in venues throughout the downtown and North End of Halifax. For more information and to make your Fringe schedule please visit this website. All official Fringe venues are wheelchair accessible and have all gender washrooms. For Fort Massey Church, if you are a wheelchair user, please contact the Box Office ahead of the show. Each show has at least one mask mandatory performance. Grab a Fringe Guide at any of the venues for a handy way to follow along with all the events at the festival. See ya there! 

A Note On TWISI Fringe Ratings:

I have never liked rating Fringe shows, or any shows, using the 5 Star system as I have done in the past, so I started doing something new. From now on I will just be highlighting what I think are 4 or 5 Star Fringe Shows. A Two Thumbs Up Rating equals roughly to 4 Stars, while A Two Thumbs Jump Rating equals 5 Stars. I have stolen (with permission) “Two Thumbs Jump” from my friend Lenny Clayton, who is awesome, who came up with this phrase when she was a young kid reviewing films on YouTube.