Kaylie Kreatrix in Kimiko Photo by Alex Henkelman
My goal for every Fringe Festival is always simple: to write about as many shows as possible, and as such my schedule isn’t curated at all- I just shove as many shows in in whatever haphazard order they fit into each day, and hope for the best. Today I had a perfect Fringe Saturday where not only were the shows just what I needed today, they came to me in the perfect order. True kismet. A lot of magic happened today too, figuratively, but also literally.
I started out my Saturday at DanSpace to see Steven Goes to Japan to Run a Marathon. You’ll never guess what it was about! Firstly, I have to tell you that the building that DanSpace is in, what was once the old World Trade and Convention Centre and is now the Light House Arts Centre, is under renovation and so there is no access from Argyle Street, you have to walk up to a small unassuming side door on Duke Street.
Steven Andrews brings us this storytelling show from Alberta where he shares about the time that he and his best friend Skunks decided pretty much on a lark to go to Japan and run a marathon. He has a deep love of Japan, Japanese food (except their version of Gatorade), and Japanese culture stemming from growing up playing Japanese video games and watching 90s anime. Steven and Skunks could have gone to Japan purely out of interest with an itinerary of tourist attractions that they wanted to experience, but instead Steven trained for just five months in the winter in Alberta to run this marathon, and the anxiety around it kept him from being able to properly focus on anything he was experiencing in Japan until after it was over.
This piece is very funny. Andrews has really mined both his experience in Japan and the context from his life in Alberta for every single comedic possibility – and he presents the story with such enthusiasm and personable energy that it’s very engaging to watch. Much of the comedy comes from the clash of cultures and Andrews being a fish out of water in Japan, and much of it comes from Andrews’ own body, which seems to be dead set against him running this race. As someone who ate the wrong kind of lactose at the wrong time yesterday and spent most of the night in a ball by the window of the Bus Stop while my insides were churning, I could personally relate to a lot of Andrews’ comedy and despair over having no control over whether what you eat will careen your whole day sideways or not- and I didn’t have to run at all, all I needed to do was to sit.
Yet, beyond the comedy there is also a poignant message here about failure that made me think of that Samuel Beckett line: “Try again, Fail again, Fail better.” Sometimes we pin all our hopes and dreams on one momentous thing, and we disregard giving ourselves credit for all the smaller successes along the way. Just because it didn’t happen just the way we wanted it to doesn’t mean that it wasn’t worthwhile. Besides, if events had transpired differently Andrews definitely wouldn’t have been able to make this Fringe show.
TWISI Fringe Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Steven Goes to Japan to Run a Marathon plays at DanSpace (1800 Argyle Street, Halifax) at the following times: September 6 at 9:30pm, September 8th at 8:00pm, September 9th at 9:30pm, September 10th at 5:00pm, September 11th at 8:00pm, September 12th at 12:30pm and September 13th at 2:00pm.
Then I walked over to the Neptune Theatre Studio Theatre to see Kimiko, the show that everyone was buzzing about after the Fringe sampler. Kaylie Kreatrix’s piece is the best mixture of circus and theatre that I’ve ever seen, and I felt like I was finally seeing the melding of these two genres that I’ve been waiting for in Fringe for a long time. Kimiko is taken largely from Kreatrix’s own story of growing up knowing that she had Japanese heritage but feeling distanced from it, both because she is of mixed ancestry, but also because her Japanese relatives had learned from their time being held in prison camps during World War II that their safety hinged on how well they were able to blend in and assimilate to the dominant white culture. Separate from her knowledge of her heritage Kaylie in the piece leaves home and moves next to a circus performer whose work she find fascinating. She is especially drawn to the s-staff or buugeng and the art of object manipulation. We see her using these. They remind me of the way that the jewels move inside those vintage kaleidoscopes, except Kreatrix is moving them just with her hands.
Kreatrix felt drawn to the buugeng, and to the fan dancing and parasol jugging, before she even knew that they had their roots, like her, in Japan. She has learned to manipulate the parasols, spinning them and balancing them on various parts of her body to incredible effect. She is also able to juggle a ball atop the parasols, balance a teapot and cup atop a long thin pole on various parts of her body, and she can also swallow a sword. Swallow a sword. Inter-spliced in between these incredible visual feats is a beautiful story of how circus was the thing that allowed her to reconnect with her cultural and heritage, and how meaningful that is as a descendant of people who were wrongfully imprisoned and accused of being spies during World War II. Her ancestors, as all the Japanese Canadians were, were loyal citizens. Her grandparents were born here. The Japanese Canadians had built a life and community in Canada, and they had their business and their home stolen from them by the government. After surviving humiliation, degradation, racism, and squalor these families were forced to start their lives over from scratch after the end of the war- an end that left two cities in Japan devastated beyond even modern comprehension.
There’s a funny but also touching segment of the piece where we watch Kaylie struggling to learn how to properly wear a kimono, a piece of clothing that she did not grow up wearing. There is particularly excellent choice of music to accompany this bit, although the music through the piece really adds a vibrancy to the story.
This reclamation of her ancestry and the traditions of her heritage is so poignant and triumphant in the purest sense of that word. Kreatrix also tells us about the history of the paper crane being a symbol for peace, which for me connected her story of her grandparents being rounded up and sent to prison camps with the equally as innocent people who are being rounded up and sent to prison camps in the United States right now. If you are interested in learning more about the Japanese American interment camps through the lens of the current administration there I really recommend Rachel Maddow’s podcast Burn Order. The cranes of peace also, of course, connect the atrocities that happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki with those continuing to happen today.
I loved this show so much. I hope everyone gets a chance to see it. I’ve truly never seen anything like it.
TWISI Fringe Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Kimiko plays at the Neptune Theatre Scotiabank Studio Theatre (1593 Argyle Street, Halifax) just one more time- today September 6th at 8:00pm.
I stayed at the Studio Theatre at Neptune for Vincenzo Ravina’s new show Actual Wizard Tonight. As we have established on this blog before, Vincenzo Ravina is a wizard. I can report to you once again this year that he is still a wizard. Haligonians love this show because Ravina can do things that are actually impossible to do- like cut up money and then put it back together, predict the future accurately over and over again, pull objects that we have already encountered out of the middle of a clementine… it’s obvious that he is made of magic, and the magic will astound you.
The conceits of Ravina’s shows are always different and creative, and in this one Ravina is hosting a late night talk show in the middle of the chaotic fallout of a satellite disaster that has eroded the division between this dimension and the next. Most of Ravina’s shows are built around the illusion of things going awry, but this show seems to be pushing how far he can go pretending to be presiding over an absolute flop of a talk show, while haphazardly also treating the audience to the most remarkable feats of wizardry.
The crowd today at the matinee show seemed to be in cahoots, though, with the chaotic vibe that Ravina had curated for his pretend talk show because the interactions between him and the audience members were wild. At one point he asked folks to use their real phones to call a real phone number, which descended into chaos when the only people who would call at first were his friends. Then he invited four little children up on stage, one of whom began to lecture him on the attributes of the geometric constant pi. He asked them to draw cards that he couldn’t see and place them back into the deck, he then walked them through many different ways of shuffling the deck, and then through another elaborate series of random acts of chance he gave each child back a card and he asked them to tell the audience what card they drew and he, of course, returned each one to them correctly: the five of hearts, the Queen of Clovers, the A, and the Queen of Shovels. Brava. I know Ravina didn’t plant the kids, but he should consider asking if they might like to come on the road with him, as long as he’s still in possession of that money tree.
If you enjoy wonder and amazement, I will recommend an Actual Wizard show to you every time.
Actual Wizard Tonight plays at Neptune Theatre’s Scotiabank Studio Theatre (1593 Argyle Street, Halifax) at the following times: September 6th at 5:00pm, September 11th at 8:00pm, and September 12th at 5:00pm and 9:00pm.
I then pivoted to something more serious and completely different with Grace Delamere’s There’s No Anger Like That Of A Woman playing at the Neptune Theatre Windsor Studio. Eve is a sex worker and Adam has booked an hour of her time. He comes into her boudoir within a brothel and he is about the same age as she is, conventionally attractive, with a wealthy and charming air about him. Within the first five minutes of talking to him it’s clear that he’s trying to establish himself as “one of the good ones.” She is surprised that he is more interested in talking to her than having sex, and after a short time she feels comfortable and safe enough with him to lift the veil of subservience and to tell him what she really thinks about religion, systemic misogyny, and a culture held captive under capitalism. Adam oscillates between compassion and surprise by her astute intellect and informed opinions, and being defensive and dismissive. Sometimes he likes to be challenged, but other times he shows that even though he has told her more than once that he is safe and that he won’t hurt her he is more than capable of doing so.
Grace Delamere has written a really strong battle of wits between these two characters, both of whom are complex and contradictory, and the relationship too keeps moving from one that might have potential to one that Eve should cut her losses from, and back and forth again. The acting by Delamere and Liam Armstrong is excellent. You really get the sense that regardless of whether they are good together or good for one another, both Eve and Adam want to like each other, but there is much for them to judge and even despise at the same time. In both characters the actors do a great job of bringing out the nuances between this push and pull.
I think there is room for Delamere to give the audience a bit more information about why Eve has chosen to remain in this job when she has the opportunity for other employment, and a bit more of a deep dive into what has driven Adam away from the conventional dating scene. I like that they are both not the people one would expect to be in this situation; I’m just curious to know a bit more specifics about their backstories.
As the title does suggest There’s No Anger Like That Of A Woman gives the audience a lot to consider, especially in the power dynamics between the two characters, and how even at her most eloquent, opinionated and empowered, in her own space, it is so easy for Adam to completely dismiss Eve, especially because he literally owns their time together.
TWISI Fringe Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2
There’s No Anger Like That Of A Woman plays at the Neptune Theatre Windsor Studio (1593 Argyle Street, Halifax) at the following times: September 8th at 6:30pm, September 9th at 5:00pm, September 11th at 6:30pm, and September 12th at 6:30pm.
If any of you are like me, fans of Rachel Dratch and Irene Bremis’ podcast WooWoo with Rachel Dratch your show this Fringe is Lisa Krol’s Things That Go Bump, also in the Neptune Theatre Windsor Studio. This is another magic show, and the conceit of this one is that we have been invited into a seance where we are having tea with the spirits. So, in this way Krol’s magic is presented to us through the lens of this occult mystic witchyness. I don’t want to compare Krol to Vincenzo Ravina, Halifax’s Actual Wizard, as I would recommend that you go to see both shows, but what I found so striking in seeing them both on the same day is that while audience members help facilitate Ravina’s magic, there were moments during Krol’s show where I was somehow doing the magic.. I know. What? During the show we made our own pendulums, again, if any of you are WooWoo listeners, you will be very familiar with this- and yes, I made a Larry the Lobster pendji from a Dalhousie University keychain that is usually attached to my keys (yes his name is Larry), and Larry moved exactly the way he was being instructed to, and stopped moving on cue, and for a brief moment I felt like I was the actual wizard.
I don’t want to ruin too much more of what happens “in the parlour of a forgotten age;” you’ll need to see it to believe it. I also definitely don’t want to put words in Irene Bremis or Rachel Dratch’s mouths (I would never), but I will tell you that they both liked my Instagram Story about this show that I tagged them in, so don’t be a Debbie Downer, go save WooWoo With Rachel Dratch wherever you get your podcasts, and see Lisa Kohl’s show before the veil falls and all the spirits disperse again into the ether, and I stop being able to apparently manifest my heroes.
TWISI Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️ ⭐️⭐️1/2
Things That Go Bump plays at Neptune Theatre’s Windsor Studio (1593 Argyle Street, Halifax) at the following times: September 10 at 5:00pm, September 11th at 8:00pm, and September 12th at 5:00pm.
I ended my Saturday Fringe Binge in an ideal way seeing Devin Bateson’s Men Love Horsies: The Musical– a long lost sibling show to Jessie Walker’s Horse Girls from a couple Fringes ago. One of my favourite things about Canadian musical theatre is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and this silly, random little gem of a Fringe show is exactly the delightful ridiculousness that you can get when you let your imagination run like a Sable Island horse and don’t feel too precious about it.
Devin Bateson plays all the parts in this musical, and creates a whole world for us anchored by one cowboy who loves horses so much he just has to sing about them. He also wants to bring them into as close proximity to himself as possible (but not in a weird way, unless horses playing basketball is weird, in which case, okay maybe a bit weird). He dreams of a better world where horses dominate the streets, and they are involved in human’s day to day lives, and wishing appears to make it so. But, out of this slower paced community where horse lanes and bike lanes exist side by side comes an evil villain, who Bateson writes in Grinch-like terms, and who seeks to destroy all the horses and replace them with a vile environmental disaster contraption. What will happen to the horses and the men that love them? You will need to go see this rollicking madcap sing along romp to find out.
Bateson has written both heartfelt ballads and Lin Manuel Miranda style hiphop songs to bring the adventures in this story to life. There is also a parody of an old fashioned country song about grief and loss that exactly captures the absurdity of all those “I lost my baby and my truck is gone” songs that are always just asking to be made fun of. Through it all, Bateson performs with an endearing busker vibe in his interactions with the audience, and he captures a real wholesome plucky energy in his characters that reminds me a bit of the teenage boys in 90s movies like The Mighty Ducks (1992) or The Sandlot (1993). At the same time, under all the absolute frivolity Bateson has created he is also making a very astute point about toxic masculinity.
I saw this show in an absolute banger of an audience, and I hope you do too because our energy was so simpatico with Bateson’s, and it just made for the cherry on top of the sundae of a perfect Fringe Saturday.
TWISI Fringe Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Men Love Horsies: The Musical plays at Neptune Theatre’s Windsor Studio (1593 Argyle Street, Halifax) at the following times: September 6th at 8:00pm, September 9th at 8:00pm, September 10th at 6:30pm, September 11th at 9:30pm, September 12th at 8:00pm, and September 13th at 3:30pm.
Halifax Fringe runs from September 3rd to September 13th, 2026 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. Many shows have 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, but they can be helpful for productions that are touring, or seeking funding for further opportunities for development, so with that in mind I will be giving out four, four and a half, and five star ratings this Fringe.
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