Make sure that you go see Terrible Fish at Halifax Fringe. I loved this show so much. Caitlin Murphy is reflecting on aging specifically as a woman, specifically as a straight single woman who is going through menopause just as her two sons are on the cusp of puberty.
Caitlin Murphy’s sense of humour is so wry, unexpected, and intelligent. She reminds me a lot of stand up comedian Tig Notaro both in her dry delivery and also in her ability to lead the audience in one direction, and then to cleverly switch to something surprising. The show incorporates poetry, comedy, storytelling, and music- Murphy plays both the keyboard and the banjo as she contends with all the ways that women over forty become more and more invisible in the world as they age. The title of the show comes from a Sylvia Plath poem, where the fish is the reflection in the mirror that is terrifying when the young lady suddenly morphs into the old crone, and she has, as far as our culture is usually concerned, completely dried up.
Are there any advantages to this experience, asks Murphy? Is this just something all woman are forced to contend with as they transition into their clunky jewelry and funky glasses era, or is the patriarchal experience so entrenched in our society and all of us that there is nothing we can do to make the world more fair- do we simply have to make the best of it? Murphy doesn’t offer us the magic answer, but she has certainly found a way to put this experience centre stage, to refuse to be pushed off the stage in lieu of someone younger and less experienced, and in standing there alone on stage, with everyone’s eyes politely on her, she’s not letting the Fringe nor the Canadian Theatre ignore her, and we in the audience are all the better for seeing her for all of the talented, knowledgable, funny and resilient woman that she is.
TWIIS Fringe Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Terrible Fish directed by Bryan Doubt plays at DanSpace (1800 Argyle Street, Halifax) at the following times: September 12th at 9:30pm, and September 13th at 3:30pm. It will also play in St. John’s, Newfound and Labrador on September 16th and 17th, 2026.
I then went to Wonder’neath Art Society to see Ocean Kin: A Shadow Show, which is closed as part of the Fringe. It is a very unique Fringe show, featuring poetry, and very elaborate shadow puppetry made with plexiglass, 3D sculptural props, and an overhead projector to create a world that is similar to our own- we see beautifully vivid scenes of shorelines and rocks and the moon, and the ocean, but it is also not quite our own- there are different kinds of creatures, and the otters don’t have faces like you might expect them to. There is a sparse voice over narration and very calm music, which gives the whole piece a very slow and meditative feeling. A lot in this piece is left up to the audience’s interpretation, but I found that sometimes the otters were able to express clear and heartbreaking emotions as they were looking to fill an empty space inside of themselves on a shoreline filled with rocks, but they were perpetually looking for one that was the right shape, and strong emotions could even shatter the rocks. There were also really neat visual effects- at one point the balls of stars that filled the screen looked like they were drawn on a single piece of paper and laid flat on the projector, but then they were able to be removed one by one, and they looked three dimensional.
This show reminded me of something that you might see during Nocturne- more of a communal experience for folks to take part in, and if I didn’t have to dash from the studio I would have loved to have stayed behind and chatted with others about how they experienced the piece. It’s wonderful to have a show like this in the Fringe Festival because it really gives audiences something completely different from all the other programming, and something that is a completely different pace and a much more visual medium.
The piece was created by Jeighk Koyote, Laura Stinson, Leah Gooyers, and Ian McFarlane, and they all did a beautiful job with it.
TWISI Fringe Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ⭐️1/2
Ocean Kin: A Shadow Show has closed at Halifax Fringe.
Make sure that you go see Iago Vs. Hamlet at Halifax Fringe before it closes later this weekend.
What would happen if Iago, the scheming villain from William Shakespeare’s Othello met Hamlet, the depressed over thinker from the play that bears his name? Jayson McDonald has imagined that a double booked rehearsal hall has collided these two famous characters along with their worlds, and Iago, always looking for a way to climb up any ladder not intended for him, sets to work right away at figuring out how he can manipulate Hamlet in ways that will most benefit him. Hamlet, perhaps surprisingly, is no slouch either, and secretly has his eye on his new friend, trying to figure out what his angle is, and how he needs to guard against being duped.
McDonald’s writing is really fun. It mixes Shakespearean language with moments of contemporary speak, and switches between verse and prose, adding in a few real blocks of text from both Othello and Hamlet. My favourite was when Iago would start speaking Hamlet’s own lines, as Iago realizes that it may be easier to get Hamlet to off himself than to find a way for him to successfully kill Claudius, and together they banter Hamlet’s To Be Or Not To Be speech back and forth while musing over it.
Jon Paterson, who has big Daniel MacIvor energy, plays Iago with a flattering, affable charm at first that shows us exactly how he’s been able to cozy up to Othello for all these years. Then, especially in his addresses directly toward the audience, we understand that he has a deep and dark loathing of anyone who he sees as being more successful than him, and he lives in the constant victimhood that he is always being overlooked, and never being appreciated, and that the only way he will be able to reach the heights that he knows he is capable of is to commit dark deeds to force fate’s hand. While Paterson’s Iago is grounded very much in who this man is, both in Shakespeare’s time and in any time, Rod Peter Jr.’s Hamlet pokes a bit more fun at the famous Dane and his penchant for ruminating, making plans that he may not be able to execute smoothly (without killing his girlfriend’s dad or something), and that his genuine grief and disgust at his situation often is a stumbling block that makes him less effective as a killer than Iago, who is probably a psychopath. The effect of this is that McDonald is able to push both these characters to the absolute limit for sport and for kicks, and the audience’s empathy for Hamlet isn’t going to get in the way of their enjoyment.
This play is very funny and clever, and just the kind of Shakespeare mashup that I love to see at a Fringe Festival. I love plays where well known characters from different worlds meet so this one was right up my alley. The ending is pure silly chaos, so the humour really does run the gamut between the very literary and the delightfully ridiculous. “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”
TWISI FRINGE RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
RibbitRePublic Theatre’s Iago Vs. Hamlet plays at the Neptune Theatre Studio Theatre (1593 Argyle Street, Halifax) at the following times: September 12th at 3:30pm and 8:00pm, and September 13th at 12:30pm and 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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