{"id":57594,"date":"2026-07-10T18:06:39","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T22:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/?p=57594"},"modified":"2026-07-10T18:11:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T22:11:35","slug":"toronto-fringe-2026-part-xii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/2026\/07\/toronto-fringe-2026-part-xii\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Fringe 2026: Part XII"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Click Here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Here<\/a>\u00a0to listen to our Fringe Audio Preview.<\/p>\n

Click Here<\/a> to find our Fringe Landing Page where reviews will be posted throughout the festival.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Afeni<\/em> (B)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Afeni<\/em> is a one woman show in the truest sense – it knows where the focus is and how to keep it there. Revolutionary activist and Black Panther leader Afeni Shakur is often introduced in the stories of famous and infamous men – her generationally famous son Tupak, the comrades she married, and her alleged co-conspirators in the Panther 21 facing trumped up charges from the NYPD at its most ruthless – but she is the main and only star in this story. Onika Henry takes the stage alone on a bare set (save a single chair); there is no music and no unnecessary lighting etc to distract from the message or propel it forward. Her performance, like Shakur’s, has to take the stand itself.\u00a0 The verdict is mixed but positive. Henry is a compelling narrator who inhabits the role sincerely and convincingly; the immersion is only broken by verbal stumbles that were unusually frequent this late in a show’s run. This minimal staging, while effective, is more suited to a smaller, intimate setting – but I expect Afeni will find a bigger stage in every sense soon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Improper Identity<\/em> (B)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Being heard and being understood don’t always come together or at all; Miho Suzuki is determined to make people listen in this fun and frenetic show that draws on her attempts to get her footing in the Canadian arts scene. As enthusiastic newcomer Ai is reminded all too quickly, an accent that marks you out as different means some conversations are over before they begin. When her problems persist despite frequent interventions from her persnickety accent coach (in a strong showing by Kent Penaranda), she turns to drastic measures: an experimental Pronunciationizer that promises to erase her accent but doesn’t stop there. Quick hops between plot points and shifts in tone and medium leave some of the finer details lost in translation but Suzuki is a magnetic lead and her use of her own kamishibai<\/i> art to frame her narration gives the show a distinct aesthetic that a diverse audience audibly enjoyed (in a broad range of accents).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Andrew Silverwood: Love Thy Neighbour<\/em> (B-)<\/strong>
\nBritish stand-up Andrew Silverwood takes us on an energetic world tour that starts from the farthest reaches of the universe in the Deanne Taylor Theatre. It’s a funny, rowdy act that – as he riffs on well – is less natural for a sedate Fringe audience on a weekday afternoon in a remote black box than in your typical comedy club; for better or worse, the act makes few concessions to that.\u00a0 Silverwood moves through his world at a fast clip; there’s a good amount to laugh at but not much time for any of it to sit. He weaves the ‘plot’ together well though repetition in the setup gives the show’s rare moments of lag. His final stop at a wedding in occupied Palestine drops into an impassioned monologue on Gaza, a jarring contrast in its sincerity but not one that engages or challenges the crowd.\u00a0 Worth a look if your\u00a0Fringe travels fit it in or a trek if you enjoy his style of stand-up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cards We’re Dealt <\/em>(C+)<\/strong>
\nEach performance of Cards We’re Dealt<\/em> is unique – host Samantha Ling draws a colourful tarot card, muses on its theme, and summons one of a large roster of comedians and storytellers for a short act, repeating to fill the hour. It’s hard to judge a show that’s so inherently varied – I saw a batch of mostly solid acts on a broad range of topics from dating here to moving here to various medical ordeals. These didn’t neatly map onto the cards themselves (though Death was a helpfully literal prompt) which hints at a larger concern that the tarot theme is getting in the way of a more polished (if more generic) stand-up show. Tarot as a source of randomness or an explicit theme is intriguing but felt unrealized here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Olivia O, The Musical<\/em> (C+)<\/strong><\/p>\n

This much-hyped new musical follows Olivia Ortiz, a teen left stranded and alone in El Paso, Texas in the early days of the first Trump administration after being separated from her mother at the US-Mexico border. As she struggles to escape her abusive new foster home, her aunt Isabel and the local activist network she joins are determined to find her again before ICE does. The show and its setting are each a land of contrasts. Leads Valeria Aceves (Olivia) and Ceci Nicoli (Isabel) nail their roles and Aceves’ background as a vocal coach shines through in her musical numbers; vocally the rest of the ensemble varies in range and confidence, and the apparent lack of any amplification lets the performers down there. Dialogue flits seamlessly between English and Spanish as needed and they do well to bring this fragile border world to life but the less central characters lack clear roles; a late, rather Hamilton<\/i>ian number on women getting things done jars when few characters, male or female, help to propel the story forward. The core message here is one that many viewers will find more urgent and important than ever, and this show affirms it loudly. A tighter script and execution will ensure it delivers on other fronts too.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Patient 0: A Love Story<\/em> (C)<\/strong>
\nThis show “exposes” and “explores” complex themes! So say the promotional materials, anyway. My hopes were high after the opening scene – a wonderfully awkward proposal over a romantic Parisian dinner brutally interrupted by their murderous waiter – but what we get after that is hard to capture even in rote review plot summary form. Killer brothers Billy and Tommy (Malik Suliman and Seth Guillemette) bicker with each other and the enigmatic Writer (Chris Maclean), who seems like just a gormless barista at times but slowly unravels as something much weirder and darker. The promising psychological thriller vibe is undercut by the overall lack of direction; the constant violence starts to feel like an annoying distraction from our attempts to figure out what the hell is happening rather than shoving the plot forward. The sheer volume doesn’t help – I sat near the back and still felt Maclean was screaming right into my ears (for reasons I wish I understood more). I’d like to see this cast and this premise with a more careful execution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click Here\u00a0and\u00a0Here\u00a0to listen to our Fringe Audio Preview. Click Here to find our Fringe Landing Page where reviews will be posted throughout the festival.   Afeni (B) Afeni is a one woman show in the truest sense – it knows where the focus is and how to keep it there. Revolutionary activist and Black Panther […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"featured_media":57596,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Our final reviews of the 2026 Toronto Fringe Festival (this group all written by Dom)","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[13,114,17,19,511,6,1012,365,2458,2320],"coauthors":[2105],"class_list":["post-57594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theatre","tag-festivals","tag-fringe","tag-musical-theatre","tag-new-works","tag-one-acts","tag-reviews","tag-solo-shows","tag-theatre-reviews","tag-toronto-fringe-festival","tag-toronto-theatre-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/images-scaled.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":57435,"url":"https:\/\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/2026\/06\/toronto-fringe-2026\/","url_meta":{"origin":57594,"position":0},"title":"Toronto Fringe, 2026","author":"MyEntWorld Staff","date":"30 June 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Welcome to our landing page for the 2026 Toronto Fringe Festival. \u00a0 Below are links to all of our reviews from this year's festival, written by Kelly Bedard, Lisa McKeown, and Dom Harvey. \u00a0 Click HERE and HERE to listen to our preview podcast featuring show pitches from the artists\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Featured"","block_context":{"text":"Featured","link":"https:\/\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/featured\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/25-1-scaled.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/25-1-scaled.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/25-1-scaled.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/25-1-scaled.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":57530,"url":"https:\/\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/2026\/07\/toronto-fringe-must-see-little-one\/","url_meta":{"origin":57594,"position":1},"title":"Toronto Fringe Must-See: Little One","author":"Kelly Bedard","date":"05 July 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Click Here\u00a0and\u00a0Here\u00a0to listen to our Fringe Audio Preview. 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Click Here\u00a0to find our Fringe Landing Page where reviews will be posted throughout the festival. \u00a0 Cusp (A) This Uncle Vanya resetting sees a group of young adults gathered at a family cottage to celebrate the birthday of their glue character Sophie\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Theatre"","block_context":{"text":"Theatre","link":"https:\/\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/theatre\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/04-02-2026-171647-3757-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/04-02-2026-171647-3757-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/04-02-2026-171647-3757-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/04-02-2026-171647-3757-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":57433,"url":"https:\/\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/2026\/06\/2026-toronto-fringe-preview-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":57594,"position":3},"title":"2026 Toronto Fringe Preview, Part 1","author":"MyEntWorld Staff","date":"22 June 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"The Toronto Fringe Festival runs June 30-July 12 at locations throughout the city. \u00a0 We\u2019ll be on site reviewing as much as we possibly can, so be sure to bookmark our Fringe Homepage\u00a0to read all our reviews as they\u2019re published. \u00a0 In the meantime, we asked the artists to send\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Featured"","block_context":{"text":"Featured","link":"https:\/\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/featured\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Fringe-Preview-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Fringe-Preview-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Fringe-Preview-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Fringe-Preview-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":57541,"url":"https:\/\/www.myentertainmentworld.ca\/2026\/07\/toronto-fringe-2026-part-vi\/","url_meta":{"origin":57594,"position":4},"title":"Toronto Fringe 2026: Part VI","author":"Lisa McKeown","date":"06 July 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Click Here\u00a0and\u00a0Here\u00a0to listen to our Fringe Audio Preview. 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