The Honeymoon Period is Officially Over
Michelle Palansky | for CBC News | Posted: July 22, 2017 2:29 PM | Last Updated: July 22, 2017
The devil is in the details and Gemma Wilcox’s stagecraft is devilishly fine
Rating: ★★★★
Company: Gemma Wilcox
Genre: Play-Comedy
Venue: 21 — MTYP Mainstage
Gemma Wilcox is Fringe. With only slight hyperbole, if we were to establish a modern pantheon for the arts, then we should strike the Fringe theatre god's likeness in the image of Gemma Wilcox. She's that damned good.
The story is simplicity itself. Sondra and Michael get engaged. They marry. They drift apart.
If we were to establish a modern pantheon for the Arts, then we should strike the Fringe theatre god's likeness in the image of Gemma Wilcox. She's that damned good. - Michelle Palansky
So what's all the fuss about? The devil is in the details and Wilcox's stagecraft is devilishly fine. She switches seamlessly and convincingly between dozens of characters, without a single costume change.
The stage fills with the sights and sounds of a country farm, a squalid tenement, a town flat, but the stage remains completely bare aside from one solitary chair.
The only imperfection in an otherwise fully realized piece was the palpable energy drop in the final minutes of the show. Audience enthusiasm waned and the ending was anticlimactic.
Screw perfection; this is a bloody great show.