Victoria Fringe Festival 2024 review: Jewish-ish earnest perspective on religion and identity in need of a rebalanceJewish-ish is a performance piece by Canadian violinist Laura Nerenberg that combines storytelling with violin playing. Nerenberg describes what it’s been like for her living half a century as a secular Jew in Catholic Montreal. The crux of Jewish-ish—part of this year’s Fringe Fest, with one last performance at 7 pm on Saturday, August 31—is […] Continue Reading |
Victoria Fringe Festival 2024 review: Castle of Glass a shining exemplification of raw, independent theatreWhen I first walked into the Metro Studio to see the Fringe production Castle of Glass, I immediately sensed something was different from the status quo. Usually, before theatre shows, the audience is greeted with the eerie silence of an empty stage, or the sounds of pre-recorded music piped in over the speakers. Instead, a […] Continue Reading |
Victoria Fringe Festival 2024 review: Illusionary Magic of Sitruc James wholesome fun by a talented illusionistThe Illusionary Magic of Sitruc James is a fun venture into sleight-of-hand magic, presented by the Victoria Fringe Festival. This light-hearted show boasts a wide variety of tricks: some we’ve probably seen before, others that seem completely inexplicable. Sitruc James, a comedian with a wry wit, has been practicing magic for over 30 years, since […] Continue Reading |
Victoria Fringe Festival 2024 review: Welcome to Croglin dramatic comedy entirely devoid of both drama and comedyWelcome to Croglin is a short play produced by Victoria theatre company Outpost 31 and presented through the Fringe Festival. Written by David Elendune, it tells of a struggling playwright who falls asleep and dreams that the ghost of Katharine Hepburn visits him to “right his wrongs,” according to the production’s description. While I’m not […] Continue Reading |
Reflections art exhibit catalyzes contemplationThe meditative and moody ocean is a subject of mystery and wonder—a vast expanse of seemingly endless and infinitely captivating movement, made up of the main ingredient of life. Local artist Judy McLaren is deeply interested in the ocean and its natural features, and the reflective qualities of these bodies of water, and it’s all […] Continue Reading |
Channel Surfing in the Sea of Happiness gets launched at long lastLocal writer and former fashion columnist Guy Babineau launched his debut book of short stories on Wednesday, July 3, just in time for Victoria’s pride season. The book, Channel Surfing in the Sea of Happiness, collects material from Babineau’s life as a young gay man, and builds those experiences into a series of fictional vignettes […] Continue Reading |
Past the End of the Road series of unmemorable nostalgic reflectionsPast the End of the Road: A North Island Boyhood is a new autobiography by Canadian septuagenarian Michel Drouin. Growing up in Port Hardy in the 1960s was clearly a whole different way of life than nearly anybody reading this newspaper is likely to have any inkling of. At the time, the immediate world consisted […] Continue Reading |
Camosun student puts on third annual music festCamosun student Sierra Nicholson is doing something that most students would consider impossible to pull off—and she’s doing it for the third summer in a row. Nicholson, a first-year Arts and Science Studies student, is the festival director for Sick Day Festival, a multi-genre music festival she created featuring artists from across BC. The idea […] Continue Reading |
New multi-tiered festival comes to Government HouseArtisTREE is a new festival coming to Government House, and it could really go one of three ways. According to ArtisTREE music curator Mike Roma, fest producers Market Collective are marketing it as three separate events. “They wanted to market ArtisTREE as just music if you just wanted it to be; ArtisTREE is just vendors […] Continue Reading |
Present Laughter a delightfully dramatic farcePresent Laughter is a stage play written by Noël Coward in 1939, following the life and antics of actor Garry Essendine and his closest friends and enemies. Produced by the Langham Court Theatre under director Don Keith, the original script is presented completely faithfully, and the strength of the writing is evident in the immense […] Continue Reading |
