Reviews to help you through the hit-or-miss loveliness that is the Calgary Fringe Festival

Some Reckless Abandon

Posted by Kathleen Renne in Fast Forward Fringe Blog

Some Reckless Abandon, Alexandra Centre, Saturday, 7:00

Some Reckless Abandon is certainly among the best shows I've seen at the Fringe thus far.  It's polished, and it's professional.

My only beef with the play is that evangelical Christians are an easy target for ridicule, and this play doesn't deviate from the stereotypes. 

The one-woman show tells the story of an 18-year-old who is so desperate to leave her small Alberta hometown in search of adventure, that she signs up for a "teenage Jesus camp" in Honduras.  Her plan is to have her "cowboy" boyfriend come "rescue" her from the camp.  She has no interest in discovering Jesus and trying to "save" the local Honduran population by convincing them to become born-again Christians. However, a series of twists and turns brings her to her own point of self-discovery.  

Cara Yeates executes the part of the teen girl very convincingly, and playwright Leah Bailly's prose is stellar.  That's actually what stood out most for me in this production — the excellent, descriptive writing full of similes and visuals.  As long as you listen, you actually believe you are seeing the sights and sounds of the streets of Honduras.

-Kathleen Renne


more in Theatre     |     posted Aug 2nd, 2009 at 11:29pm     


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