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One Too Many is a two-person play rife with symbolism and inner reflection. It challenges the way we look at excessive alcohol consumption and questions our behaviour once we’ve had one too many drinks. Based on their life and experiences, Evan and Calla confront their own complicated relationships with alcohol and explore their varying alcohol dependencies with the audience. It is a must-see if you want to better understand the struggle of substance abusers.

Having been lucky enough to discuss the play with the artists, I can provide some insight into their thought process, their vision and their message (ATTENTION: spoilers ahead!).

The play is structured in four parts, and is based around the four stages of dependency and the four stages of inebriation. Between each section, we hear of the next stage of inebriation along with a scientific explanation about what physical state the performers are experiencing. Following these explanations, the performers enact scenes representative of their own alcohol dependency and their friendship that has remained strong throughout.

In part one, they each build what they call “memory towers” out of the classic red and blue plastic cups traditionally used for beer pong. Each cup is adorned with a memory of something they have shared or endured together during the course of their friendship and every time a tower is knocked down, the tower-toppler must take a shot of gin while the other rebuilds it. This rule continues through the show, allowing them to actively choose to drink over preserving their own memories.

Part two was a fun game of Pictionary! Three rounds were played with the audience where, if the drawing was not guessed correctly, the artist would be required to take a shot. This power-play with the audience highlighted the concept that social drinking can sometimes put the number of drinks one has into the hands of someone other than yourself and was masterfully paired with the concept that failure is inevitable after enough drinks.

The two interludes that accompanied part two evolved from puns. Evan had to literally hold his liquor as he balanced partially filled plastic cups on his out-stretched arms and head. It was an elegant demonstration of having to function normally while carrying the burden that too many drinks can bring. On a similar concept, Calla performed a literal interpretation of cotton mouth by placing gin-soaked cotton balls in her mouth while reciting a monologue. This continued as long as she could tolerate it and ended with her throwing them up into a bucket. The lack of subtly made this part particularly poignant. Drinking until one vomits is not uncommon, but seeing it displayed like this drives home the fact that drinking to that point is self-inflicted.

Part three became more violent and harsh. It was built on the recklessness of drinking to excess and the carelessness with which people handle their own health. Eggs representing the fragility of common sense were gruesomely filled with fragments of what looked like human brains and carelessly tossed back and forth. Once the first one was dropped and smashed to pieces, the rest were ruthlessly given as a sacrifice to the domination of alcohol dependency.

The final part was an enactment of the vicious circle that is the dependency of alcohol. They stripped naked, hiding nothing from the oppressiveness of their alcoholism, and bathed in its nectar. This act of cleansing, this statement of starting over, was negated by the contamination of their purifying agent. It was a compelling way of saying that the road to freedom is so often paved with what you are trying to escape.

Cabaret Abnormal is a mysterious showcase of Montreal’s sexiest burlesque and circus performers! Organized by Viva Diverse Productions, Cabaret Abnormal stars director and dark beauty Mikki Michelle, the madly alluring Magenta Haze, and the dangerously beautiful Tristan Ginger! With live jazz music by Elias Halwaji and The Continentals, Cabaret Abnormal quite literally steps out of the box to give you a give you a night of kooky, sexy fun!

Mikki Michelle, Magenta Haze, Tristan Ginger and special guest Natasha Nebula completely captivated the audience at The Wiggle Room. Every performance was more dangerous than the next, with Natasha bringing out a live snake for her show-stopping cameo! Natasha was gorgeous and courageous and had the entire audience at the edge of their seats during her snake dance.

Elias Halwaji was a talented singer and hilarious host, handling hecklers and maintaining the show’s smooth, sultry atmosphere between performances. Elias and The Continentals did an outstanding cover of Under Pressure as well as some of their own original songs. The Continentals were amusing and a pleasure to watch!

The mysterious and charming Mikki Michelle had amazing chemistry with her fellow artists. You could really see how much all of her performers adored and trusted her during each delightfully risky act! Mikki was a great hostess and it was wonderful to be able to see her legendary cabaret!

Magenta Haze was a bloody mess in the best way possible and had the cutest performances in the cabaret! It was so much fun to watch Magenta interact with audience members and gracefully dance around The Wiggle Room! Magenta looked innocent and saintly in her iconic blue veil.

And Tristan Ginger performed beautifully and gracefully, as always! Tristan always wears elegantly and wildly creative costumes for his performances. It was also deeply inspiring to watch Tristan challenge cultural and societal norms to create enchanting, breathtaking burlesque!

Cabaret Abnormal is an incredible showcase of Montreal’s best performers! Check it out from June 2nd to 17th at The Wiggle Room located at 3874 Blvd. St. Laurent, Montreal!

Patricia Petit Liang is part of CJLO’s Official Fringe Team covering the sights and sounds from the 2017 St-Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival. She also hosts Fatal Attraction every Thursday from 12pm – 1pm, only on 1690AM in Montreal and online at CJLO.com.

Lately, I’ve been waking up to feelings of helplessness and nihilism as my clock radio reminds me that I’m living in the age of Trump. I try to calm myself down by turning to the comedic monologues of late night talk shows, but the jokes have become repetitive. It makes me yearn for something with more substance, with more of a human touch. I need something that can stand the test of time, not just dabble in week-to-week politics.

This is why I believe local comedian Karl Knox chose to direct Eric Bogosian’s Pounding Nails In the Floor With My Forehead for this year’s Montreal Fringe Festival. Knox dug into the past and pulled out a script written in 1994 as a way of commenting on the current state of America, much like how Arthur Miller used the Salem witch trials in response to McCarthyism.

Pounding Nails is a collection of soliloquies delivered by a colourful cast of characters, some more relatable than others. Each character has felt bogged down by social norms to the point where they can no longer remain silent. Some seek comfort in support groups or grocery shopping, while others foam at the mouth with rage or fall to their knees cursing the very ground they walk on.

Knox opens the show with a nightmarish rant as a right-wing radio host; a role he slips into comfortably, being the real life host of CJLO’s Your Media Sucks! Knox returns to the stage later on as a middle-class optimist, staring pensively at his half-full pint of beer.

A standout performance was done by Dan Derkson as the Vietnam veteran-turned-drug dealer, Red. Derkson shares stories of wilder, simpler times, punctuated with maniacal laughter. But behind his bug-eyed enthusiasm are subtle hints of loneliness.

There was the noticeable absence of comedian Rodney Ramsey, one of the many reasons why I was drawn to this production. But his role as a “recovering male” was taken over by Ladies and Gentlemen co-host Daniel Carin, who brought a sense vulnerability and sheepishness to the character.

Throughout, the modestly-sized audience was either roaring with riotous laughter or dead silent, giving gravity to the ideas presented to them.

Between scenes, burlesque performer Shauna Feldman (or you might know her alter-ego, Elle Diabloe) sensually changed title cards and was complimented with hoots and whistles from the audience. Feldman closed the show by repeatedly telling society to “Blow me” in a monologue originally intended for a male actor. Despite this show of gender inclusion, my date felt that the production was still very “male-centric,” considering the emphasis on ejaculation in more than one monologue. This is a detail that couldn’t be helped since the script needed to be kept in its original form. Consequently, many out-of-date pop culture references flew over my head, since I was only a toddler at the time Bogosian wrote the play. Nevertheless, I still believe in the importance of thought-provoking theatre, especially today. If you’re looking for a remedy for your modern age blues, I recommend you head to the Wiggle Room to catch the final performances of Pounding Nails. 

Jazz music, incessant cigarette smoking, murder—this piece of detective fiction has it all! Everything that comes to mind from a murder mystery set in the 20s, right down to the pinstriped suites and showgirls, The Detective, The Dame and The Devil has it. What it also has in addition to your standard detective story staples are lame puns, cheap gags, and running jokes that give the whole show fantastic continuity. It was perfect. Small details revealed at the beginning of the show were easy to pass off as mere silliness, but so often they would tie into the plot in unexpected and incredibly silly ways, making the whole show completely hilarious and impressively well thought out. Throw in some plot twists and we have a winner!

The story itself is fairly simple, not very complex. There’s not actually a lot of mystery to the murder, no following the footsteps of an autistic genius detective and his ex-military companion as they scour for clues with inhuman powers of observation. Instead, the story is laid out plainly in front of us with clear, easy-to-follow details, until an unexpected plot twist elevates the intrigue of the play to the same level as its comedic mastery. We are then taken through the story again, this time walking through the shoes of another character.

This is where the brilliance of the play really begins to shine. We’re shown the same 12-odd hours from the point of view of the 3 characters in turn; first the detective, then the dame, and finally the devil. Each time we watch the same day unfold before us, the characters that we just got to know change, sometimes becoming themselves through their own eyes, sometimes transforming into the people that one of the other two see them as. The variations these characters evolve through are staggering. Even as each character is re-revealed, the attention to detail in their costumes is just as impressive as the changes in their personality. Small things like the length of a neck-tie or a glittery handbag are like rings on a pond—extending further and more subtly than is easily perceived.

The costumes weren’t the only details that exuded mastery in the performance—the set itself was a work of brilliance. There were three places that we saw on stage: the detective’s office, a jazz club, and a warehouse. Each time we saw the same scenes played out from different perspectives, the orientation of the set changed to match the change in perspective based on which character was narrating. It really helped to illustrate what is possibly the underlying message of the play: a thought-provoking commentary on seeing the world from perspectives other than your own. Either that, or it was a chance to make as many jokes as possible in an hour. Regardless, it was an undeniably brilliant work of comedy, mystery, satire and silliness and it is well worth adding to your list of shows to see this year.