Edmonton Journal
August 17, 2012
But in addition to the diverse forms of girl badness invoked here -- murder, revenge, trash talk, sluttiness, burlesque -- a few others are getting a work-out inadvertently in Robert J. McLaughlin's production. Mugging, shrill one-note acting, prolonged bouts of excruciating comical Irish accents, unfocussed intensity, are among the offences on display. Some scenes are (way) more entertaining than others. Under the circumstances, the comic muse fares best.
You're entitled to approach with dread, in light of the opener Traces of Memory, a dogged Ann Wuehler sketch about two women, strangers, hitchhiking in the Nevada desert. One (Kearstin Plemel) is young and snarly, and snaps "Fine! Whatever!" sarcastically a lot. The other (Wendy Froberg) is older, chattier, and more confessional. OK, what dark secrets have brought them here? "We both want to stay here for different reasons," explains the older woman helpfully. "We've got this stretch of nowhere to get lost in." Couldn't agree with her more.
Phrases like "the ritual evisceration of the beloved object" follow, courtesy of Don Nigro's portentous and overwritten The Dead Wife, in which a woman is visited by the ghost of her intended's ex-wife on the eve of her wedding. "Love is the most exquisite form of cannibalism." Yikes. No wonder the actors look stultified.
Of the comic pieces, Jeff Goode's F***!* Satan and Shel Silverstein's Buy One, Get One Free. In the former we meet an exasperated hottie (Allisha Pelletier) who knows, from experience, that hot sex with the Devil isn't everything it's cracked up to be. The latter is an informercial, in rhyming doggerel, infomercial by two enterprising red-light ladies (Plemel and Pelletier). Otherwise, these bad girls need to be either better, or a whole lot worse.
- as seen at the Calgary Fringe.