This is a Recording

Ottawa Fringe Festival

By Patrick Langston

Ottawa performers Kelly Rigole and Simon Bradshaw lend their considerable acting chops to the words of other, real-life people in this show, which almost immediately became one of the most-buzzed-about events of this year’s fringe. Using verbatim theatre techniques, the duo recorded anonymous people talking unguardedly about subjects important to them – why one would like to be the superhero the Green Lantern, the terminal illness of another person’s father, how an adolescent girl and her friends encountered a cartoon character in a suburban Ottawa forest. The effect is mesmerizing as Rigole and Bradshaw present monologues that are at once banal and significant, which, if you think about it, pretty much describes what you and I utter every day of our lives – and don’t we all consider our own words important? At Alumni Auditorium until June 27.