Gabriel Munro

This review is pointless; the show's run is over. But, then, a skeptic conducting a seance is kind of pointless, too. Sometimes the most meaningful things you can do have no good rationale.

Few shows have ever made me laugh as hard as this one. There are gold-medal lines that will probably haunt the back of my mind like a ghost for some time, all delivered with a kind of over-the-top showmanship that cracks a little around the seams. The show, of course, can't be taken seriously. The good doctor/medium instructs audience members in appropriate reactions to questions, fakes his way around botched reveals, and the spectacle is haunted by a distinct lack of any ghosts whatsoever. Some things get goopy, but never spooky - and everything has a kind of wink-wink quality to it.

Except, that is, for an underlying vulnerability that borders on desperation. The game of the show is that you have to keep playing along as if none of it means anything, even though, increasingly, it becomes clear that it does mean something to the medium. Or, rather, it means something that it should mean something. Is that getting murky? Are the lights dimming?

The Importance of Being Haunted is sweet, poignant, hilarious. It's so fun that you might not even notice how good the performance is, or how the show is so well crafted that never a moment drags or dims. Maybe the best craft, after all, is invisible. Maybe it's in the room with us right now.

Finally, finally, finally, some AAA-grade grass-fed non-GMO free-range whimsy.

This show is plenty meaningful, and its writer trusts you to be clever enough to figure that out - an instinct, which, marvellously, frees the script up to explore its real magic: the delight of imagination.

Playwright/Performer/Archivist of Secret Worlds Megan Markham guides you through a gallery of her glittering visions: eternal libraries, glass witches, and questing clockmakers make for a rich universe or two.

There’s just a sprinkling of self-awareness, but never enough to spoil the effect. Markham knows what she’s doing, and she neither skimps with her potions nor lays them on too thick. It’s fun. It’s beautiful. It’s important. It’s the only bedtime story that might wake you up - to a world of glass feet, treacherous books, and skirts that are still, centuries later, on fire.

You might not believe in witches, but magic is real and it’s on stage at Roots on White

Our relationship with death is our relationship with truth. In this ambitious two-hander, Zoe works tirelessly to repackage mortality. You'll hear snappy taglines, meaningless ad-speak, and saccharine sentimentality - all designed to make the horrible palatable by disappearing it entirely. But is there enough chocolate in the world to make the pill of death go down smoothly?

At her side, the reasonable foil to her charming avoidance, is her husband Steve, played with ease by Devon Sands. His death is both the beginning and end of the story, and his presence offers a meaningful calm to the unfolding calamity. Sands uses his comedic chops to voice BOB, the Siri-like AI that has all the information and none of the answers. The writing of the trio is clever: Zoe is the breaking heart, BOB is the helpless brain, and Steve is the mortality that neither one can solve.

Kristy Woollam plays Zoe with heart and humour, and her endearing performance is the central pillar of the production. After all, the story of death is the story of life, and the story of life is, ultimately, a love story. The sincerity and affection at the heart of this play is what makes it all work.

In my mind, the script could benefit by clarifying what, precisely, Zoe's business does to a corpse. The slogans are clever, but they somewhat shroud the particulars of the biz.

The play is quite generously peppered with funny lines and sly jokes - though the vulnerability of the performances might keep you from laughing too loudly. The script remains true to its cause; it doesn't offer you an easy out. No slogan, no revelation, no artistic cop-out arrives to offer consolation. It will also spare you fruitless discussions about the plausibility of an afterlife; that's not the point. The point is the body on the table.

A Curated Exit is a smart, witty play with no small serving of artistic gumption. It's touching. It's a little rough around the edges. It's worth seeing.

To start with, it's beautifully written. I could smell the cool lake, I could feel the Acton winter, I could see the stars light up a tragic night sky. The show's creator, Kristi Boulton, is a leading light in Ontario's improv scene, and, while her off-the-cuff talents are exceptional, this script has the mark of care and consideration. The words are the right words, the jokes always land, the story is deftly crafted.

The true story at the heart of this play is a head-scratcher, to say the least. It certainly pulls you in - I don't think anyone could hear the beginning to this tale and not need to hear the end. If I were writing it, I would have likely turned it into a heavy-handed feminist horror movie. Instead, Kristi has woven her story into an optimistic exploration of love - all the ways it can be expressed, and all the ways it can't. It's touching, hilarious, suspenseful, and wise.

Go see it. Who knows? You might be the one person who can solve the mystery of The Underwear Fairy.