Juliet: A Revenge Comedy is selling out it’s first ever run!
The world premiere of Juliet: A Revenge Comedy has gone better than we ever could have hoped. It’s like we will completely sell out the entire run at the historic Kings Head Pub, the heart of the Winnipeg Fringe Festival.
Our next stop is the Edmonton Fringe, so if you know anyone in Edmonton, tell them to get their tickets, and fast! Here are some of the reviews we’ve gotten.
★★★★★ STARS -CBC
Ryan Gladstone’s Monster Theatre is money in the bank.
In this brand new show, written by Gladstone and Pippa Mackie, Juliet joins a bevy Shakespeare’s Suicide Girls as they try to gain agency over their lives outside of the Bard’s sharp and sexist quill.
Mackie, alongside Carly Pokoradi, channel the child Juliet and a fearsome Lady Macbeth along with Ophelia, Cleopatra and more. Gladstone plays a suitably foppish William of Stratford to a merry band of feminists in this time-shifting, mind-bending comedic confection.
It’s cerebral without ever being inaccessible. It’s comfortably cool in the handy, food-purveying King’s Head Pub venue, so you’d be daft, or slow to buy, to miss out on this sure-to-sell-out gem.
★★★★1/2
-Winnipeg Free Press
A raucous pub environment is the perfect venue for the latest hilarious offering from Vancouver’s Monster Theatre after many fringe hits in previous years.
The arc of Shakespeare’s titular character from Romeo and Juliet, played by co-writer Pippa Mackie, is followed through to the end of her play, before a quick rewind prevents her from killing herself. Instead, she meanders through some of the Bard’s other plays in an attempt to liberate these women.
Juliet finds herself befriending characters such as Lady Macbeth, Ophelia, Cleopatra and Miranda, all played brilliantly by Carly Pokoradi. Together they end up confronting Shakespeare, played by co-writer Ryan Gladstone, before Juliet rewrites the Bard’s endings so the women live (mostly) happily ever after.
The interactions between Pokoradi and Mackie veer between classic Shakespeare and saucy modern-day dialogue, keeping audiences in stitches from beginning to end of the 60-minute production. The taut writing, sparse props and sound effects are bolstered by fantastic performances, which serve to ratchet up the laughs from start to finish.