Tara’s Review's - FringeMTL 2026
DIRECTUS
I’m two cocktails deep and physically restraining myself from texting my blocked situationship when I arrive at Café Campus. I have not set foot in Café Campus since I fell down their stairs during Fringe 2022. It’s worth noting that Café Campus is wildly inaccessible if you are physically disabled, or if you get clumsy when you’re very hungry.
Inside the venue, I began the process of choosing a seat. I generally like to sit as close to the stage as possible — until the training meeting for this very Fringe festival, when my creative director said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world: as long as you’re not sitting right next to the stage, you’re fine.
There was a trill of knowing giggles among the team as everyone delighted in their mutual knowledge of what was clearly, to all of them, the most obvious piece of theatre critic advice in the history of the universe. My eyes wide, I scribbled stop sitting right next to the stage in my notebook as discretely as possible. You really do learn something new every day.
Not right next to the stage, I put my purse down next to me, and it immediately falls off the chair. My laptop, a metal gua sha, and three tampons fall out of it, and the tampons begin rolling towards the men seated immediately behind me. As I scramble to pick them up, I think about how in addition to not freaking the actors out, sitting near the back also allows me time to minimize the number of people who can see tampons fall out of my purse. Fringe has been a very educational experience for me.
I am at Cafe Campus, learning things, to see DIRECTUS, a production of It’s Not Television. The show is a showcase of four completely original ten-minute plays. DIRECTUS is creative directed and curated by Eve Dinary, and performed by actors Ryan Litvak and Emily Bartlett.
James West’s Afters
Afters is a monologue about a young man who, not too unlike my blocked situationship, can’t figure out how to be good enough to his partner before he ruins everything. The set is sparse: a single potted plant hangs behind Litvak throughout. He is resentful and hostile in spite of his efforts not to be. His partner does not deserve this, which only seems to make him more resentful. We watch as he dissects the series of commonplace hostilities from which he learned to be the way that he is.
I thought that the opening few seconds of this sounded a bit canned, like Litvak was still in the process of waking the character up. There was also a part in the middle about an uncle which, in spite of being load-bearing plot-wise, also dragged to the point of my mind wandering (to blocked situationship. Thank you for asking.) As Litvak warmed up, I connected very deeply with this physically harmless but emotionally pointy protagonist. This play was my favourite on the level of writing.
Bartlett arrives only briefly at the very end of Afters, but she made an impression, as did her dope haircut. Dang. I miss having short hair in the summer.
Madeline Savoie’s Elevator Piece
The set changes quickly. Hanging where the single potted plant once was is, instead, a set of elevator buttons. Litvak and Bartlett play two people who, on their way home on a Friday evening, find themselves stuck in this elevator due to a mechanical failure, and have to work together to escape.
Bartlett's character is animated and neurotic in a way that sets off Litvaks’s charming deadpan, which gives the understated nature of his delivery a container in which it can truly register to me. This makes me understand the subtlety he’s playing with, his remarkable depth as a performer. Bartlett is clearly the kind of actor that knows how to mirror and amplify other performers, and I am absolutely delighted by the banter between the two — their echoing strangeness, way they annoy each other while also looking out for each other, the way I can see both characters try very hard not to be mean even as they lose their cool. It all strikes me as very Canadian. This was my favourite piece for the dynamic between the two actors. I liked it so much I only thought about my blocked situationship right at the beginning, while armchair diagnosing Bartlett’s character with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Sarah Larmony’s Captain Norahye
In Captain Norahye, which featured a hanging lantern and a trunk as far as set was concerned, Litvak’s character contends with the sudden and unexplained transformation of his colleague (boss?) from Nora, unspecified business lady of some stripe or another, into Norahye the pirate. The piece is original and exciting, fast-paced and really quite touching. Bartlett and Litvak played off of each other in the most surprising way so far in the collection, and I started to really appreciate Dinary’s art direction, the way the vibe of the different pieces built on each other in sequence. I came away feeling like Captain Norahye was a kind of capitalist fable. This is no comment on the quality of the art — which was very high, I enjoyed this section and the whole show very much, and if it’s not clear recommend people go see this very strongly — but I am just saying that back in my day, a play this arguably capitalist-optimistic would have gotten you beaten with sticks and run out of the city. Times have changed!!
Baird Duncan’s FOILED AGAIN
I don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll just say that this left me literally shrieking with delight. Block your situationship immediately and go see this show.
