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Review in aislesay.com
Toronto Fringe Festival
Review of Burnt Tongue
Joel Greenberg
"Burnt Tongue" is one of many one-person, clown-inspired shows that appear at the Fringe every year. Shannan Calcutt is the performer and Izzy is her creation. Charming and original, her work provides a chance for clown naysayers, like myself, to reconsider their position. Calcutt, along with her director-collaborator Sue Morrison, has conceived this 45-minute monologue as a sweet but determined cry for attention. She enters in a bridal gown, face in clown white and her nose sporting the bulbous red appendage that is more often cliché than interesting. We learn that she is awaiting a blind date, wearing the full marriage regalia 'just in case'. Quick to add that she is not a 'planner', that she is fully capable of spontaneity, her every action belies her every word. Burnt Tongue is both comic and sad, a blend that makes this clown work so well.
Calcutt's impressive performance record is borne out by her ease with playing to and playing with her audience. She asks us again and again, "Am I good looking?" And to each affirmation she adds, "People always tell me that." But just as she overstates the fact that she is not a woman who pre-plans her life, she also gives away her devastating lack of self-worth with the need to hear us tell her that she really is a pretty person. And as further proof that Calcutt is a first-rate talent, we laugh at her each time she asks the question. And as we laugh, we also wish she could find someone to answer her without having her isolation overwhelm us. This is a show that does fill its venue, even in the mid-afternoon of a workday.
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