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THE VANCOUVER SUN, Tuesday, September 12, 2000
By: Peter Birnie
"Do you think I'm pretty?" You'd better answer, and in the positive, if you want to survive Burnt Tongue unscathed.
Winnipeg actor Shannan Calcutt enters in a wedding dress, sporting white makeup, a red clown nose and, inexplicably, yellow ears. She's Izzy, an utterly bizarre and wholly endearing creature who sounds like Katherine Hepburn set on squeak. Izzy's waiting for a blind date she met on the Internet, and for almost an hour, Calcutt holds her audience spellbound in the weird world of this fragile creature.
Words pour forth filled with a confidence quickly revealed to be transitory. Izzy's brittle happiness meets her sudden mood swings to make for a crackling energy. When some poor audience member's watch beeped on the hour, she pounced and we flinched. Another fellow was invited to kiss her, and Izzy's paroxysm of joy seemed to light up the room. Pure enchantment.
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