Stage/Toronto Fringe 2024

What: Colonial Circus
Where: Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace, 16 Ryerson Ave.
When: Thurs., July 11 at 5:45 pm; Sat., July 13 at 12:00 pm; Sun., July 14 at 4:30 pm
Highlight: A disorientingly off-kilter tone.
Rating: NNNN (out of 5)
Why you should go: Critiques of colonialism are relatively common to post-pandemic Toronto theatre — but rarely do these engagements flout the theatrical status quo as aggressively as Colonial Circus.

AN ENIGMATIC cocktail of audience interaction and physical comedy, Colonial Circus, a clownish two-hander created by performers Shreya Parashar and Sachin Sharma (a.k.a. Two2Mango), is a cutting, disorienting experience. Critiques of colonialism are relatively common in post-pandemic Toronto theatre. But rarely do these engagements flout the theatrical status quo as aggressively as Colonial Circus.

Directed by Isaac Kessler, the 55-minute show begins with a majestic movement sequence in which Parashar and Sharma, both in white-face makeup, hide their bodies neck-down under a large piece of red fabric and waddle about the stage as a small wooden figure rests on a centre-stage box. Then the house lights come up and Sharma asks: “Questions?” What follows is hallucinatory and off-kilter, involving satire of Britishisms like tea and stuffy etiquette, yet strikingly indirect; throughout, Colonial Circus refuses to let its audience be sure of what to feel.

I expect the show would be able to dig deeper by alternating between directness and indirectness, rather than occupying the same tonal landscape for its entire runtime. But the result is undeniably destabilizing — and, I think, very interesting.