Stage/Toronto Fringe 2024

What: MONKS
Where: Tarragon Theatre Solo Room, 30 Bridgman Ave.
When: Sat., July 6 at 9:45 pm; Mon., July 8 at 2:15 pm; Tue., July 9 at 8:00 pm; Wed., July 10 at 1:30 pm; Fri., July 12 at 12:00 pm; Sun., July 14 at 3:45 pm
Highlight: A tender sequence involving a donkey.
Rating: NNNNN (out of 5)
Why you should go: Sublime, interactive clown show uses anti-capitalist ethos as a springboard for ridiculous stage antics.

WHO KNEW staying chaste could be this fun? In the sublime clown show MONKS, creators Annie Luján and Veronica Hortigüela play monks tasked with counting millions of lentils one by one. The abbot of their monastery has ventured to town, allowing them to forgo their usual isolation by meeting (and incessantly interacting with) an entire Tarragon Solo Room audience of strangers.

They riff on our appearances, doling out monk names like Brother Glasses, Brother Mask and Brother Satchel. They distribute lentils and bread. They have us play hand games. They direct us to conjure a tempest via spray bottles and branches. They welcome a donkey on stage in a tender sequence that would make Bresson proud. All this to avoid working: There’s little they hate more than that dull task of counting! They’d far rather do their favourite activity: nothing.

This anti-capitalist ethos imbues the show’s mayhem with profundity. Ridiculous as it is, MONKS eventually emerges as a fervent reminder that play is what makes us human. This carefully fleshed-out motivating idea means that even at its most absurd — “grab my ass and ride it into the night,” the monks at one point chant, twirling their capes like magicians — the show doesn’t come off as frivolous. Doing nothing has never felt so good.