Tomorrow’s Dawn (La Petite Famille)

Saskatoon Fringe Festival

1 Star

I wanted to like this show.  I thought it was charming that a troupe of French (from France) performers wrote and are touring a musical in English.  I pictured Trenet-esque music, charming accents, and an air of sophistication throughout.

Unfortunately, the reality was not at all as I imagined it.  The singing ranged from acceptable to embarrassingly bad.  The acting was one-note.  The English script was abysmal (containing phrases such as “I am being anger at you” and “I am a teachera”), and the words were almost incomprehensible.  A French script paired with a program that outlined the plot would have been fine – it’s Canada, after all.  Many of us speak/understand French here.  But to be an audience member who speaks and understands both French and English, and to understand about one word in ten… clearly this show just doesn’t work.

The cast outnumbered the audience at this performance, and I wasn’t surprised when people escaped before the 75-minute play was half through.