Orlando Sentinel
May 19, 2016

Fringe Festival review: 'The Eight: Reindeer Monologues'

Tod Caviness | Orlando Sentinel correspondent

Driven along by Jeff Goode's whip-smart script, "The Eight: Reindeer Monologues" is a sleigh ride that slowly dives from Christmas comedy into territory darker than any chimney. As we learn from a series of confessions given by a certain octet of flying reindeer, there's a sex scandal brewing at the North Pole -- and the reindeer are taking sides.

Director and double-duty actor Scott Borish capably sets the scene in his opening monologue as the dedicated Dasher, determined to live up to his myth as one of "the elite, the Eight." He's even more effective as the flamboyant Cupid, and the majority of his cast keep an equally tight rein on their characters. Meghan Beck has some comical and creepy moments as Dancer, an ambitious but dim doe who has permanent blinders on to the scandal -- even as she becomes a part of it.

Actors in antlers dishing about reindeer sex? Just the sight of it is an easy laugh for the irreverent theatergoer. But the later moments work in some effective commentary about feminism and fatherhood as things turn grim. Maybe those antlers help with the balance, because most all of the cast treads the tightrope between tragedy and comedy with flair.

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