Four Stars
What do traffic lights, cat vomit and graveyard shifts have in common? Vancouver's TJ Dawe can tell you and, incredibly, it all makes sense.
This 65-minute performance piece is part monologue, part sketch comedy, part storytelling and part beat poetry. It's original, clever and entertaining.
Accompanied on stage by percussionist Jason Overy, Dawe dives into a stack of cardboard boxes, leaps onto a chair to tell an amusing story and then shifts into a series of quick-and-quirky observations about life.
He talks about everything from the puzzling word 'post-modern' to how some ghosts don't know they're dead to why people smile for every photograph. He even does an impression of a traffic light, depicting each colour with its own unique facial expression.
Some bits are mildly amusing, while others are inspired, such as Dawe's ramble on the true meaning of the f___ word (it's really a compliment) or his comparison between 'wanky' (serious) and casual cyclists.
Dawe cleverly weaves all these seemingly unrelated topics into one final, comic finish to make Tired Clichés anything but.
Jenny Gabruch
Saskatoon Star-Phoenix
Wednesday, August 4, 1999
