Totem Figures - Big Sandwich Productions (that being TJ Dawe)

T.J. Dawe turns a corner in Totem Figures, a new monologue that puts introspection above his more familiar brand of solo comedy. Whether you want to turn that corner with him will depend on whether you’re interested in what makes an artist who he is – or you’re just in it for the laughs.

There are laughs, of course, in Dawe’s new show: This Fringe veteran looks wryly at the world, and he’s a master of making you chortle at the same time he makes you think. But Totem Figures, unlike any of his earlier shows, has the feel of an exploration – the beginnings of an adventure novel without a middle or an end.

It’s Dawe’s way of looking at what he calls his own Mount Rushmore – the people, both real and fictional, who inspire him. There’s George Carlin, guitar master John Fahey, poet Charles Bukowski. And there’s Bilbo Baggins and Luke Skywalker and the rabbits of Watership Down.

Along the way, Dawe talks about his own path as a Fringe performer – a perpetual outsider, as he sees it – and, like a burst of words from a machine gun, he strings together everything that goes into the making of a show on the Fringe.

What makes Totem Figures more than just a memoir, though, is that sense that something’s about to change – that this particular artist is at a crossroads, and that even he doesn’t know the next chapter in the adventure to come. Maybe I'm just a sucker for the best writing the Fringe has to offer. But I hope I'm along for the ride.

Elizabeth Maupin
Orlando Sentinel Theater Critic