It’s great to see some solid mask work at the Fringe. It would be even better if that work—indeed the whole show—were more consistent. Kate Braidwood plays Mrs. Fischer, an old woman struggling to defeat Death, a grey-faced spectre played by Andrew Phoenix. The full-face mask for Mrs. Fischer is a lovely portrait of vulnerability and determination, and Braidwood’s physicality is admirably precise. Phoenix is a little less adroit as Death and a guy with a clipboard. But who the hell is the guy with the clipboard? I couldn’t figure it out and neither could the other audience members I spoke with. Why can’t Death just kill Mrs. Fischer like he manages to kill a bird in an earlier sequence? And why do we stay on the same two notes of the threat of death and Mrs. Fischer’s sentimental remembrance of her husband for so long? The path to it could be better groomed, but when it comes, the final moment is graceful and touching.

At Performance Works on September 9 (6:30 p.m.), 10 (2:30 p.m.), 11 (4 p.m.), 14 (9:10 p.m.), 16 (10:25 p.m.), and 18 (5:40 p.m.)