Vancouver Fringe Festival review: Interstellar Elder

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      The premise is brilliant: it’s the future, and an agricultural catastrophe (I won’t spoil the hilarious specifics) has rendered Earth uninhabitable, so all the humans are being subjected to “therapeutic hypothermia” and blasted into orbit until the planet recovers.

      Fringers familiar with SNAFU’s earlier shows will recognize Ingrid Hansen’s Kitt, who’s a couple hundred years old when she’s selected for “early defrost” and given the job of “sleep custodian”. Kitt gradually settles into zero-gravity routines like peeing into a funnel and taking a few puffs of “nutrient spray” for her meals, but she’s bored, and her attempts to amuse herself lead to some witty business, expertly synced to a knockout score.

      Hansen’s physical precision is impressive, and though the middle stretch doesn’t sustain the energy of the show’s opening moments, in which Hansen plays a robot whose lip movements never quite sync with her computerized voice, the ending is a lovely surprise.

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