Princess Bear
Moist Humour Productions
Venue 4
Academy at King Edward
8525 101 St., Edmonton
3 Stars
Some Fringe shows are deep and thought-provoking. Others such as Princess Bear are straight-out farces that work up a headache for anyone trying to find profound meaning.
The premise is simple. A petulant Spanish prince vowes to invade England with the Armada unless given the hand in marriage of the King’s most beautiful daughter.
The King and Queen just married off their last daughter, so a wedding is impossible unless they can find an imposter. The castle is empty. Even all prisoners were released for the wedding of the last royal princess.
Only a bear is still imprisoned in the dungeons. The dufus King and mysterious Queen/witch hatch a plan to turn the bear into a temporary princess and marry her off.
Fortunately or unfortunately, their idiotic scheme goes sideways and they’re forced to improvise on the spot.
St. Albert playwright Julian Stamer, who also is the male lead as King, has crafted a thin plot. However another St. Albert artist, director Sheldan Ishaq mines the script for every comedic moment and keeps the skirmishes running at a lively clip.
There are plenty of laughs throughout and the play ends with an unexpected twist. But at times you could say “it was a little hard to bear.”
