Emma Nelles and Jonas Trottier from Milk Milk Lemonade | Photo by Barry McCluskey
Presented by Mallowmarsh Productions
The Toronto Fringe took me back to school with this sweet and wild clown show. Milk Milk Lemonade is innovative, goofy, kinda sophisticated, then slaps itself in the face whenever it thinks we might be taking it too seriously as a piece of art, which it is, but also shut up, you’re a piece of art!
We open on two desks, with two chairs and two silly little weirdos, Emma Nelles and Jonas Trottier, with their red noses. I do love that formal indication. These clown mean it! Funny, though, it is in their childlike personae that they officially adopt this mark of purpose. When they embody some adult characters, equally ridiculous and entirely dysfunctional, the noses are dropped. I feel like there’s a metaphor in there somewhere.
At the top, it’s recess and they are doing crafts. His craft has become…a meal? There is some genuine cringe factor as he guzzles down glue. Is that a spoiler? It’s so early on—whatever! Believe me, it’s quite a different thing to read it than to actually behold it.
Though it gets weirder and more expansive, I’m very fond of these early moments at the desks. The way her pencil keeps breaking and is suddenly across the room and how is she gonna get it to finish her test when she can’t leave her seat and uhhhhhhhhhhhhg, if she can just…stretch…a little further…aaaaaand—OOPSIE!
That’s how it goes when the even the simplest task conspires to overwhelm your whole existence.
These goofy tykes have mutual crushes on each other, but neither will admit it even though it’s totally obvious and oh my gosh just go for it! Do they? I won’t tell. Go see the show. Though I will let slip that it leads to a hard-boiled, super serious interrogation.
What else?
Oh, yes, I love how Nelles, Trottier and director Jack Davidson switch up the format constantly. It feels as if we’re getting lost in a world of their imaginations, where each episode makes its own rules. From inter-dimensional intruders to a pretentious, nonsense-spewing art posers, uh, patrons—we’re taken so many places! The parent teacher interviews, a series of snap-vignettes that go from mildly concerning to truly unhinged, is pretty genius.
Audience participation is also on point. Pssst, you may have to do someone’s homework.
Cootie catchers!
Milk Milk Lemonade has all the things—and a bag of chips, er, Fruit by the Foot!
