Boro Milošević, Heather Thomas, Jonah Paroyan, Nick Cikoja (front); Auguste Kociuba, Owen Carter, Seung Eun Cha 차승은 & Kalon Young (rear) | Photo by Audrey Persaud
Presented by Sheep’s Clothing Theatre with Outside the March
You know that I love immersive experiences in unconventional venues. Blood Brothers is an exceptionally well-executed example of the form. I haven’t seen Sleep No More, the much-acclaimed phenomenon that serves as a sort of gold standard for this sort of thing, so I can’t compare and contrast the effectiveness of this production, but it certainly won me over.
The basic premise here is the tragedy of Julius Caesar playing out as a Toronto frat party gone wrong. As a narrative, Blood Brothers is disjointed and elliptical, but that is, by design, an essential aspect of the experience. The limited, masked audience is allowed to roam freely as the scenario unfolds in various rooms throughout a campus house.
There is the sense, especially in the early stages of the story, when I felt I might be in the wrong place at any given time, but as the event(s) unfolded, confidence in my own intuition and trust in the clever construction eased that stress. Playwright Brianna Russell and director Catie Thorne have devised a structure, characterizations and array of persuasive trajectories that allow for a range of possible vantage points to be both frustrating and satisfying in equal measure. As the evening progresses, tensions mount and stakes escalate, with the characters and audience drawn together for key sequences.
You will find yourself straining to see into a room in one moment, then perfectly immersed and facing the drama head-on only minutes later. There is so much I obviously missed (although, perhaps not really, in the grand scheme of it all), so I can’t be entirely sure how comprehensible the specifics are from other pathways, but I got the sense that Russell has made most of the dialogue cryptic and abstract. It’s all rhetoric.
Through this posturing, the cast maintain a convincing verisimilitude. Our gut instincts about them shift as nuances emerge. The context is always rather vague, but the emotions ring true and everyone conveys authentic interiority in brief, telling glimpses.
There are alliances and conspiracies and opportunism and cowardice and ominous implications. There are just over a dozen characters here and I won’t get too far into the weeds. Suffice it to say that these are all entitled young men, who come from means, and are about to be the future leaders of our society. It’s compelling as raucous fraternity shenanigans, Shakespearean homage and political allegory-lite. It’s not a deep meditation on masculinity or ambition, the form only allows for so much density, but it is sufficiently chilling in its implications.
And there will be blood. We sort of know, of course, that Julian (Jonah Paroyan), our Caesar stand-in, is eventually gonna bite it, so that looms in the air throughout—foreshadowed by some blood first glimpsed on Cinna (Seung Eun Cha 차승은), a painfully timid new pledge with important ties. There is Julian’s right hand man, Marc (Kalon Young), who runs damage control to gain the trust—or, at least, complicity—of the brotherhood following the grisly crime. Most of the characters’ Roman names give some general sense of where they fit within the Shakespearean framework, though the correspondence is loose and it isn’t always easy to track.
Paroyan has the challenging task of drawing us in with a persona that’s intensely off-putting in its domineering smarminess. As a central, doomed figure, he’s got a suitable air of conflicted menace. Young’s Marc is a classy portrait of manipulative stoicism. He is almost likeable in his focused attentiveness, but puts us ever-so-slightly on edge with intentions we can’t fully suss out.
Tre Carty’s Lepidus kept drawing my eye too. He carries himself with grace, cuts a rather suave figure throughout the evening in his red dress shirt that makes him somewhat conspicuous amidst the relatively muted colour palette of the gathering. He has a restrained intensity and one of the more intriguing lines of the evening when he comments that his name might not be real. What does that mean for the rest of them? Do the characters mirror the audience here—with masks of identity?
And then there’s the two young women, Calpurnia (Heather Thomas) and Portia (Auguste Kociuba), whom I wish I had spent more time seeking out as their whole deal during the finale was riveting and I wish I had a better grasp of the context.
While most of the spaces are lit practically and feel realistic, there are some really effective surrealistic colours that creep in here and there. One of the most theatrically expressive aspects of Sephora N’Kosi lighting design is a set of seemingly ordinary overhead bulbs that flicker portentously into an eerie red during a hazing ritual. Amanda Michele’s set and prop design is full of varied clutter. The backlit aquarium tank is a striking image and baleful backdrop to the traumatic climax.
Did I detect a slight nod towards The Godfather at the end with a patriarchal shutting of doors? Portia’s parting line is a killer. And so relatable. I would not want to be in the presence of these dudes, except in this oh-so-perfect way: untouchable, masked, free to snoop to my heart’s content.
Blood Brothers
@ SummerWorks 2026
August 10 to 15, 2026
Delta Upsilon Fraternity
(182 St. George Street)
80 minutes
