by **1/2 (out of 5)
NOTE: William Friedkin, director of the classic 1973 horror film, The Exorcist, died on Monday in Los Angeles at the age of 87. I saw Ange Lavoipierre’s show on Sunday in Edinburgh. I’m not trying to infer anything sinister or comedic in the coincidence. But I am saying I wonder how much Lavoipierre’s show may evolve because of this.
Because she takes the title of her show from a mondegreen of a line in The Exorcist in which the possessed 12-year-old Regan mutters to the fictional Father Karras: “Your mother sucks cocks in Hell.”
What is this show, tho? Here’s an attempt at it: Lavoipierrre plays a woman who cannot get to sleep, distracted at 2 a.m. by both Brain and Internet. They keep steering her to looking up variations on The Exorcist, from scenes both real and imagined as deleted parodies. As her waking nightmare continues, we hear snippets from the scores of The Matrix and Inception. Where will this end? How will this end? Much like Inception, you may be confused. Even Ange herself admitted to her audience on Sunday that they’d struggle to describe it to others. Which is perhaps not the best selling point?!
You may find more solace and laughs in seeing her other show with Jane Watt (her Australian comedy cohort voicing both Brain and Internet), as they’re also presenting a sketch show at the Fringe: Jazz Or A Bucket of Blood.
Ange Lavoipierre: Your Mother Chucks Rocks And Shells runs through Aug. 27 at Underbelly George Square’s The Wee Coo.
