Fringe Review: Shade Apparel

Dates: Aug 21, 2025 – Aug 30, 2025

Location: VCM Wood Hall (Fringe Venue 2)

Artist / Company: Imbroglio Theatre — created and written by Alan Segal (Victoria, BC)

Duration: 45 mins

Rating: Ages 12+

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Shade Apparel opens with physical theater. Three performers twist and slide mirrors across the stage. It hints at something inventive. Then Danver, a writer, wakes at his desk. He confides in his reflection, brags about his fashion, his talent. A character deleted from his play appears... and she's angry. A cop arrives, investigating a fictional murder. Danver debates God—his reflection—who may have swapped places with him. The narrative loops back on itself in a philosophical puzzle that never quite lands.

Highlights

• Opening physical staging showed promise.

• Lighting cues added atmosphere.

• The actor playing God offered genuine moments of presence.

  
  

Workshop notes

• The acting outside that one role felt one-dimensional.

• Dialogue was clunky and overwrought.

• The script veered philosophical without clear focus. It felt like something written by a high school student: with more self focus than a true awareness of the audience's experience.

• Nearly every element—writing, staging, performance—could benefit from revision.

Rating

★ ★

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The Victoria Fringe Festival, presented by Intrepid Theatre since 1986, has become a cornerstone of the city’s arts scene, known for its unjuried, anything-goes approach to performance. For Carmunist and Septimus, Fringe is the highlight of the year. We’ve been involved as volunteers for more than a decade, and more recently, we’ve opened our home to performers as billets. Reviewing Fringe shows is something we’ve talked about for some time, and now we’re putting our experience as fiction editors and theatre stans to work, offering our thoughts and workshop notes for as many performances as we can attend.

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