The Crack of Doom! (Or: How I Learned to Love the Meteor) (Bain&Bernard)

Photo by Blake Crawford

NOTE: This is not a review. I’m in a Fringe show (The Boy Who Cried), so I don’t feel super comfortable doing critical evaluations of people’s work. Instead, my 2022 Fringe writing is more in the vein of “creative reflection”. The goal is to get conversations going about people’s shows, not deem them good or bad.

The Crack of Doom! is not shy about where it’s going. From the first song, we know that a meteor is going to wipe out all life on Earth, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.

So the show isn’t plot-based, but character-based; a varied group of Avignon University students has gathered for a Thanksgiving Day mixer, and we get to see all the different ways their personalities clash during their last hour alive.

The Crack of Doom!'s tone is crystal clear — it’s vivid-as-a-comic-book screwball comedy throughout, and moves at an appropriately high speed with appropriately high stakes considering the heightened dramatic situation.

It’s also a bit of a class satire, a Jane Austen novel but camp. Every character (bar one) is a university student, and they seem to live pretty sheltered, privileged lives — so they have no idea how to deal with this tragedy.

I love that this show refuses sentimentality so thoroughly — every time you think it’s being sappy, it’s a setup for a joke. Biting but not overly cynical, showbizy to the nth degree, and packed with talented Sheridan grads, The Crack of Doom! is crazy value for a Fringe show.

The Toronto Fringe Festival runs from July 6-July 17. The Crack of Doom! is playing at the Robert Gill Theatre; click here for tickets. Click here to return to my Fringe Masterpost.