A vibe to love: This is surprise. Delight. And yes, hope.

Just when you think you've seen or heard every possible take on the Pap Smear. Or bad
boyfriends. Or disability. Or just about anything that could happen (and apparently has) when inter-abled friends share a Toronto pad for more than a decade. Brace yourself.

Hope and Joy is storytelling at its freshest, most energetic and delightful—not one second is wasted, and 60 minutes flies by so fast, you want to stamp your feet and demand more. The dialog is at once funny, surprising and touching—and even when there are tiny slip-ups (opening night was literally the first time the cast and crew could run through together) Playwright and Actor Morgan Joy's hilarious ad libs keep the audience happily in the moment.

There is no sugar coating here, that's for sure; the "Truth Booth" makes sure of that. Complex stories are stripped to their most poignant. Meanwhile, the metaphors command total respect (I've never had compassion for a mosquito before). And was the egg soliloquy what I think it was?

Hope and Joy could easily have been a (very entertaining) monologue—but to our benefit, the co-authors work brilliantly together to bring dimension, not just to this charming buddy story, but to a population that is all too often invisible. So...three words: Go. See. This.

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Performance Details

Age Suitability: Mature (ages 18+)

Warnings: Audience Participation, Sexual Content, Coarse Language

Venue: Theatre Aquarius Studio

Special Performances, Relaxed Performance, Mask-Mandatory Performance, Affinity Performance

Genre: Theatre—Comedy, Puppetry, Storytelling/Solo Show

Krystal Hope

Morgan Joy

Madeleine Greey