Toronto Fringe Review: U Up?

U Up? is a story of forbidden love across the Canada/US border between two border officers.

Two border officers work on either side of the Niagara Falls border. Schmidt (Oliver Georgiou) and Milgram (Siva Pemmasani) have an intense(ly silly) rivalry. These two portray the epitome of Canadian and US stereotypes through their constant bickering.

The other pair, Chuchkee (Samantha Lee) and Pepper (Saba Akhtar) have a love affair that is immediately obvious and extremely adorable. The two find excuses to keep working together, and have secret rendezvous at the Falls at night.

While cute, I didn’t really get a strong sense of the forbidden nature of the relationship or what the consequences would be if someone found out about it. The biggest conflict happens when Pepper doesn’t like a song that Chuchkee wrote for her, which is then somehow resolved offstage. Also, because Chuchkee and Pepper don’t interact much with their male counterparts, it makes the scenes feel a little disconnected from each other. That being said, the actors have great chemistry with each other, and they maintain a high energy and fast pace throughout the show.

Audience interaction includes “declaration forms” to be handed in to the cast, answering questions, standing for the national anthem, and one lucky person who gets brought up on stage (with consent) for “secondary questioning”. If this is you, be prepared, because that person ends up sitting on stage in a lawn chair for the entire rest of the show.

U Up? does a good job of making fun of the absurdities of borders and the constructed differences between countries. However, I felt that the story and message were a little disjointed, and that there were missed opportunities for addressing the more serious realities of crossing the border, even if it wasn’t the focus on the show.

Overall, U Up? is a fun and sweet show that questions what the purpose of a border is and encourages us to find love beyond them.

U Up? closed July 12 at the Toronto Fringe.