One Night in Berlin Reviewed in The Surburban

This year at the Fringe Festival (excerpt)

By Adam Goldman

Published: Wednesday June 20th, 2007

One Night in Berlin

Writer/director and Montreal resident Liesl Barrell takes her audience on a cross-continental affair of love and obsession. Her well-written and sharply-tongued noir thriller is about a naïve Westerner seduced into the sleazy European underworld.

Canadian-born Leah (Nina Marie Fillis), suffering from an identity crisis, meets Viki (Stephanie Chapman Baker) one night in Berlin. Their affair shoots around the globe, from Berlin to Hong Kong to Colombia to Montreal. But when Viki’s lackey Lukas (Costa Tovarnisky) commits a ghastly crime, Viki’s obsession consumes her. Try as she might, Leah cannot rid herself of the seductive, conniving German. Viki’s obsession takes her to Montreal, where a final standoff ensues and blood is shed. Fillis and Baker display a natural on-stage chemistry, Baker in particular, portraying Viki with a Double Indemnity-like charm. You want to hate her, but you simply can’t.

Barrell — something of a nomad herself — infuses the script with a distinctly personal Montreal flavour, toying with the tribulations facing English Quebecers job hunting in Montreal.