Simon thinks he’s a normal kid, albeit a little big for a six-year-old. However, when Simon starts school, he begins to realize that he’s different from all the other kids – bigger, stronger, and with a taste for blood.

The truth comes out: Simon, like his absent father, is an ogre, and everyone knows an ogre’s favourite thing to feast on is human children!

The Ogreling promised to be a silly, slightly dark comedy: a sort of tragic Shrek. Unfortunately, the writing of this play left much to be desired. The plot is overly simple: an ogre discovers that he’s an ogre and must go through three trials in order to stop himself from feeling the innate ogre urge to eat children. This type of fairytale-esque story has been overused and overdone, and The Ogreling brought nothing new to the table.

The director (Ryan Nielsen) attempted to compensate for this otherwise boring and overdone plot by playing with the staging of the show. The actor playing Simon kisses his mom goodbye, exits out the back door of the stage/his house, and then comes up to the front of the stage to act out his walk to school, his days in class, and his time spent attempting to complete the ogre trials. Although this was a clever way to stage this show, it could not make up for the dull and bland plot.

In truth, this show was so average, so mediocre, so ordinary, that I struggled to find anything to write about. The acting was okay, and the directing was fine – nothing in particular stood out.

That being said, a few elements of this performance were slightly more successful than the rest of this iffy show.

The lighting design, although relatively simple, stood out at one point for its use of gobos. Pinpricks of light represented a wolf’s glowing, yellow eyes trained on Simon. However, similar pinpricks of light were used at a different time during the performance, and it was unclear what they were supposed to represent then.

The set itself, although quite fitting with the play in how boring and bland it is, is well made and serves the performance well. Some of the set pieces are multifunctional: a chair turns into a table, a bed, and a log bench. The props, too, were multipurpose: a white fur blanket becomes at different times a blanket, a tablecloth, and a rooster. This gives the show an overall sleek and smooth feel, with all items on stage being useful, and nothing going to waste.

Overall, this show was unremarkable and dull. The set was alright, the props were okay, the acting was fine, and the directing was tolerable. Despite that, there were a few bright moments, in the form of well-designed parts of the sets, props, costumes, and lighting. The Ogreling was a mediocre play, with the plethora of bad overshadowing the small amount of good.