Review: (Toronto) Lwam is Eritrea's Greatest Hockey Player

Political comedy on its way up. 
by Lisa McKeown
@lisammckeown

Lwam is Eritrea's Greatest Hockey Player is a play about race, justice, and relationships. Written and performed by Lwam Ghebrehariat, the play is actually what might be better described as a stand-up (or, in this case, sit-down) comedy act. Drawing on his experience as a lawyer struggling towards social justice, as well as his personal story growing up as a black man in Alberta, Lwam fills the hour with stories of his childhood, adolescence, and his many encounters with racism as an adult living in Toronto. 

Lwam as a performer is endearing and unpretentious, relating well to the audience, and calling himself out on forgetting his lines at times while retrieving his cheat sheet sheepishly from his back pocket. Indeed, this struck me as a work very much in progress, a lot of good material which had the audience chuckling throughout the show, told in a very sincere way, but something that could use a lot of polishing and more of a story arc to tie his various personal experiences and political themes together for the audience. 

July 2 - 12