The Hollywood Fringe Festival streaming show, The Easter Bunny, does not have much to do with bunnies and even less to do with Easter. It is a short one-person rumination on the theme of sexual assault. Written and performed by Tommy Jeff McAteer, this show is from Canada’s Marbles Theatre Group. A man, wearing a hoodie as well as a stocking over his head, waits patiently in a basement apartment he has easily broken into. It’s the apartment of a woman he plans to rape when she arrives home from work in 15 minutes or so. While he waits, he presents statistics and scenarios of men who commit sexual assault, like himself, and their victims. The Audience Advisory on the Fringe website states “there are no depictions of graphic violence and discussion of violence of any kind is kept to a minimum. There is no nudity or profanity.” As a result, it’s a very cold and clinical recitation; there is not much emotion in the plot or in the telling. McAteer gives a little variety to his reading and director Marion D’alimonte keeps him in motion so it does not totally become a by rote reading of a medical paper on the subject. The fact that the rapist has given himself the moniker Easter Bunny (because of a study of how children eat their chocolate candy), rather than something more exciting like The Hillside Strangler or The Golden State Killer, points out the show’s blandness. The show seems to have been filmed in a very large space and the resulting echo is annoying throughout.
https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/7109