Three-time Governor General’s Literary Award–shortlisted author and playwright Anosh Irani’s critically acclaimed one-man show Buffoon is a masterclass of tragicomic theatre.

Born to circus folk who prefer trapezing over parenting, Felix quickly learns to turn life’s misfortunes into jokes. His longing for family and home is piqued at the tender age of seven when he falls hopelessly in love with an older woman, the beguiling Aja, who is eight. In the process, a clown is born, and we watch him grow into a middle-aged buffoon. Over time, Felix stops waiting for someone else to love him; his journey becomes one of loving himself. A story of love, loss, and the fate that binds us, Buffoon is a gut-wrenching one-man show that expertly walks the tightrope between heartbreak and hilarity.

ANOSH IRANI has published four critically acclaimed and award-winning novels: The Cripple and His Talismans (2004), a national bestseller; The Song of Kahunsha (2006), which was an international bestseller and shortlisted for Canada Reads and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize; Dahanu Road (2010), which was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize; and The Parcel (2016), which was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction and the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. His play Bombay Black (2006) won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, and his anthology The Bombay Plays: The Matka King & Bombay Black (2006) and his play Men in White were both shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama. Buffoon, his latest work of drama, was critically acclaimed and won two Dora Mavor Moore Awards, for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Performance in a Leading Role. He lives in Vancouver. 

Anosh Irani's profile page

• Winner, Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play

Buffoon matches a multilayered script with a magnificent solo performance … [An] epic tale of love and betrayal, triumph and loss, connection and abandonment — the human story.

Globe and Mail

The play … begins with Felix as a hopeful child … and tracks his growing cynicism around life and love … An involving journey.

Toronto Star

A marvel of solo storytelling.

NOW Magazine (NNNN)

An engrossing, heart wrenching tale of love lost, regained, and lost again … Bittersweet, poignant, funny and gripping … This is one play that will keep your mind — and your heart — engaged for a long time. Don’t miss it.

Entertainment Vancouver

Irani has written a clever, thickly-layered monologue in which Felix tells us his life story from the prison cell where the tale inevitably leads him … Writing in the Beckettian tradition, and in the vein of Morris Panych … Irani gives us a dark tale for our dark times with some laughs along the way and a gleam of hope that the broken can be mended and the unforgivable forgiven.

Vancouver Sun

Buffoon is full of powerful moments and rich metaphor.

Broadway World

Irani’s storytelling is a mix of fanciful wordplay … punctuated by poetic insights.

Stir