Though the 2025 Toronto Fringe Festival ended on July 13th, five shows had a short revival as part of TO Live’s Best of Fringe series at the Meridian Arts Centre’s Studio Theatre. Shows awarded the “Best of Fringe” are selected by an independent jury. Of all of these shows, one particular show caught my eye due to the sheer absurdity of the title, My Pet Lizard, Liz: The Shakespearean Existential Crisis That Led to His Ultimate Demise.
My Pet Lizard, Liz, put on by The Lost Scribe Collective and written and performed by Shaharah “Gaz” Gaznabbi, also received the Canadian Green Alliance’s Greenest in Fringe Award, which goes to the production with the most exciting, innovative and community-driven sustainability measures. It is a tragicomedy, a musical, and an ode to William Shakespeare. Gaznabbi takes the stage solo, playing themself and puppeteering the rest of the characters.
The show follows Gaz, a down-on-their-luck out-of-work actor, as they struggle with loneliness. To combat this, they, naturally, think that they need a pet lizard to keep them company. That’s when they meet Liz, a shy lizard sitting in the corner of the cage.
As Gaz prepares for an audition for the fictional New Burbage Shakespeare Festival (a reference to Canadian television series Slings & Arrows), they put on the 2009 TV special of Hamlet starring David Tennant. When Gaz wakes up after being lulled to sleep, they discover that Liz learned to speak English, with a Scottish accent, of course. Liz, who hates Gaz’s obsession with Shakespeare, confides in Lizard God and realizes that the only way to connect with Gaz is through theatre. He then applies to the Toronto Fringe Festival to become the first lizard playwright.
While this very meta show had plenty of goofs and gags, the show is ultimately about suicide. It starts out with Gaz holding Liz’s coffin as they sing a song about their experience with grief. A throughline in the play is Gaz’s own experience coping with depression using comedy, which negatively impacts their relationships. While this was an interesting theme, I found that Gaznabbi’s performance fell flat in that aspect of the show. My Pet Lizard, Liz told the audience how Gaz was feeling rather than showing it.
The music of the show also left more to be desired. None of the songs were particularly memorable, and the vocals were underdeveloped. The opening song was reminiscent of the Caillou theme song, which I couldn’t stop thinking about during the reprise at the end of the show.
My Pet Lizard, Liz’s strengths lie in the set design and puppeteering. Gaznabbi’s talents shone as Liz. Their comedic delivery as the sassy lizard brought on lots of laughs in the audience. They also played Liz with a certain naivety that I quite enjoyed. The set was versatile and innovative, functioning as a bookshelf in Gaz’s room, a puppet stage used for Liz’s Fringe show, a lizard church, and as a giant tree puppet. Gaznabbi used a variety of different types of puppets throughout their performance, making the show much more dynamic. While there were a few mishaps with the Liz puppet not staying in place, Gaznabbi recovered quickly.
There was clearly a lot of thought and passion put into My Pet Lizard, Liz: The Shakespearean Existential Crisis That Led to his Ultimate Demise. I am excited to see what is next for Gaznabbi and The Lost Scribe Collective. You can find them on Instagram @thelostscribecollective.
Listen to the review here!