Author Archive
What The Butler Saw – Soulpepper
By Adam Collier
Soulpepper is producing What The Butler Saw at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts. It is being presented until September 18, 2010.
When the red curtain was drawn, two characters were onstage.
It was unclear to me where they were. To the left on stage there was a wide desk and tall bookcase, suggesting the office of psychiatrist. To the right a gurney enclosed by a thin plastic drape, the type you might see around a hospital bed.
It took me a while to catch on that this was supposed to be a psychiatric hospital.
That What The Butler Saw did not clearly establish a location (usually something Soulpepper is good at) left me wondering what was happening, and why it was happening.
4-Play: 4 One-Act Plays – Panfish Productions
By Adam Collier
4-Play: 4 One-Act Plays was performed at Unit 102 Studio. It was a production of a company called Panfish.
My seat for the performance (on Sunday night) was in the front row. There were maybe fifty chairs in total, and there’s no stage or platform for the actors. The walls and other surfaces were black. And the sets were minimal.
The understated look was generally pretty cool, maybe because it suggested the night sky, and there was something romantic and mysterious to the black – perfectly complimenting the two plays on the bill by John Patrick Shanley (A Lonely Impulse of Delight and Welcome to the Moon).
Sexual Perversity In Chicago – Red One Theatre
By Adam Collier
A local company called Red One Theatre is producing Sexual Perversity in Chicago. It plays at Unit C. 102 Foxley Place.
The venue is off an alley that runs parallel to Ossington.
“This is already terrific” – the words fell out of my mouth as I went in. There’s not a hint of pretense to the space, but there is a professional look to the set. And the space itself – tall, with an open loft facing the audience – is genuinely novel.
An anecdote that involves an extremely dangerous sexual fetish starts off the show. Though casual in delivery, to call it conversational is to understate its finesse.
Homegrown (The Homegrown Project) – 2010 Summerworks Review
By Adam Collier
Homegrown was performed at Theatre Passe Muraille. It ran as part of Summerworks, and was produced by the Homegrown Project.
Theatre Passe Muraille has an absolutely huge stage. So, up close – I took a seat front row, close to the middle – it seemed enormous.
Maybe because of this, I couldn’t quite suspend my disbelief that the opening scene is set in prison.
But there’s a theatrical advantage to all this space, too. What it allows is the lead (“Shareef” played by Lwam Ghebrehariat) to remain on stage all the time.
So while other characters are negotiating an informant’s fee (as happens), or boasting of a radical conversion to the Muslim faith (as also happens), or arguing over how the government prosecutes terrorists (as frequently happens), we can always see Shareef in solitary confinement. His incarceration, to me, is what’s at stake in Homegrown.
Theory (Public Radio and Camera Assembly) – 2010 SummerWorks Review
By Adam Collier
Theory is a new play in performance as part of SummerWorks. It is a joint presentation of Public Radio and Camera Assembly and SummerWorks. The show runs at the Lower Ossington Theatre.
The action begins as the house lights go down. A woman tells us she has begun an online forum for her course on film theory. The forum will be anonymous, uncensored and you – referring now to her students (the house lights have gone down completely, and we are in her classroom) – will moderate the discussion.
Theory pivots around the threads of postings on the forum.
Review: Jitters – Soulpepper
By Adam Collier
Soulpepper is producing Jitters at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts. (The run has been extended to July 31, 2010.)
Jitters begins with a scene of domestic revelation that is cut short – lights onstage brightening – after one character flubs an emotionally climatic line.
As it turns-out, what we have been watching is the rehearsal of another play (‘The Care And Tending Of Roses’). Jitters concentrates on the inter-personal trials of the company putting on that play.
Purely Cabaret (Esby Kabaret) – 2010 Toronto Fringe Review
By Adam Collier
A company called Esby Kabaret mounted a show as part of Fringe (a performing arts festival that ran from Wednesday June 30th to Sunday July 11th at venues throughout the Annex in Toronto). The show – with the title Purely Cabaret – was performed at St. Vladimir’s Theatre.
Purely Cabaret is a two-person show. There’s a singer (her name is Lindsay Sutherland Boal) and a pianist (Elisabeth Scholtz).
To my ear, the timbre was like three things I had heard before – Schubert’s lieder, the blues (in the way that Billie Holliday sings the blues), and tin-pan alley musicals – brought together in varying parts for each song.
The Dentist (Razia Israely) – 2010 Toronto Fringe Review
By Adam Collier
The Dentist is a one-person show that was performed as part of Fringe at the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse. A company called Razia Israely produced the show.
There is a level of emotional intensity to some of the events that The Dentist describes – the text of the work (not its delivery) – that made my shoulders hurt and – oddly – feel as though someone were blowing cigarette smoke in my face.
Not more than twenty-minutes into the performance, I felt so much stress that I lost track of what was happening.
Weight Loss World (Theatre Under Pressure) – 2010 Toronto Fringe Review
By Adam Collier
Weight Loss World was performed at St. Vladimir’s Theatre as part of Fringe. A company called Theatre Under Pressure produced the show.
There was a unique enthusiasm in the audience on the night I went to Weight Loss World.
“Let’s sit front row” – I overheard one patron say to another – “that’s like VIP!”
“Pfft – more like VI-Crazy!” was the reply. And then they laughed.
The crowd was buoyant – giggling often, and unexpectedly bursting with laughter at a few moments. One such moment came when four of the characters purge on stage.
Eve’s Garden (Moon In June) – 2010 Toronto Fringe Review
By Adam Collier
A company named Moon In June is producing a show at St Vladimir’s Theatre as part of Fringe. The title of the show is Eve’s Garden.
St. Vladimir’s Theatre was frigid the evening I attended (on Thursday). Men were rubbing their arms for warmth. Women were slipping into long-sleeve shirts.
Eve’s Garden opens with a dispute between the character whose name is shared in the title, and Adam. The former accuses the latter of neglecting her. While the latter retorts that the work that takes-up his time is indispensable to their survival. It comes across as a relationship without much love.