All posts by Ilana Lucas

Ilana Lucas has been a big theatre nerd since witnessing a fateful Gilbert and Sullivan production at the age of seven. She has studied theatre for most of her life, holds a BA in English and Theatre from Princeton and an MFA in Dramaturgy and Script Development from Columbia, and is currently a professor of English and Theatre at Centennial College. She believes that theatre has a unique ability to foster connection, empathy and joy, and has a deep love of the playfulness of the written word. Her favourite theatrical experience was the nine-hour, all-day Broadway performance of The Norman Conquests, which made fast friends of an audience of strangers.

Review: The Second City Totally Likes You (Second City)

Photo of Jillian Welsh, Hannah Spear, Andy Assaf and Matt Folliott in The Second City Totally Likes You by Paul AishoshiThe Second City Totally Likes You is the longstanding revue troupe’s new Valentine offering, themed around love and relationships from Tinder ‘til death do us part. The sprightly touring company brings together a combination of new material and sketches previously performed in Chicago and Toronto. As a skewering of our desperation for human connection and the conflicting desires to let others in and keep them at arm’s reach, it’s often spot-on.

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Review: Marjorie Prime (Coal Mine)

Photo of Martha Henry in Marjorie Prime by Dahlia KatzStanding ovation at Marjorie Prime, now playing in Toronto

Marjorie Prime, Jordan Harrison’s 2015 Pulitzer Prize finalist now playing at Coal Mine Theatre, asks us about the limits of our interaction with technology, and how we shape and retain our identities in a world where artificial intelligence can be more reliable than our own memories. Sci-fi trappings aside, director Stewart Arnott’s production is also a wonderfully moving and human drama about the fear of aging and obsolescence, and our inability to let go of the past.

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Review: Suitcase/Adrenaline (Theatre Mada and Theatre Passe Muraille)

Photo of Ahmad Meree in Suitcase Adrenaline by Peter Riddihough

Beautiful double bill tells powerful stories that have audiences both laughing and in tears

What is the price of safety? What must you leave behind forever in transit to a new life? Theatre Passe Muraille, in collaboration with Theatre Mada, raises these questions in Suitcase/Adrenaline, a timely double bill of one-act plays by Ahmad Meree, on the multilayered experiences of Syrian refugees.

Presented in Arabic with English surtitles (with some in-ear described performances available), the program invites us to meet these characters on their own terms.

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Review: Casimir and Caroline (The Howland Company)

Photo of Hallie Seline in Casimir and Caroline by Dahlia Katz

Join the office party where where “fun” is merely an attempt to keep the darkness at bay

Casimir and Caroline is based on a popular 1932 German play of the same title by Ödön Von Horváth that has never been staged in North America. Translated by Holger Syme and adapted to modern Toronto by Syme, director Paolo Santalucia and The Howland Company, it’s a satire on the emptiness of love in a time of ruthless capitalism.

An office party run amok is a catalyst for the splintering of a host of social relationships gone manipulative and wrong.

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Review: The Solitudes (Aluna/Nightwood)

Photo of Rosalba Martinni and Ensemble in The Solitudes by Jeremy Mimnagh

“Inspired by the women of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude,” Beatriz Pisano’s The Solitudes (presented by Aluna Theatre in association with Nightwood Theatre at Harbourfront Centre) is about being a woman, being “The Other” — an immigrant, a descendant of immigrants, or an othered Indigenous person on stolen land — taking back spaces, and taking up space.

The 90-minute piece features the individual stories of each woman on stage, wrapping them together with interconnected themes and messages. It’s a challenging, cathartic experience that demands that you listen carefully and let these stories in.

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