By: Darryl D’Souza

                                                                                                                                                        Watching Icarus Redux at the Next Stage Festival was a strange experience for me.  I can’t say that I loved it, but I didn`t loathe it either. The gap between the original myth of Icarus and Daedalus and this production is rather enormous. 

If you don’t know the myth, basically Daedalus, imprisoned in Crete with his son Icarus, devised a pair of wings made out of wax and feathers to escape captivity.  He warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sea, as the wing’s feathers would get wet.  And, more notoriously, not to fly too close to the sun as the heat would cause the wax attaching the wings to melt.  Icarus flew too close to the sun, the wax melted, and he plummeted to his death into the sea.  Daedalus mourned the loss of his son, whose death he had caused by creating the wings. 

Here’s where Icarus Redux picks up.  It’s about the relationship between a father and son, seemingly imprisoned in their home (a modern Crete).  (more…)

By Sam Mooney

Have you ever noticed that plays based on actual events are always heartbreaking?  The Making of St Jerome from eastBoundplayers playing as part of the Next Stage Festival is no exception.  The most heartbreaking thing about the play is that there are no answers, not even to the most basic question.  Why?

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By Sam Mooney

The Red Queen Effect – from Seventh Stage Productions – is playing as part of the Next Stage Festival.  Sometimes I’m a bit slow on the uptake.  It took me till the end of the play to realize that ‘the red queen effect’ must refer to running in place as fast as you can just to stay in place.

There was a lot of running, but it seemed to me this Alice did get where she wanted to go.  Or at least she managed the first leg of the trip.

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By Crystal Wood  

What are the different ways of dealing with grief? Buried, now playing at the Next Stage Theatre Festival, explores just that.

The play begins with the funeral of the family matriarch Jean, and continues with the days following it as her family tries to cope in their own ways. One daughter, Rachel, over-sentimentalizes; another daughter, Anne, micromanages. Bill, the father of the family, can’t remember what has happened at all because of his struggle with Alzheimer’s. (more…)

By Sam Mooney

How is it that I’ve never seen Chris Gibbs until now?  He’s very funny, a bit weird, definitely quirky, and incredibly entertaining. 

His show – Like Father Like Son? Sorry – is part of the Next Stage Festival running until January 17th. 

According to the blurb Like Father Like Son? Sorry “… playfully explores the fears, worries and surprises of being a new father, and the absolute terror of wanting to be a good one.” But this one-man show (it says “one-man show creator” in the blurb so I figure I can say it here,) is about so much more than fatherhood. 

The show opens with Chris channelling Marlon Brando as Jor-El – Superman’s father.  He comes back to Superman and other super heroes at various points in the 95 minute show.  Some of his lines are almost throw-aways, if you aren’t paying attention they’re gone and you find yourself thinking, “Wait!  I missed that.  Go back!”

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By Crystal Wood

Just East of Broadway, playing at the Next Stage Theatre Festival, is a play that doesn’t take itself too seriously. This, I think, is both its strength and its weakness.

In the grand tradition of Fringe Festival spoof musicals, Just East of Broadway takes all the old musical conventions and runs with them – from the fighters who become lovers, to the little theatre company that could, to a bumbling henchman out to thwart the leading man. Rex Maverick (played by Cory O’Brien) is a washed-up Hollywood star who is shipped off to small-town China to star in a play that might be his last hope for a comeback. Let the laughs ensue. (more…)

By Dana Lacey

The first scene of Next Stage Festival’s gas sets the tone for the rest: a platoon of American soldiers shout in unison as their commander screams insults and inspiration. The response echos in the tiny Factory Theatre space: “No I do not want to fuck your wife, sir!” (more…)

by Lucy Allen

The Fringe tent definitely feels different when it’s January and -15 degrees outside, but that didn’t stop the crowds from lining up for the first night of the Next Stage Festival, host to eight new and reworked shows. My first show of the festival this year was Screwed & Clued Theatre Company’s Quite Frankly.  To get the obvious joke out of the way: Quite frankly, it’s worth seeing.

Written and performed by Justin Sage-Passant, Quite Frankly is a one-man show telling the story of a socially awkward man, named Frank, unable to ever quite integrate into normal situations of his society. Specifically, it focuses on his relationship with his constantly over-bearing and needy mother, who he cares for.

The moment that Sage-Passant shuffles uncomfortably onto the stage staring uncertainly and wistfully at the audience you’re immediately endeared to him. From his eye twitches to his slow methodical way of speaking, every detail of the character is explored and Sage-Passant does a wonderful job of bringing each and every one to life.

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By Adam Collier

I’m not sure how to introduce “Build A Bridge And Get Over It” (which played at the Tarragon Extraspace as part of the Toronto Fringe Festival).

We follow two women, Kathy (played by Shannon McDough) and Jessica (Lori Pearlstein), at the Harmony Therapy Retreat Centre over one weekend. Kathy is apprehensive of the Retreat but her therapist has recommended she attend. Jessica is there ostensibly to quit smoking, though she also mentions it’s just ‘a tune-up,’ that “I’ve been here four-times.”

They are a bit of an odd couple at first. Kathy chides Jessica for her New Age outlook (the latter for example re-arranges their cabin furniture with the intention of enhancing spiritual growth). Jessica makes working through trauma sound condescendingly simple; asserting her roommate should “just get over” the break-up of her last relationship and death of her sister.

As it turns-out though, Kathy isn’t really all that apprehensive about the Retreat (she defends – if not the actual activities, the trust participating in them implies – to Jessica after a day-and-a-half), and Jessica is a reporter that has put on the façade of embracing the Retreat to expose its practices. Both characters are exposed for who they really are, and then confront the sources of anxiety in their lives.

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By Crystal Wood

You know how sometimes you see an opening act at a concert, and you think “Wow, these guys are really good. Who even needs the main act?” And then actually you see the main act, and you’re like “Never mind. Yeah, this is what I paid for.” Head First is like that. The three pieces are all just fine separately, but the third piece so eclipses the ones before it that you feel a little bad for the other two. Fortunately, they’re all from the same company, so I don’t feel that bad for them.

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