As this is my second time seeing Madama Butterfly,I have to admit I had great expectations. The last production I saw had been a remarkable one, back in Calgary at the Jubilee Auditorium produced by the Calgary Opera Company. However, similar to a community theatre company, charitable and non-profit, the Toronto Opera Repertoire’s spirited production of Madama Butterfly soared higher than expected.
Here are all of the shows we wish we could get out and see this week! Take your pick from our list of great theatre escapes for the week of February 28th, 2011:
The play is a “What if?” It is an escape from reality, a dream. The conception of the play is a possible affair between Jack Kerouac and Jackie Kennedy.
I was both amused and bewildered when I read a letter that Globe and Mail theatre critic J. Kelly Nestruck posted on his blog. It was from a Stratford theatre-goer who was up in arms over the fact that a director had chosen to “update” a Shakespearean play.
I guess I’m very much a non-traditionalist. I believe that in order for a contemporary production of a Shakespearean play to be engaging and speak to today’s audiences it must be updated. After all, we’ve all read the likes of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet in high school, and there have been thousands of traditional productions of these plays through the years. A new production should at least attempt to lend its own voice to the material and make it relevant to a contemporary audience.
Attempts On Her Life, as performed by Toronto’s Ryerson Theatre School, is an intriguing and engaging play. It is also a very different kind of play, in a very different kind of theatre.
