Funny friendly banter gets personal in Winners and Losers playing at Toronto’s Berkeley Street Theatre
For some people Winners and Losers, which opened at Berkeley Street Theatre last night, will remind them of an evening spent with family or friends debating and arguing a wide range of subjects. In the beginning the topics are innocuous but they get political and then personal as the evening goes on and the need to win asserts itself.
For others the evening will build to a stomach-clenching crescendo of nastiness.
The Session tells the story of a young woman named Leslie-Haydn Burke who undergoes a psychiatric assessment and discloses the story of her life. She discusses her upbringing, leaving home at an early age, living on the streets and getting by on sex work, meeting and falling in love with a man who keeps her off the street, and the crime she commits that leads to her incarceration. Continue reading Review: The Session (Things Falling Apart Theatre Company)→
George Brown theatre program brings Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband to vivid life at Toronto’s Young Centre for the Performing Arts
An Ideal Husband (at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts) opened at just the right moment: as our own chief magistrate tumbles further and further down what appears to be a bottomless well of tawdry personal scandals, Oscar Wilde’s play is especially prescient.
Set in the 1890s, a promising young politician–Sir Robert Chilthern–is blackmailed by the villainous Mrs. Cheveley, who has acquired evidence of an earlier, devastating indiscretion. Aided by the dandified Lord Goring, Sir Robert must obtain the evidence before everything–his marriage, his career, his freedom–is destroyed.
Journey’s End is a powerful story of soldier life during the Great War, playing at Toronto’s Artisan Factory
As we approach the 100 year anniversary of the beginning of the Great War, The Empty Room has delivered Toronto theatre audiences a tremendous present by remounting R.C. Sherrif’s Journey’s End.
World War I was an immense mistake. Missing Journey’s End at The Artisan Factory would be another gigantic mistake. It is an intimate, firsthand glimpse into a soldier’s life during war.
A convoluted play exceptionally acted, Far Away is playing at Toronto’s Dancemakers and the Centre for Creation
I had never seen a show written by the playwright powerhouse Caryl Churchill before. My friend and plus-one prepared me by stating that the show was, without a doubt, going to be confusing. So when I sat down to watch Far Away (Bad Dress Productions) at Dancemakers and the Centre for Creation, I was ready to lose myself in Churchill’s strange dystopia.
Far Away does not follow the path of the average story. Most stories begin in a place of confusion and conflict, then unravel into a neat conclusion. Far Away begins in a place of confusion and continues to tangle as the play goes on. There are no clear explanations. There is no clear conclusion. The play simply takes a rest in its twisted state. Continue reading Review: Far Away (Bad Dress Productions)→
The Session is 
