Here is what’s going on in Toronto theatre this week. There are several great shows to catch for the week of February 17th, 2014. ** Shows marked with the double asterisks and in red are the ones that make Wayne, our Managing Editor, wishes he could exist in multiple parallel universes so he could check them all out.
Continue reading Play Listings for the Week of February 17, 2014
Directors, writers and dramaturges have spent an awful lot of the last 400 years trying to fix The Taming of the Shrew. We’ve tried all-female casts, we’ve tried rewriting sections of the script, we’ve tried pumping it full of goopy sarcasm, we’ve even put Elizabeth I in a leading role, all in the hopes of banishing the distressing way it treats women.
With this in mind, you have no idea how pleasing it is that this new production, by the Red One Theatre Collective (billing themselves as Redone Theatre), has found so simple a solution: do it straight, but do it silly. Their SHREW (playing the Storefront Theatre, 955 Bloor West) sticks very closely to the original text, but is packed with vaudeville, slapstick, sarcasm, raunch, physical comedy, infectious joy, and good vibes.
The cure for all that ails this play, as it turns out, is a puppet show, three Germans in union suits, and a pair of assless chaps. Who knew?
There are productions that have appalled and confused me, productions that have surprised and inspired me, but very rarely do I have the chance to see something that penetrates so thoroughly, challenging my notions of what theatre is. That is what happened with I Am America, which I was honoured to see last night at the Glen Morris Studio Theatre.
Nostos: Encounters with the Open Program, currently being hosted by The Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies (CDTPS), at the University of Toronto, is a presentation of three performances featuring work of the Open Program. Continue reading Review: I Am America (Workcentre of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards & The Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies)
Whenever I notice that a production of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is coming to town, I always have to see it. This past Wednesday night, I went down to Dancemakers in Toronto’s Historic Distillery District to see how the new theatre troupe No Porpoise Productions might tackle this narrative in their inaugural show Alice and Wonderland: A Tale with No Porpoise.
Why do I have to see every production of Alice in Wonderland? It’s the kind of story that, when translated into theatre, unless you hire Tim Burton as your ‘set guy’ or you slip everyone in the audience LSD, presents the challenge of conveying perceptual and psychological realities that are all-encompassing and essential for the story’s success. When you read Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, your imagination makes quick work of this, but how can these realities be conveyed through theatre?
Continue reading Review: Alice in Wonderland: A Tale with No Porpoise (No Porpoise Productions)
Firebrand started as soon as I stepped into Mackenzie House. Surrounded by history and the story of Mackenzie’s political life Firebrand brought life to Toronto’s first Mayor. This is Single Thread Theatre’s third historical play in a series set on location around Toronto.
Written by Alex Dualt and set at the end of William Lyon Mackenzie’s life, Firebrand looks at his difficulty with debt, struggles with his home life, and his resignation from politics. Firebrand also briefly touched on some political topics that are still going strong today. The most potent and intriguing to me were the discussions about the Civilization Act, treatment and care of mental health patients, and women’s rights.