An imagined sequel to Cyrano de Bergerac is brought to life in Madeleine Robin Known as Roxane

In the intimate setting of the lemonTree Creations Studio, Theatre Double Take explores a ‘what if’ sequel scenario of the Rostand classic Cyrano de Bergerac in Madeleine Robin Known as Roxane.

Written and directed by Grace Smith, the show fast forwards to two years after Cyrano’s death, focusing on how Roxane has been living and coping with the idea that everything she ever knew about her love for her husband, Christian, and her cousin, Cyrano, was perhaps not as it seemed.

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Interactive site-specific theatre at the Bata Shoe Museum – Is this the face of Bartholomew S?

I can’t tell you. I saw The Last Seven Steps of Bartholomew S. at the Bata Shoe Museum on Friday evening and I still don’t know. And it doesn’t matter.

It isn’t really accurate to say that I saw the show. I was part of it, along with seven others. Eight if you count the person who led us through the story.

Although The Last Seven Steps of Bartholomew S. is billed as a play it isn’t a play in the traditional sense with the audience sitting and watching the actors. The audience is an integral part of the play. And it’s a very small audience. It’s audience participation to the nth degree, almost participating in a mini adventure, and it was lovely.

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Poking comedic fun at biblical tales, Genesis & Other Stories is playing at Toronto’s Red Sandcastle Theatre

Genesis & Other Stories (playing the Red Sandcastle) is playwright Rosamund Small’s love letter to amateur dramatics: to 14-hour cue-to-cues held in sweltering church basements and freezing middle-school gymnatoriums; to the tumbledown sets, costumes & props that volunteers dig out of their closets or laboriously assemble with their bare hands and loads of duct tape; and, above all else, to the strange, overly-earnest creatures who inhabit this world.

Director Christoper’s late father adapted the Book of Genesis to suburban America in the 1960s, and–as a final act of devotion–he tries to shepherd his ramshackle cast through the truly awful script for the play-within-a-play.

Sadly, even the otherworldly guidance of our deceased writer can’t save this company of misfits, wannabes and has-beens from their personal and public melodramas.

Happily, we get to laugh at their misery. And laugh, we do.

Continue reading Review: Genesis & Other Stories (Aim for the Tangent) →