If you’re eager to get out of the cold and into some theatre this week, we’ve got you covered! It may be rotten outside, but the theatre scene in Toronto is really starting to heat up this week with a number of new and diverse shows opening. Our picks are in red under the cut!
Circlesnake Productions presents Slip, a fractured murder mystery, at The Box TorontoThe Box Toronto is a re-purposed loft, hidden behind a small alley like a secret. The theatre looks like a regular apartment with a plain kitchenette tucked in the corner, but there are stage lights all across the ceiling. The walls are covered with newspaper clippings, post-it notes, and letters. Ripped pages are strewn across the floor. The audience tip-toes around the un-moving body of an actress. We all shuffle in our seats, trying to get comfortable at the scene of the crime.
Slip is a story about an investigation of a possible murder. The victim has died of mysterious circumstances, which Toronto detectives Lynne and Mark try to uncover with their expertise. The investigation becomes more trying as more information about the victim is discovered, along with another unexpected obstacle: Lynne’s memory is failing her. Lynne tries to focus on solving the crime, even when her mind can’t seem to focus with her.
Continue reading Review: Slip (Circlesnake Productions)
“You cannot inhabit without being inhabited.”
Such is the resounding message of Elle, playing now at Theatre Passe Muraille, the defiant tale of a French aristocrat stranded on an island off the east coast of Canada. While our heroine survives by sheer force of will and grasps onto her sanity with only her sharp wit, Elle explores how a land inevitably changes a person, deeply and irreversibly.
The Canadian Opera Company remounts its production of Wagner’s Siegfried in TorontoThe opening strains of Siegfried by Richard Wagner are deceptively quiet. The Canadian Opera Company orchestra’s interpretation of the sinuous and furtive marriage between rumbling timpani and hollow reeds allowed the foreboding drama of the penultimate installment of Der Ring Des Niebelungen (The Ring Cycle) to creep into our senses. The orchestra in this work is no less a character than any of the larger than life voices on stage, palpably breathing in tandem with the sweeping vocal lines for which this work is known.
Opera lovers love The Ring Cycle and expect a lot. François Girard’s production, last performed by the COC in 2006, met every inch of those expectations. Continue reading Review: Siegfried (Canadian Opera Company)
Fun and “entertaining” tap play takes to the stage in TorontoStepping Out, Richard Harris’ 1984 play currently running at the Alumnae Theatre, is what I’d call a “hangout” play. It’s low-stakes, with only mild conflict and very little resolution. Its charm, much like a sitcom, lies in spending time with a group of people over the course of a year or so, told in vignettes from a slowly-progressing amateur tap class attempting to work towards an actual performance. This means the play lives or dies based on how invested you are in the characters and their relationships, and the snappiness of the dialogue. The script’s a bit hoary, but overall it’s fun to step in and hang out for a while. Continue reading Review: Stepping Out (Alumnae Theatre)