Review: Amsterdam (Wilde Bunbury Theatre)

 

Amsterdam is an ambitious new play that gets lost in its execution, on stage in Toronto

Amsterdam, by Dan McPeake, presented by new company Wilde Bunbury Theatre and presented at the Red Sandcastle Theatre, is a 50-minute one-act play that speaks about the nature of time and its ability to shift identity, and the different personas we have at different times and for different people. It’s simultaneously linear and non-linear, asking us what it would be like if time merely ceased to exist. It’s a philosophical play by a young, developing playwright, and it shows. In the end, there’s an ambitious and interesting concept here that unfortunately doesn’t quite work in the execution.

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Review: Inch of Your Life: Episode 2/The Middle Part (The Theatre Circuit)

Part 2 of this hilarious dramedy is “relatable”, and “nuanced”, at the Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto

The Catelli’s are back in black, white and red in the second part of The Theatre Circuit‘s three-part made-for-the-stage dramedy series: Inch of Your Life. I had the pleasure of reviewing the “pilot episode” and have recently been blessed with a second pair of tickets to Episode 2/The Middle Part.

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Review: After the Blackout (Soulpepper and RARE theatre company)

Melanie Lepp in a red robe holding a hockey stickAfter the Blackout is “powerful”, “vulnerable”, and “poignant”, on stage in Toronto

Regardless of everything else that happens in the play, the ending is what makes the point.

After the Blackout, playing at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, is not a typical theatrical story. I say that beyond the fact that the stories are all about people with disabilities, and played by actors with those disabilities. The note by Judith Thompson, who wrote and directed After the Blackout, talks about how the goal of the play was to write a complex story in which the disabilities of the cast were facts, not features. That succeeded beyond measure, but it too is not why this isn’t a typical theatrical production. This story is a-typical because it’s a difficult story, not just in what it is saying but in how it is being said.

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Write for us! Coverage of the 2018 Toronto Fringe Festival

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Cover Toronto Fringe for Mooney on Theatre

Mooney on Theatre is looking for folks to review shows at the Toronto Fringe Festival, which runs from July 4 – 15, 2018.

In many ways, Fringe Festivals embody what Mooney on Theatre holds dear: making theatre more accessible. The Fringe features inexpensive shows attended by a wide range of people, many of whom are not theatregoers the rest of the year.

With this in mind, we put an intense amount of effort into providing as much coverage of the Toronto Fringe Festival as we can. To get an idea of what that coverage looks like, check out the Fringe Festival category on this site.

Among other things, this coverage includes reviewing each show in a relatively substantive way by the end of the first weekend. This task takes a lot of writers. Each year, to make it happen, we bring on additional contributors. Maybe this year that will be you.

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