All posts by Catherine Jan

A former freelance translator in Paris, Catherine Jan now enjoys writing in Toronto and about Toronto. Especially about Toronto theatre. She also blogs about translation, copywriting, editing and other word-related past-times at Catherine Translates. Are you on Twitter? Join @translatetrad‘s 2,000 followers who keep up with her workin’ girl tweets.

Review: Queen Marie (Alumnae Theatre)

Ambitious Queen Marie plays at the Alumnae Theatre in Toronto

Playing at the Alumnae Theatre in Toronto’s Distillery District, Queen Marie is an engaging musical tribute to “great big girl” Marie Dressler. Dressler, whom I knew nothing of previously even though she won an Academy Award and acted with Greta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin, was an Ontario-born comic actor whose theatrical career spanned decades, right into the first “talkies”. Continue reading Review: Queen Marie (Alumnae Theatre)

Review: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Scarborough Players)

Big laughs in stylish comedy, now playing on the Toronto stage

Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a comedy that gets funnier after funnier with each scene. Playing at the Scarborough Village Theatre, this story will make your own sibling relations seem perfectly functional.

Wistful Sonia (Deborah Jarvis) and complacent Vanya (Chip Thompson) are stay-at-home siblings to whom nothing exciting ever happens. Things run amok after their psychic housekeeper Cassandra (Carolyn Williamson) warns them of housing doom and gloom. Sure enough, their movie star sister Masha (Martha Breen) waltzes in to visit, introduces her young bimbo boyfriend Spike (Holm Bradwell), and announces she wishes to sell the family home. Masha is the one who has been paying for its upkeep, while Sonia and Vanya have spent the past 15 years caring for their elderly parents, now deceased. Continue reading Review: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Scarborough Players)