Prohibition-era adaptation of Shakespeare classic in Toronto is fun for all ages

Shakespeare played out-of-doors is a time-honoured tradition, and especially appropriate for plays set in nature, such as Rosalynde (or, As You Like It). The main setting is the Forest of Arden, where a number of people have fled to avoid persecution at the hands of an evil Duke. Driftwood‘s production is a “Bard’s Bus Tour”, playing in various municipalities around Southern Ontario, with a vision to provide quality Shakespearean theatre to people of varying locations and income levels — all shows are either free or Pay What You Can. Driftwood does provide a quality experience, with skilled performances winning my attention over many distractions on the evening I attended.

Continue reading Review: Rosalynde (or, As You Like It) (Driftwood Theatre) →

The Secret Sessions brings the nostalgic cult comedy to life on the Toronto stage

When you first saw a picture of a capybara did you think “Well, that’s a Rodent Of Unusual Size”? Have you ever said to someone in parting “Have fun storming the castle”? Do you know what words come after “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya”? If so, I highly recommend you gather some friends and attend The Princess Bride – The Movie Experience, produced by The Secret Sessions, and onstage now at The Redwood.

Continue reading Review: The Princess Bride – The Movie Experience (The Secret Sessions) →

LULU v.7 takes on Frank Wedekind in this Toronto stage production

In LULU v.7 // aspects of a femme fatale, currently playing at Buddies In Bad Times, the creative team re-interprets Frank Wedekind‘s 1894 play Pandora’s Box. Lulu is sexually voracious, and either a malignant temptress or a victim of men who only see in her what their lust wants to see. “Why not both?” you may ask, and I and the show both agree. This productions’ first act is an atmospheric and inspired rendering of Lulu as both, including a meta-theatrical critique of the text and its place in patriarchy.

Continue reading Review: LULU v.7 // aspects of a femme fatale (Buddies in Bad Times) →

A story about the pressure of growing into womanhood, on stage at the Tarragon in Toronto

In Girls Like That, onstage now at Tarragon, a group of girls in a small private grade school develop that dreadful, inevitable pecking order of insular communities. When they go to high school, their social dynamics are further complicated by sexuality, boys, and patriarchal contradictions about how they are supposed to engage with their sexuality, and with boys. Continue reading Review: Girls Like That (Tarragon Theatre) →

Coal Mine Theatre presents a claustrophobic and dystopian drama on stage in Toronto

Three people are imprisoned in close quarters and stripped of their humanity, reduced to test subjects for mysterious experiments. This is the premise of Category E, by Edmonton playwright Belinda Cornish, onstage now at Coal Mine Theatre. It’s a horrific dystopia that left me wanting answers to a lot of questions. I would go see a sequel, or a prequel, in a heartbeat, both to find answers and to enjoy more of Cornish’s tightly-wound work. Continue reading Review: Category E (Coal Mine Theatre) →

Soulpepper brings “cathartic laughter” to the Toronto stage

George Orwell’s 1945 classic novel Animal Farm was a satirical critique of Stalinism in the Soviet Union. As the program for the production of Soulpepper‘s Animal Farm cheekily notes, “its greatest flaw, identified by a majority of 7th and 8th graders, is that it’s obviously irrelevant to our modern more sophisticated lives.” This new adaptation by Anthony MacMahon takes the premise of the original and applies it it to the issues of today. It also takes the approach of the original, which is not at all subtle. While nuance has a time and place, its not necessary for a hilarious and adept skewering of the current rise of demagogic political leaders.

Continue reading Review: Animal Farm (Soulpepper) →

Hannah Moscovitch’s Bunny takes to the stage at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre

I don’t often recognize myself in a character as much as I did at the opening night of Bunny, Hannah Moscovitch’s new play at Tarragon. Maev Beaty, one of the most splendid actors this city has to offer, plays Sorrel. As a teenager, Sorrel is a dorky, top-of-the-honour-roll student who’d rather read old novels than try to “fit in.” But as she moves further into adolescence, she discovers one thing that’s as pleasurable as reading: kissing, and more than kissing, with more than one boy. While Sorrel is described by all as stunningly beautiful, which does not describe me, I identify so much with her twin passions of sex and fiction, as well as her socially awkward sense of humour. Beaty’s Sorrel is so much herself, with no time for inhibition, that it’s hard not to love her.

Continue reading Review: Bunny (Tarragon Theatre) →

Two dance programs come to Toronto’s Theatre Centre

Contemporaneity 2.0, playing at the Theatre Centre as part of the Progress Festival, has two different Programs, A and B, both produced by Anandam Dance Theatre. On opening night we saw Program A, Gandhari. Unfortunately, the most interesting part of the event for me was the land acknowledgement by Gein Wong. Continue reading 2018 PROGRESS REVIEW: Contemporaneity 2.0 (Anandam Dance Theatre) →

Harsh history and present day reality are explored in a new play now playing in Toronto

Ipperwash, onstage now at Native Earth, is a fictional story based on the true events of the Stoney Point reserve, which was forcibly moved to the neighbouring reserve of Kettle Point in 1942 by the federal Department of Defence. There they established Camp Ipperwash, a military training base, with the promise to return the land after the war was over. However, the area was left contaminated, riddled with land mines.

In the play, set in the present day, an army veteran who is also Indigenous named Bea (PJ Prudat), arrives, employed on the clean up. As she develops relationships with two of the people who live there, Tim Cloud (Jonathan Fisher) and his nephew Slip (James Dallas Smith), while also being visited by the ghost of Tim’s sister Kwe (Samantha Brown), she grows aware of the history of the land and the powerful toll it took on the people of Stoney Point. Continue reading Review: Ipperwash (Native Earth) →

Hilarious, well-acted The Wedding Party arrives on the Toronto stage

I think most people end up having a complicated relationship with weddings — I certainly do. The Wedding Party by Kristen Thomson, produced by Crow’s Theatre, is a glorious fiasco of complicated relationships that play out on the wedding day of a young couple. The couple themselves are pointedly absent as characters. I have very often seen unhealthy family dynamics usurp the attention from a couple on their wedding day, and this show is about that. Continue reading Review: The Wedding Party (Crow’s Theatre) →