Salt Baby, playing as part of the Next Stage Festival, is a story inspired by playwright Falen Johnson’s own experiences as a young First Nations person who looks white. The main character in the play, given no name other than “Salt Baby” (played by Paula Jean Prudat), has left her home on the Six Nations reservation to live in the city and has started dating a Caucasian man. She feels these things pulling her away from her heritage and desperately wants to stay tied to her ancestry. She is so desperate that she takes advice from quacks, risks alienating her father, and sets her relationship on fire. Continue reading 2013 Next Stage Theatre Festival Review: Salt Baby (Salt Baby Productions)
All posts by Dorianne Emmerton
2013 Next Stage Theatre Festival Review: Post Eden (Suburban Beast)
Post Eden, playing at the Factory as part of the Next Stage Festival, is a multi-media show set on the aptly-named Neighbourly Lane in Richmond Hill, Ontario. This is a real street, and the program claims that while Post Eden is “a work of fiction from the imagination of the playwright” (Jordan Tannahill) it also is “inspired by, and incorporating verbatim excerpts from, interviews with five families” who actually live there.
The story involves a family where the husband (Sean Dixon) and wife (Linnea Swan) have broken up, and the husband moved four doors down so as to still be close to his daughter (Sascha Cole.) This sounds like a plausible scenario to take place in the real suburbs. It also involves a boy who may be a coyote (Kevin Jake Walker) and a dead dog (Lindsey Clark) who is very articulate in English and strongly wants to be buried in a place where her soul can be free. This seems more likely to be the work of imagination. Continue reading 2013 Next Stage Theatre Festival Review: Post Eden (Suburban Beast)
fu-GEN Theatre Company Holds A Clothing Sale Fundraiser
fu-GEN Theatre Company is hosting a clothing sale fundraiser at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre
Being a huge fan of both local independent theatre and cheap second-hand clothing, I was excited and intrigued to see fu-GEN Theatre Company was holding a clothing sale as a fundraiser on December 10th. fu-GEN is a company oriented toward the work of Asian Canadian theatre artists and, like all small indie theatres, they need fundraising in order to develop and produce shows. Continue reading fu-GEN Theatre Company Holds A Clothing Sale Fundraiser
Review: The Lesson (Modern Times Stage Company)
The Lesson, a classic aburdist show, is playing at Toronto’s Lower Ossington Theatre
The Lesson by Eugène Ionesco is a classic of the Absurdist canon. It is currently bring produced by Modern Times Stage Company and is an excruciating experience. But not because it’s bad: the play is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable and frustrated.
A young woman arrives at a Professor’s house for her first tutoring session. She cannot subtract but she has memorized every possible result of any two numbers being multiplied. The Professor, aghast at her rote learning, is determined to teach her concepts. His concepts, however, are long spouts of verbiage that can’t even be called “circular logic” because there is no logic in them at all. Continue reading Review: The Lesson (Modern Times Stage Company)
Review: The Anger In Ernest and Ernestine (Pivotal(arts) Theatre Company)
The Anger In Ernest and Ernestine playing in Toronto’s Unit 102 Theatre is a howlingly funny show with a script that has withstood the test of twenty-five years.
The Anger In Ernest and Ernestine, currently staged by Pivotal(arts) is the study of the dissolution of a relationship, from the blush of new love to violence, death threats and hate. It is informed by clown tradition and effectively uses the incredibly intimate Unit 102 space by interacting with their Stage Manager, acknowledging the audience and making many references to their “theatre home.”
The things that drive them apart are mundane and that’s key to the charm of the piece: who in the audience hasn’t had a failed relationship with a live-in lover? Most people can identify with the accumulation of tiny differences that turns affection into frustration. Continue reading Review: The Anger In Ernest and Ernestine (Pivotal(arts) Theatre Company)