Q: What do you get when you cross the Twilight Zone with Italian Opera and throw in Norma Desmond as the lead character?
A: I’ll be damned if I know. But it’s pretty much what you can expect from Zona Pellucida – a 45 min. one person show from Montreal which played at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.
My friend Earnest and I didn’t really know what to expect from “Zona Pellucida”. The posters gave little indication of plot and the programme offered little more. It is one of those kinds of shows where you sit there for the first ten minutes thinking “Ok, I just need to concentrate harder and maybe I’ll get the purpose here!” By the time we hit 25 minutes I just decided to sit back and enjoy the ride.
It’s cold, slushy, bleak and the credit card bills from the holiday season have arrived. Happy National Depression Week everyone. It’s the perfect time for me to huddle indoors and dust off my keyboard for some good old theatre bloggin’. It also happens to be perfect setting in which to present the famous, anti-nihilistic French classic L’Étranger – the book on which Stranger by Praxis Theatre is based.
Them & Us, playing at Theatre Passe Muraille, isn’t really a play; it’s a series of vignettes. All these portraits and sketches focus on male-female relationships and the trouble we have connecting with each other.
You’re going to want to see this one with a friend, because you’re going to want to talk about it afterwards. It would be ideal to go with a friend of the opposite sex. That way you can ask if women say “I don’t believe in romantic love” or if men say “I want to stab you with a fork…in the shoulder”, or if those seem to just be ‘guy things’ or ‘girl things’.
First, let me tell you that I am a fan of burlesque. I have never not enjoyed myself at a burlesque show (oooh, double negative, wonder if I’ll get in trouble for that). That said, I REALLY like good burlesque (lets be honest, there’s a lot of mediocre out there that you really appreciate for the heart, not for the quality).
With that in mind, let me tell you, watching Les Coquettes was a real treat. The show was funny and sexy and filled with talent, all the things burlesque should be. It’s no wonder all their shows seem to sell out.
Being of the cynical and artistic variety, I was expecting It’s a Wonderful Life by Canstage to be essentially a live action version of a classic film – boring, bland and pointless. I was predicting a night of sitting in a theatre surrounded by retirees and grandparents wondering why I hadn’t just stayed home and watched the movie. What I was not expecting was the sarcastic voice in the back of my head to be told (quite promptly) to “sit down and shut up”.
