An in-depth look at the struggles of teen girls, Emotional Creature is playing at Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre Feb 22-23

It has often been said that a single voice can’t change the world. But it is only the brave and unrelenting who dare to try that will have their voices heard.

Written by award-winning playwright Eve Ensler, Emotional Creature  (presented by  V-Day Toronto in conjunction with Nightwood Theatre and Young People’s Theatre) chronicles the coming-of-age experiences of 13 girls – all in order to raise awareness surrounding the injustices that many young women must endure.

“Emotional Creature is about girls around the world and asks all young people and particularly girls to contemplate the circumstances of others, connect to those circumstances, and be a voice for those whose circumstances keep their voices silent,” wrote Tanisha Taitt, the show’s director, in an email to Mooney on Theatre.

Touted as a success by various press outlets like The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly, Emotional Creature makes its Canadian debut this Saturday at the Young People’s Theatre.

Continue reading Preview: Emotional Creature (V-Day Toronto) →

Choral vocals and ensemble movement blend for a unique night of  Toronto theatre in The Caucasian Chalk Circle

This is not my first trek down the rabbit hole and into the crazy epic theatre world of Bertolt Brecht. Being both impressed and dazzled by my previous sojourn, the idea that Humber Theatre (Humber College being my own alma mater) was taking on Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle immediately piqued my curiosity. Accompanying me for the evening would be my friend Grace, my previous Brecht date.

The Caucasian Chalk Circle is fashioned loosely as a play within a play featuring a community of villagers exhausted from the aftereffects of war. Within this play, a servant girl takes on the care and raising of an abandoned baby, the Governess’ child, and endures two years of hardships and struggles in order to raise it. The final question remains: who is the true mother?

There’s something uncanny and fantastical about Brecht’s work, and how that translates is simply this — expect the unexpected.

Continue reading Review: Caucasian Chalk Circle (Humber Theatre) →

Major flooding has left Toronto’s Storefront Theatre in shambles, please donate and help if you can

Mooney on Theatre received with tremendous sorrow the news that one of our favourite venues–the Storefront Theatre–has been flooded. The auditorium itself has survived, but due to a popped water main, their offices, technical storage, computer equipment and everything else is now under 7 feet of water, mud and silt.

The Storefront (and its resident company, Red One) has consistently been one of the most outstanding institutions in the Toronto theatre scene: every show (13 a year–which is an incredible number, even before factoring in festivals, one-nighters, etc.) which passes through their doors seems to be a success, and the venue itself is a particular gift to our community.

If you can spare a few dollars, a fund has been established in support of rebuilding. But even if you can’t, we urge you–once it re-opens–to discover the Storefront, to enjoy its peculiar and unique delights, and to join us in cheering its return.

Below the jump, the press release concerning this situation.

Continue reading The Flooding of the Shrew →

Mrs. Warren’s Profession, about a mother’s work in prostitution, is playing at Toronto’s Sterling Studio Theatre

Mrs. Warren’s Profession is George Bernard Shaw’s examination of sex, money and morality. Kitty Warren’s occupation is, as the familiar parlance goes, the “oldest profession”. The timing of Sterling Studio Theatre’s production could not have been better; it comes on the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Canada’s anti-prostitution laws.

Just to clarify: prostitution itself has never been illegal here in Canada, just the activities that surround it—brothels, public solicitation and making a living at it. These are now legal, opening up the possibility of safer working conditions (although new legislation is still pending). And, while attitudes towards the industry have shifted in a positive direction, the stigma remains. Mrs. Warren’s plight is still resonant. Continue reading Review: Mrs. Warren’s Profession (Sterling Studio Theatre) →

Redone brings slapstick comedy and the Yukon to SHREW playing at Toronto’s Storefront Theatre

Directors, writers and dramaturges have spent an awful lot of the last 400 years trying to fix The Taming of the Shrew. We’ve tried all-female casts, we’ve tried rewriting sections of the script, we’ve tried pumping it full of goopy sarcasm, we’ve even put Elizabeth I in a leading role, all in the hopes of banishing the distressing way it treats women.

With this in mind, you have no idea how pleasing it is that this new production, by the Red One Theatre Collective (billing themselves as Redone Theatre), has found so simple a solution: do it straight, but do it silly. Their SHREW (playing the Storefront Theatre, 955 Bloor West) sticks very closely to the original text, but is packed with vaudeville, slapstick, sarcasm, raunch, physical comedy, infectious joy, and good vibes.

The cure for all that ails this play, as it turns out, is a puppet show, three Germans in union suits, and a pair of assless chaps. Who knew?

Continue reading Review: SHREW (Red One / Redone) →