Reviews of theatre, dance, opera, comedy and festivals. Performances can be in-person or streamed remotely on the web for social-distancing.
The Wide Night Collective‘s production of British playwright Chloe Moss‘s play This Wide Night, playing at the Factory Theatre Mainspace, is a compassionate examination of life for former prisoners living on the outside. How can two women recently out of prison find ways to live happily in very difficult circumstances? The exploration of the answers to this question makes for wonderful theatre.
Continue reading This Wide Night (Wide Night Collective) 2013 SummerWorks Review
On Sunday evening I went down to the Scotiabank Studio Theatre to check out The Art of Building a Bunker as part of this years SummerWorks Festival. I experienced a contentious and truly satisfying bit of Theatre- a difficult journey “down the river of inclusivity and into the ass of the world”.
Continue reading The Art of Building a Bunker (QuipTake) 2013 SummerWorks Review
I wish I’d taken someone with me to see Good People Bad Things – playing at Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace as part of SummerWorks. I really wanted to talk about the play and about some of the questions it raised but I was alone and had to make do with interior dialogue.
Daniel Thau-Eleff wrote and performed Good People Bad Things, a monologue that isn’t nearly as dark and heavy as you might expect given that it deals with “the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and his encounter with a couple whose relationship becomes abusive.”
A lot to fit into 55 minutes.
Continue reading Good People Bad Things (Moving Target Theatre Company) 2013 SummerWorks Review
Enough Rope wins the prize for the most perplexing show I’ve reviewed for SummerWorks this year. It is a performance that delves into the struggle of the artist and I thought it fitting that I should invite my friend Ilene, a conceptual portrait painter.
The Lower Ossington Theatre Studio stage is transformed into what I understood to be a circus space. Ilene read it as more of a Southern cave cult. We were the last to sit and found a spot on cushioned burlap sacks on the hay-covered floor.
The entire show is divided loosely into four parts: “The Bound Man”, “Josephine The Singer”, “The Hunger Artist” and “The Metamorphosis”. Each segment is physical, dynamic, immediate and immersive. Continue reading Enough Rope (Enough Rope Collective) 2013 SummerWorks Review
Zero Visibility by the AMY Project is a chilly production in the middle of SummerWorks 2013. The show, playing at Lower Ossington Studio, is a cross-stitching of multiple characters’ stories during a bad snowstorm in Toronto. The show weaves playful humour with serious topics like self esteem, suicide, and being shunned from a community.
The cast of the AMY Project demonstrates strong versatility with the art of story-telling. Each cast member plays a multitude of characters, transforming into someone new with the switch of hat or scarf. The show is filled with monologues, songs, flashbacks, and even a little bit of Shakespeare. And if that isn’t enough, simple props like fans and fake snow make the performance come alive. The ladies of the AMY Project show they have quite a few tricks up their sleeves.
Continue reading Zero Visibility (AMY Project) 2013 SummerWorks Review