Reviews of productions based in Toronto – theatre includes traditional definitions of theatre, as well as dance, opera, comedy, performance art, spoken word performances, and more. Productions may be in-person, or remote productions streamed online on the Internet.
This is the final week of The New Ideas Festival at the Alumnae Theatre. I’m going to miss it – it’s been an interesting three weeks of theatre. I’ve enjoyed it immensely.
The festival consists of three weeks of new plays selected by a jury. There are all kinds of plays; some are very short (5 or 10 minutes), and some are about half an hour. There are also staged readings on Saturdays that are an hour long.
This week’s plays offer the same kind of interesting mix as the past two weeks.
The plays are all presented in the Alumnae Theatre Studio which seats about 80 people. It’s a wide space but not deep, so the performers are very close to the audience. There isn’t much in the way of sets. It’s all very up- close-and-personal.
So what’s in store this week? Something for everyone.
Last week, Toronto theatre got a little bit slapstick, a little bit silly and a lot of funny with the opening of Mirvish‘s Young Frankenstein at the Princess of Wales Theatre. Remember the 1974 Mel Brooks-Gene Wilder film collaboration of Young Frankenstein? I do, and I remember peeing in my pants laughing at the stuff as a kid, so I wasn’t sure that the story would be quite as funny now that I’m pushing thirty.
My fears were unfounded. It could have easily turned out to be one giant, spoofy flop, but, the hilarity of the music, the talent of the cast and the show-stopping ensemble dancing all made this production come together.
A man entered the room, whom I knew to be the star of the play, Diego Matamoros, and started telling what I thought was an anecdote about his experience as an actor. Diego never approached the stage, but instead, stood in the rafters talking while he handed out a picture of himself taken 30 years ago. I was impatiently waiting for him to stop wasting my time telling me what I thought was a personal story and to start the play already. It turns out he had, and relating this anecdote was actually the beginning of the play.
If you think that making the audience actually forget that they are watching a play is an accomplishment, then The Aleph was certainly successful in this respect. Reality and fiction were blurred, in the beginning at least. My issue was I felt that it was ultimately a play without the play. Continue reading Review: The Aleph – Soulpepper Theatre Company→
My roommates and friends are artists, my neighbours run an art gallery, and I’m around art a lot. But me, well, I’m not an artist, or even a dabbler–call me an appreciative outsider. So when I read the sell lines for The Canadian Stage Company’s production of Art–something about defining “art”–I almost passed on the play. Yet another exploration of the shit-or-art debate? No thanks.
But in the end, I was lured by star power (albeit of the dimly-lit-Canadian variety) of Colin Mochrie, who stars as art connoisseur Serge. In my youth, I spent many an afternoon enjoying the comedian’s Whose Line antics, and I felt like I owed him one.
It’s not easy to classify the evening. It’s not a concert, and it’s not a play; it’s a performance of music. As my play partner John said, “It’s Rube Goldberg music”. It’s music you have to watch because so much depends on the sight gags.
The music of Tom Waits is made and played on whatever is at hand. A turkey-baster, a saw, teacups, dominoes, frying pans, a step-ladder, a banjo and spaghetti to make a snare drum, bottles as wind instruments, a suitcase as percussion, balloons, kazoos, a golf club…
This is the final week of The New Ideas Festival at the Alumnae Theatre. I’m going to miss it – it’s been an interesting three weeks of theatre. I’ve enjoyed it immensely.
