Shadows is a sexy, smoldering play about ill-fated love playing at Toronto’s Videofag

Everything in Shadows is on fire. The lovers burn for each other; their careers and relationships with others smolder, crackle, and occasionally burst into flames; and practically the entire world they inhabit–long, flowing costume gowns; dressing rooms with crepe-paper walls; a Connecticut cabin with a well-stocked wine cellar; and the ever-present newspapers–will immolate in mere seconds. All it would take is a single ill-aimed spark.

Margo MacDonald’s play is a love letter to so many things (these actors, repertory theatre, the fun to be had in secrets…) that this script could have run off in all directions, but luckily she’s found (with the help of a little creative license) two figures sufficiently interesting to bind them together. Eva La Gallienne, an actor so well-established and connected that she runs a theatre devoted essentially to her own whims; and her lover of 7 years, Josephine “Jo” Hutchison, playing juveniles and ingenues into her 30s, yet keenly aware that nothing of her world is permanent.

Continue reading Review: Shadows (Parry Riposte Productions / Videofag) →

Burn This takes a look at personal identity and relationships playing at Toronto’s Sterling Studio Theatre

Wednesday night was my second experience with Sterling Studio Theatre. I enjoyed their production of Specter so much that I was really looking forward to seeing their preview performance of Lanford Wilson’s play Burn This. An interesting space, I wondered what they would do with it this time.

Burn This begins shortly after the funeral of Robby, a gay dancer who drowned in a boating accident with his boyfriend. Set in a Manhattan loft shared by Robby’s roommates Anna; his dance partner and choreographer, and Larry; who works in advertising, Burn This is about reconsidering identity and relationships. Pale, Robby’s older brother, forces everyone to make sense of their lives when he bursts on the scene.

Continue reading Review: Burn This (Sterling Studio Theatre) →

The Company Theatre presents Allan Hawco in Amy Herzog’s play Belleville at Toronto’s Berkeley Street Theatre

I’ve always been perplexed by people who marry in their early twenties. When you’re young, naïve, insecure and haven’t spent enough time figuring out who you really are or what you really want, isn’t it sort of an inadvisable time to get hitched? Belleville, produced by Company Theatre and Canadian Stage, is a new play by American playwright Amy Herzog which looks at the repercussions of settling down before finding yourself. Continue reading Review: Belleville (The Company Theatre/Canadian Stage) →

Sawah brings Middle Eastern music, dance and culture to the Fleck Dance Studio in Toronto

I try my best to stay away from descriptive words that have become horribly clichéd. But when it comes to certain art forms, in particular dance and music, I find myself at a loss for words and revert back to the classic yet overused. Case in point, for me, would be belly dance and Arabic music. As a westernized Chinese woman, I’m far from a connoisseur of Middle Eastern culture but nonetheless I’m drawn to its beauty and mystery. There’s a strong sense of sensuality, exoticism, and allure that I find captivating. It was just enough for me to acquire a couple coin scarves myself and sign up for belly dance classes at my local gym.

When I heard that Arabesque would be performing Sawah (which translates to “wanderer” in Arabic), an immersive experience of Arabic music and dance, this weekend at the Fleck Dance Theatre, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for a bit of escapism.

Continue reading Review: Sawah (Arabesque) →

Canadian history as seen through comic book lenses, Videocabaret presents Trudeau and the FLQ

As we walked home after Trudeau and the FLQ, my guest turned to me, energized and excited.

“So this is the Jack Nicholson Joker fever-dream version of Canadian history.”
“Pretty much, yes.”

Trudeau and the FLQ is best described as a series of living editorial cartoons. Short vignettes, none longer than 2-3 minutes, depicting significant events, private moments, public revelations and occasional blowups in Canadian history. The cast moves at alarming speed through over 10 years of history, stopping to smell the roses, drink the cognac and drop the acid as they go.

We see Pierre Elliot Trudeau rise from philosophy professor to public intellectual to Minister of Justice to Prime Minister. We see the FLQ form, germinate, and start kidnapping cabinet ministers. And in this comic-book world of lurid colour and mounties in drag, we see Canada forming despite it all.

Continue reading Review: Trudeau and the FLQ (Videocabaret) →