By Alex Rayment
The Bad Dog Theatre company is a place of improv. Unscripted shows rule at this place, with different types on different nights. Wednesday Nights are Harold Nights – “a show featuring improvisers of all experience levels teaming up and tackling . . . improvised storylines inspired from a single audience suggestion”. So, I imagine you can tell where I’m going with this. Let me tell you about last Wednesday…
Continue reading Harold Nights – Wednesday's at Dog Theatre Company
Review by Dana Lacey
Its hard to review a play by a dead genius, and King Lear is one of Shakespeare‘s best. If you’ve ever seen it before, you know three things: the banter is hilarious, the insults viciously entertaining and the script entirely too long. The Hart House production stays pretty true to all of these things.
The ultra-brief plot: King Lear wants divide his kingdom to his three daughters, and as you can imagine some feelings end up hurt. Alliances are formed, evil plots are devised and disguises are worn, while Lear becomes increasingly senile. The action is oh-so-good, and the violence is cartoon worthy, full of sword fights and eye gouging (“out vile jelly!”).
If you don’t already know the story, its easy to get confused by Billy’s meandering plot lines and there’s a huge chunk in the middle where politics overtake the action. The friend I brought really wished there were two intermissions. Full disclosure: I love this play and have seen it performed many times, but have never made it through an entire show without dozing off.
Seriously, this is the week of shows opening.
Check this out:
Continue reading Maybe we should call it Theater Week in Toronto
By Megan Mooney
A while ago I let folks know about The Company Theatre’s new award – The Award of Excellence. It was awarded to Gordon Pinsent, and in subsequent years the award will be called ‘The Gordon Pinsent Award of Excellence’. It was delivered at one of those ritzy galas that Harper so despises. Although, like most Galas, it was a fundraiser, so I’m not sure where his ‘subsidized by the tax payers’ thing comes in, but you know…
The introduction of the award made me curious. I wanted to know what sparks the desire to institute an award like this, and how it gets decided. Luckily, since I’m a theatre writer, I get to ask all the questions I want. Philip Ricco, the co-artistic director of The Company Theatre, was kind enough to feed my curiosity. And, just in case you guys are curious too, I thought I’d tell you the answers I found out.
Continue reading How an award is born – The Gordon Pinsent Award of Excellence
By Dana Lacey
Crackwalker freaked me out before they’d killed the houselights. At first glance the set was beautiful: a dozen light bulbs hung overhead, sending an eerie but soft glow over everything. First the small details kicked in: a battered couch, balls of newspaper, an old chain-link fence…then the one that’s hardest to miss: a giant, bearded and filthy man wandering slowly back and forth, trenchcoat hanging open, the occasional guttural growl coming from a face hidden beneath a hood. He’ll spend most of the play slumped drunkenly in a corner. This was the Crackwalker, I suppose.
