Review: Perfect Crime (The NAGs)

Perfect Crime

The NAGs breathed new life into Perfect Crime on stage at the Tranzac Club in Toronto

You’ve probably never heard of a play called Perfect Crime, which has been running off-Broadway since the Reagan administration. And that’s fine: the script is a wreck, the thrills mostly cheap, and the mystery less a “whodunnit” than a “Jesus Christ, who even CARES?!”

But the NAGs (a local community troupe who’ve played out of the Tranzac even longer) are determined to salvage it through camp alone, playing it as an over-the-top soap opera every bit as unhinged and ridiculous as the script. And as it turns out, there is some life in this hoary old play.

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Review: Caminos 2015 (Aluna Theatre and Native Earth Performing Arts)

Photo of Marine Life provided by the festival

The Caminos Festival gave Toronto audiences five days of theatrical experimentations

In her interview with us last week, Artistic Director Beatriz Pizano talked about the themes of language, communication, and cultural interpretation that ran through this year’s Caminos Festival programming, as presented by Aluna Theatre in partnership with Native Earth Performing Arts at the Daniels Spectrum (585 Dundas Street East). After attending two nights of the festival, I have to add beautiful music and audience participation to that list. Caminos 2015 is a thoughtfully curated collection of compelling “performance proposals” and theatrical “experimentations” from Panamerican and Indigenous artists that I wish I saw more of in Toronto theatre.

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Review: HERETIC (Soup Can Theatre)

Photo of Sarah Thorpe by Laura Dittman

Soup Can Theatre brings the story of Joan of Arc to life in HERETIC for Toronto audiences

Joan of Arc is one of my favourite women in history and her story is a fascinating one. Without any proper education, let alone military education, she lead the French army to victory during the Hundred Years’ War against the English — and to the crowning of Charles VII — as based on divine visions she received as a young teen. Soup Can Theatre‘s production of HERETIC is a mesmerizing one-woman show about the life of a young Jeanne D’Arc.

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Review: Hamlet (Hart House)

Hamlet, photo provided by company

Hart House takes on Shakespeare’s most famous drama with Hamlet in Toronto

Shakespeare’s classic play Hamlet is essentially a story of tragic irony, betrayal, murder, madness, and obsession–told by a man who thinks and speaks too much. I was amused to discover tonight at Hart House that it’s also the source of numerous modern-day expressions: “The lady doth protest too much”, “To thine own self be true”, and “Murder most foul” to name but a few.

You may be thinking “this is news to someone who reviews theatre?” Yes. It was. While I studied Shakespeare in high school, I was more into Romeo and Juliet. And nothing else. I’m now acutely aware that Shakespeare maybe isn’t my thing. However, that only detracted slightly from my enjoyment of this show.

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