Friday, August 31, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
The Still, August 30, 2012
No Great Mischief, by David S. Young with, l, RH Thomson and David Fox.
Joy von Tiedemann's image, with its use of light (both theatre and accessory), negative space and profile is simply brilliant.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Open Letter to The Factory Board from Atom Egoyan et al.
[The Charlebois Post has been given permission to publish this letter which has appeared elsewhere. Signatories are: Atom Egoyan, Martha Henry, Annie Kidder, Seana McKenna, Michael Ondaatje, Eric Peterson, Gordon Pinsent, Fiona Reid, Richard Rose, R.H. Thompson, David Young. We republish this here to further the conversation which has continued over the last months. Some formatting has been changed from the original .pdf version]
See other articles about the crisis at Factory Theatre.
The letter:
See other articles about the crisis at Factory Theatre.
The letter:
After Dark, August 28, 2012
Outside the (Poor) BoxReflections on money in a penniless world
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois
If you're on Facebook or Twitter you have been seeing two trends: projects - especially theatre projects - crowd-sourcing funding for shows; a backlash against professionals - actors, journalists, musicians - working for nothing except the joy of working, experience and exposure.
These two trends interest me profoundly. As we, at CharPo, have said - out loud and constantly - we pay nothing to our writers (nor do editors, nor publishers, receive any payment). Crowd-sourcing money has been considered so that we can at least offer honorariums.
However, what is happening out there is sometimes exciting to us, and sometimes discouraging. Whereas, as little as a year ago, crowd-sourcing funds was a fascinating idea, we now see a lot of projects who go the Indiegogo route (to name one fund-raising organization) failing to raise even close to what they were aiming at. Some of these companies are solid, even magnificent, organizations. They cannot - for a variety of reasons - get government funding or when they do it's a pittance. Right now, without much research, I know at least four theatre organizations crowd-sourcing money and having a bitch of a time of it.
Monday, August 27, 2012
The Show, August 27, 2012
Neil Labute was not your average Mormon. He's not even your average ex-Mormon. He is a writer who takes your hand, leads you into the forest, and then lets go. He's done it over and over again with his plays - many of which have been adapted to cinema. (In the Company of Men, The Shape of Things, reasons to be pretty.) As a playwright, he's not a nice guy. He strips flesh from his characters and his audiences walk out dazed and haunted. (What makes it all worse is that, quite often, the audience has laughed during the torture!)
In a Dark, Dark House - continuing this week at the tiny Unit 102 Theatre - carries on the Labute tradition. Two brothers may or may not have lived through sexual abuse by a friend. This is simply a premise for a flood of recriminations and anger between the two - one of whom has been incarcerated in a psychiatric facility for observation and hopes his brother's memories of the abuse will free him.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
The Story: Joel Ivany on Against The Grain's new season
L-R Joel Ivany, Nancy Hitzig, Cecily Carver, Christopher Mokrzewski and Caitlin Coull
A Diary of One Who Appears
by Joel Ivany Artistic Director, Against the Grain Theatre
I’m an opera director. I often work with acting singers who are among the best in the world. This is an area of comfort for me. But budgeting, ticketing, licensing, website designing and dealing with agents are not skills I had as I emerged from opera school, but inevitably they come with the job of running your own theatre company.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Theatre For Thought, August 25, 2012
ACTING IN THE AGE OF REJECTIONjoel fishbane
Friday, August 24, 2012
News: Open letter of clarification from George F. Walker
[Ed: The Charlebois Post received, via email, an open letter reportedly from playwright George F. Walker which has been widely circulated. The letter refers to the ongoing artists' boycott of Factory Theatre and, more specifically, the company's press release of yesterday. We have tried to assure ourselves that this is indeed from Mr. Walker and have received confirmation we judge to be sufficient as well as permission from Mr. Walker.]
Okay. Because the board seems to be holding Ken responsible for the boycott and asking him to end it for the good of...whatever, the negotiations, their feeble subscription drive, their battered egos, here is how it actually got started. Michael Healey contacted me and asked if there was anything he could do to help. I responded that I wanted to get a boycott going and would he mind drafting a letter. Or maybe he volunteered to write it at that point, I'm not sure. It was afterall a half century ago in total fuck up time. Anyway, he wrote a perfect little something, we circulated it to a number of people. Some responded, some didn't. We circulated it more widely and the numbers started to grow. Truth is, I had wanted to do it some time before this but I sensed that Ken was uneasy with the idea. However, eventually, because I believed deeply that it would be the only thing that would make an impact on the board, I pushed through his unease (uneasily) and here we are. So if people need someone to blame for this, they can blame me. I do not care one little bit. There is only one thing I care about in this whole miserable sickening mess and that is Ken's reinstatement. So that's it then: not Ken's idea, not Ken's responsibility to terminate. Also, it is now clearly something wholly owned by the people who signed on to it. And as it clearly states, it will not end until Ken gets his job back. That is, until the board itself puts an end to it.
Just wanted to clear that up.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
News: Bouchard pulls from Factory
Bouchard, Walker gone - questions about Thompson and ongoing talks
The Factory Theatre has announced that Michel Marc Bouchard has joined the boycott against the company by pulling his play Tom and the Coyote from the season. The work was set to open the 2012-13 year.
This brings to three the number of works in the five-play year whose productions have been cancelled or are doubtful due to the boycott. George F. Walker's play, Dead Metaphor, has already been pulled from the lineup and the website. Judith Thompson, whose play Watching Glory Die was to close the Factory year, has joined the boycott. However, her play still appears as part of the season at the Factory website.
In the same press release, Factory announced they were in talks with Ken Gass.
Read several articles related to the crisis including letters from the board, from Mr. Gass, and artists supporting the boycott.
The Factory press release:
The Factory Theatre has announced that Michel Marc Bouchard has joined the boycott against the company by pulling his play Tom and the Coyote from the season. The work was set to open the 2012-13 year.
This brings to three the number of works in the five-play year whose productions have been cancelled or are doubtful due to the boycott. George F. Walker's play, Dead Metaphor, has already been pulled from the lineup and the website. Judith Thompson, whose play Watching Glory Die was to close the Factory year, has joined the boycott. However, her play still appears as part of the season at the Factory website.
In the same press release, Factory announced they were in talks with Ken Gass.
Read several articles related to the crisis including letters from the board, from Mr. Gass, and artists supporting the boycott.
The Factory press release:
The Image, August 23, 2012
With the summer season winding down, time to look forward to fall and autumn and this magnificent image, from David Cooper, has us excited already. It's Jonathon Young and Dawn Petter from the Electric Company production of Tear the Curtain coming to Canadian Stage in October.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Interview: Wesley J. Colford (Mature Young Adults)
characters riffing on the chasm
by Christopher Douglas
Wesley J. Colford may be young but he certainly has sunk his teeth into the Toronto theatre scene this summer. As an actor in the Toronto Fringe play, Tam Lin, and writer and producer of the Best of the Fringe selection, The Wakowski Brothers, Colford did not rest on those laurels. After completing the SummerWorks Leadership Intensive Program (S.L.I.P.) last week, he stars in a fully-staged performance of his latest play, Mature Young Adults, which opens August 23 at the Tarragon Far Studio.
CHARPO: Tell us about your latest production Mature Young Adults: what brought it to Toronto now and what is it about?
COLFORD: I originally wrote the show about two years ago as a short play that was about 20 minutes long. Workshopped by Theatre New Brunswick, that version was then published in the new play anthology Out on a Limb: Short Plays by New Playwrights last year. In preparing it for publication, I began rewriting and with it in mind, I kept working on the script as a writer-in-residence with the Paprika Festival where as a full-length script, Mature Young Adults had a successful reading back in March. I see this presentation as a next step in the development process, the first time with actors on their feet, and we’ll see how what we do in the rehearsal room meets with the audience.
As for the story, it’s set in Nova Scotia and explores innocence and discovery as two ex-lovers are reunited in the park where their relationship began. Told in reverse, the audience watches these teenaged lovers struggle with societal and parental pressures, distances, repressed sexuality, misogyny and the unknown emotions of first love.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
News: SummerWorks finale and awards
Terminus (photo credit: Ryan Parker)
Though the 2012 edition of SummerWorks was, in itself, successful with an attendance of 20,000, there were also winners among the presenting companies. One of the biggest was FreeStanding Room in Montreal, a collective whose members had two entries in the Festival: Big Plans and My Pregnant Brother. The director of the former, Tanner Harvey, took the Canadian Stage Award for best direction and the writer of the former and director of the latter, Jeremy Taylor (who wrote about his work on this site), won the Theatre Centre Emerging Artist Award.
The biggest award - outstanding production - was awarded to Terminus. Now's Audience Choice Prize was awarded to Iceland.
The press release (links are to CharPo-Toronto reviews of the plays):
After Dark, August 21, 2012
Am I Getting Laid?What's with the mood...?
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois
A friend was about to set off on the weekly column journey and asked for advice. I told him, "When you're pissed off, write down what's pissing you off, come back to it in three days and if it's still pissing you off...you've got a column!"
This week, as I was staring at the blank page now unblank before you, I realized that I'm not particularly pissed off about anything! Horrors! What's happening? I'm not getting laid more than usual, but it feels like when I was a younger man getting laid with mind-bending regularity. That young man had all the ugliness of the world around him as this older man does, but he - like me this week - was able to pass beyond the fixation on hopelessness and enjoy what is working.
Monday, August 20, 2012
The Show, August 20, 2012
(The Ensemble from Soulpepper's The Crucible, photo credit: Cylla von Tiedemann)
It is extraordinarily sad that you do not need to know anything about the McCarthy Hearings (The House Un-American Activities Committee - or HUAC) of the 1940s and 50s to be terrified by The Crucible. After all, it was thought, the play spoke in allegorical terms about the Communist and Gay witch-hunts by presenting a story about the real witch-hunts of Puritan Salem, Massachusetts. For almost two decades the work was treated like a museum piece, so specific were the allusions.
Then something happened...call it 9-11 or the Rise of the Right or the Spectre of Terrorism but suddenly governments all around the globe were - quite simply - controlling by fear. The world - in chaotic times - was rendered in terms people could understand; indeed needed to understand: Us vs. Them. The Muslims are the witches. Blacks (soon to be disenfranchised as voters yet again in Republican America) are the witches. Obama is the devil. Pussy Riot are evil hooligans. And, closer to home, Catherine Frid is pro-terrorist.
And, tragically, Arthur Miller's play speaks loudly. Frighteningly loudly.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
The Story: First-Person - Gregory Finney on a singer's life
(photo credit: Scott Gorman)
F@*! I'm in the Wrong Fachby Gregory Finney
“Move to Toronto: you’ll have no trouble finding work,” was the advice given when I asked for feedback after an audition. “Any other advice?” I asked, “Work on your singing.” Ouch!
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Theatre For Thought, August 18, 2012
LOVERS AND KNAVES IN TORONTO’S BACKYARDjoel fishbane
Friday, August 17, 2012
Review: A Thousand Words (SummerWorks)
Clinton Walker (photo credit: Shira Leuchter)
Picture Perfect
by Jason Booker
Nothing in this review can capture the essence of A Thousand Words. Only an image will do.
Taking its title from the cliché, A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words – which it debunks the origin of during the captivating opening monologue – this play is efficient and effective. Staged using a burlap backdrop with projections and some utilitarian wooden chairs, the four actors involved with the show weave such a compelling tale that the audience remains riveted.
Well-paced and thoughtful, A Thousand Words catches us off-guard then challenges what you think you already know. Expediently and cleverly written and directed by Chris Hanratty, the piece tells the story of three Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan and what happens when photos surface online that call into question the actions of those soldiers while guarding a checkpoint. Adding to the dilemma, two of the soldiers are deceased, the images are leaked anonymously onto a blog that criticises the military and a legal inquiry must be undertaken.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Review: The Fever (SummerWorks)
On Mortality and privilege
by Zoë Erwin-Longstaff
We take our seats and face a classic interrogation setting: stark black-and-white colours, a lone straight-back chair with a ceiling-fan overhead. A polished, 30-something woman walks in from the audience, casually takes a seat under the fan and begins to talk. There is no lighting cue; in fact, she barely raises her voice. This minimum bow to theatricality is not compromised throughout the production. If anything the dramatic force of the piece comes from its almost total refusal to embed the discussion in any kind of spectacle.
The Image, August 16, 2012
One little effect - like a strip of focus in a sea of blur - is sometimes all it takes to make an image for a production not just provocative, but also unforgettable.
The Hearing of Jeremy Hinzman is at SummerWorks.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Review: A Song For Tomorrow (SummerWorks)
(photo credit: Gein Wong)
by Zoë Erwin-Longstaff
An old man, Ping, is lying prostrate on a threadbare carpet, moaning softly, legs akimbo, cane just out of reach. His wife, May, enters shortly thereafter. With heavy steps she moves around the sparse basement apartment. We wait expectantly for her to help him up: “Make an effort, do it on your own,” she finally exhorts. Such is the tableau of immigrant defeat and despair that confronts us at the opening of A Song for Tomorrow.
Reviews: Wondermart / Purge (Live Art, SummerWorks)
Mercuriali
Live Art at SummerWorks: Have an Experience
by Jason Booker
Wondermart:
A two-person podplay (one of a pair in this year’s festival) in which a guerilla narrative is created to have the participants explore a chain supermarket. For those that do not know, a podplay is a pre-recorded art piece created by Silvia Mercuriali for an audience to listen to while experiencing the piece, often exploring a location or neighbourhood. Wondermart questions the commodification of food and the aesthetics of commercialism – why such cold fluorescent lighting or full shelves of product, sitting right at the edge, labels facing out? A fun experience with a partner or a chance to meet a stranger, this “Live Art” – as the festival has dubbed it – deals with the anonymity of being present in a controlled public space intended for browsing and consumption, as the participants go about unnoticed, sometimes observing those around them, before having the surveillance cameras pointed out too. Highly recommended to change your perspective. Performed daily for two people at a time at half-hour intervals.
Review: One/Un (SummerWorks)
(photo credit: Production Lombric)
by Zoë Erwin-Longstaff
We confront an audience, actually an absent audience, but all the chairs are there. Soon actor/creator Mani Soleymanlou takes a seat and begins to address us, the non-absent audience, as well as the tech crew directly. He barks orders at the guy who keeps “fucking up the lights,” and casually tells us not to worry about our cellphones. It’s a little hokey, but it gets the point across. We the audience are implicated in his struggle to create a narrative out of a chaotic Iranian-French-Québécois-Canadian’s story.
Op-Ed: Stuart Munro on Iconography (SummerWorks)
(screen grab from SummerWorks promo .pdf - see below for link)
The Iconography of Censorship
A consideration of the images used by SummerWorks
by Stuart Munro
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Review: Your Side, My Side, and the Truth (SummerWorks)
More than admiration required
by Christian Baines
Rebecca Auerbach’s Your Side, My Side, and the Truth is an easy work to admire. It tackles the difficult subject of how we respond when someone dies; you have to admire Auerbach’s bold frankness, both as playwright and lead, playing herself. You also have to admire her bravery, and her willingness to dramatize these events, drawn as they are, from her own life.
The central plot, following Auerbach’s relationship, is quite compelling. Unfortunately, there’s just not enough on which to hang a full play, not even in this lean, one-act format. As a result, the show’s focus shifts between the two leads (Jeff Gladstone portrays the other half of the pair) and a trio of supporting characters, whose links to the primary story are, at best, tenuous. While it can be assumed these are real figures from Auerbach’s life, they bring little to the play from a dramatic standpoint.
Review: Huff (SummerWorks)
this true downer of a tale unfolds with a dead mother, a self-involved stepmother, a neglectful alcoholic father, a sexually obsessed older brother with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome as well as the relatively neutral narrating middle brother and the addicted younger brother, huffing gas and Lysol
when people become punchlines
by Jason Booker
A meandering, overlong monologue without message or moral, Huff is predictable, self-indulgent and a tour-de-force of stand-up-comedy style drama. Cliff Cardinal, the writer and performer, plays over twenty roles in the show including every member of a family of eight (if you include their dog), the children’s teacher and a personification of “Smell” (don’t ask). Using stereotyped characters, Cardinal portrays these people in the worst possible light and fails to make anyone sympathetic, other than the two school-aged younger brothers. These are not people an audience roots for, nor do they get many laughs.
Review: Terminus (SummerWorks)
Dubliners
by Christian Baines
A distraught telephone crisis worker “A”, a lonely young woman disillusioned by love “B”, and a serial killer with hidden gifts “C” - one remarkable night in Dublin will bring these three souls together in a vivid, lyrical journey by playwright Mark O’Rowe.
With no stage direction to speak of, Terminus is a shared, rhyming monologue between its characters. Dancing elegantly between horror, humour, fantasy and tragedy, O’Rowe’s play is a refreshing reminder of theatre’s central purpose – to tell a great story. And what a story it is, artfully interweaving the all too human trials of “A” with the otherworldly, infernal evening of “B”. And while Adam Wilson may occasionally take things a little over the top as “C”, he’s a nice counterbalance to the more measured, but no less solid performances of Maev Beaty and Ava Jane Markus.
After Dark, August 14, 2012
If I was a Millionaire...Ten shows I'd be gadding around the country to see before Christmas
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois
Yes, we are in the dog days of summer, but it is now that theatres are slowly climbing out of the heatwaves and realizing that it is time to make some noise for the upcoming season. It is also the time when Estelle Rosen, our Editor-in-Chief, and I look at what is out there in the first half of the subscription lineups across the country and, subsequently, set to pestering publicists.
It is my duty, when reviews start coming in across the land, to sit down and format them for the various sites. I am, basically, a code-monkey. My job would be so much easier if I just cut and pasted and went on with my life. Instead, though, I read everything (before Estelle then proofs the stuff) and revel in the many kinds of art the reviewers are seeing and imagine what it would be like to be there, in some far-away hall, sharing the night with each and every one of them. I fantasize about getting a nice roomette on a train (do they still have those?) and whistle-stopping all over the country to see just what I like. (Forget flying...I have a phobia and need a case of Ativan and an SO rubbing my shoulders to get anywhere in an airplane.)
If I could do this, now, I have the next months laid out. After removing the three must-sees of my hometown, Montreal (Metachroma's Richard III, Jean-Duceppe's Thérèse et Pierrette and Opéra de Monréal's Flying Dutchman) I have narrowed the huge field (and my travel intinerary) down to ten shows and, obviously, kept it to those already announced. Let me say this before I proceed, though: it's the little gems which pop up at the little theatres which - season after season - steal my heart. Now...the ten (in order East to West and ignoring chronology).
Monday, August 13, 2012
Review: Les Demimondes (SummerWorks)
(photo credit: David Hawe)
In Praise of Pros
by Beat Rice
Les Demimondes is a hilarious multidisciplinary show that explores both sides of prostitution in a non-political, but over-exaggerated way. The show stars, Cat Nimmo, Andrya Duff, and Jesse Dell , who play multiple characters and roles, and Alexandra Tigchelaar (also a creator of the piece) who is the personification of prostitution herself. The show is an eclectic mix of strong solo performance, narrative choreography, song, and video (which actually serves a purpose in the show and isn’t just used for special effects!). Tigchelaar is an incredible performer. She is sharp, acerbic, witty, compassionate, and nostalgic. She gives and gives with every scene, and in one poignant moment, removes her makeup and speaks to us through a mirror, subdued, and real. Director Stephen Lawson has created a good balance of heightened scenes and quieter scenes, which allow the audience a moment to reflect on everything that has been discussed, and how it relates to the current action on stage.
Review: My Pregnant Brother (SummerWorks)
(photo credit: Pam Price)
Is the personal too personal?
by Beat Rice
My Pregnant Brother is a one-woman show written and performed by Johanna Nutter, directed and dramaturged by Jeremy Taylor. Nutter tells a very personal story about her family and their unbelievable circumstances that the show’s title hints at. The story is so far fetched you almost can’t believe it, but Nutter plays herself, and is honest, genuine, and just dramatic enough to keep us with her. She tells the story of how her brother was born her sister, of her mother’s confusion, and of her struggle to keep the family all together. Nutter’s brother is transgendered, and has a relationship with a man who gets him pregnant. After giving birth, he moves to Vancouver and gives his child away to a woman who responded to his post on the Internet.
Review: Medicine Boy (SummerWorks)
A Script that Struggles
by Christian Baines
A play that promises to bring out the good, the bad and – as its narration makes extremely clear – the ugly of First Nations' history, Medicine Boy has been one of the hottest tickets at this year’s SummerWorks festival. Certainly, there are few plays on the program with more deserving ambitions. Written by Waawaate Fobister, the work follows Mukukee (Garret C. Smith) as he attempts to reconnect with his beloved, late mother (PJ Prudat), his heritage, and his identity in relation to these ancestral ties.
Review: Haunted (SummerWorks)
(photo credit: Samya Kullab)
Strong performances looking for a stronger conclusion
by Jason Booker
Watching friends and loved ones deal with death is challenging in real life. Watching a play about it rarely easier. Haunted, a piece written and directed by Daniel Karasik, deals with the death of Dad a year before: Mom tries moving on and restarting her love life while daughter, Sarah, copes with painter’s block (a lack of inspiration). Mom turns to Judaism and David the Rabbi, while Sarah brushes off the comforting analysis of her scientist girlfriend.
Many of the two person scenes work well since Karasik has a great ear for dialogue and has created some interesting characters and surprising situations, though the choices always seem believable from these people. The initial scene crackles along (somewhat too fast) but the audience soon catches up.
Review: Marine Life (SummerWorks)
(photo credit: Natasha Mytnowytch)
It Only Sounds Unpromising
by Zoë Erwin-Longstaff
Picture the following triangle: An idealistic environmental activist is in legal difficulties. Her eager beaver, but sexually dysfunctional, lawyer can’t keep his hands off her – until, that is, he encounters her brother, an abysmally bad subway musician whose incestuous designs on his sister are not entirely unrequited. Add in a murder plot and a good deal of technical information about hermaphroditic marine species . . . well, you wouldn’t necessarily think this to be promising theatrical material. You’d be wrong.
The Show, August 13, 2012
In a moment of haunting coincedences, in the edition of Vanity Fair which appeared on stands just before the 9-11 attacks, Gore Vidal wrote:
For Timothy McVeigh, [Waco and Ruby Ridge] became the symbol of [federal] oppression and murder. Since he was now suffering from an exaggerated sense of justice, not a common American trait, he went to war pretty much on his own and ended up slaughtering more innocents than the Feds had at Waco. Did he know what he was doing when he blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City because it contained the hated [Feds]? McVeigh remained silent throughout his trial. Finally, as he was about to be sentenced, the court asked him if he would like to speak. He did. He rose and said, “I wish to use the words of Justice Brandeis dissenting in Olmstead to speak for me. He wrote, ‘Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.’” Then McVeigh was sentenced to death by the government.
The recently departed Vidal had had a relationship with McVeigh which he turned into a book. That book has been turned into a play, now at SummerWorks: Terre Haute.
Need we say more?
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Review: Pietà (SummerWorks)
On Losing Everything
by Beat Rice
Review: Breathe For Me (Summerworks)
A Playwright to Watch
by Christian Baines
Breathe For Me is not a play interested in giving its audiences a straight answer. After all, Edith (Deborah Kipp) has been trying to get just that out of Edna (Peggy Mahon) for over 50 years. Now confined to a wheelchair, and the victim of increasingly violent seizures, Edna may be running out of time to atone for her chequered past. Or is it all a manipulative ruse to stop Edith from leaving her?
Review: Dutchman (SummerWorks)
(photo credit: Brian Telzerow)
Hot-Button Theatreby Dave Ross
Wander down Ossington Street, and listen for the hum of a generator near Queen Street. Poke your head around the corner and you’ll see a city bus parked at the back of a parking lot strewn with gravel pot-holes and litter. This is the site-specific setting for lemonTree Creative’s production of Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman.
Review: Big Plans (Summerworks)
(photo credit: Daniel Barkely)
The Horror of "Based on a True Story"
by Christian Baines
Gordon (Andy Trithardt), a sexually repressed man sliding towards middle age, has placed an ad on the internet seeking a willing male victim to be slaughtered and consumed. Answering the call is Henry (Karl Graboshas), a listless young man with a failed marriage behind him and little desire to go on.
The trouble with stories about cannibalism is that nobody takes them seriously anymore. I blame Sondheim for this, I really do! So any chills to be had from entering HUB 14’s intimate, in-the-round set are somewhat muted by inevitable giggles. Fortunately, Jeremy Taylor’s script allows this black comedy to flourish, until he finds more insidious methods of exploring the psychology of his twisted leads.
The Story: First-Person - Designer Jason Hand on lighting The Dream
The cast of Midsummer Night's Dream (photo: Chris Gallow)
Hurry Sundown
Lighting Canadian Stage’s Shakespeare in High Park
by Jason Hand
It’s been just over a month since I made the final adjustments to the lighting design of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Now that the run is about halfway finished, I’ve come back to have a look at how things are going. There’s no question that the show is looking quite a bit different than it did on opening. Usually this would be reason for a designer to get upset, make phone calls and write emails. After all, isn’t a play supposed to be consistent from night to night? Isn’t every audience supposed to see the same show? Absolutely. But only if you’re indoors! When lighting an outdoor production of a Shakespeare, there’s an additional variable that comes to define the style of the design: the constantly changing sunset.
Six days a week, the show begins at 8pm and lasts until about 9:40pm. Opening night is in late June and the show runs through to Labour Day Weekend. For an indoor show, there would be nothing very special about those figures: a ten-week run with performances at a usual time. But for an outdoor show, those numbers change the game entirely.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Review: Extinction Song (SummerWorks)
by Dave Ross
Extinction Song has been getting a great deal of advance buzz these past few weeks. The story of a young boy who retreats into a dreamland to avoid being “extincted,” there is almost no way to predict what the story will be like. The work has already won a Sterling Award for best play, and it is clear that it has earned it.
Review: Ajax (por nobody) (SummerWorks)
A Tango With the Crowd
by Jason Booker
“There aren't any more bullets,” shouts one character – earning one of the funniest moments of the night. Ajax (por nobody) proves that isn’t quite true. Within the first four scenes, the play deals with polyamory, bestiality, incest, homoeroticism, bulimia, genitalia, disability and pornography – the show casts its net far and wide for subject matter, often hoping to offend and provoke. However, it also manages to find a funny way to bring all these issues to the surface – assuming you have a macabre sense of humour.
Review: Petrichor (SummerWorks)
(photo credit: Richard Penner)
“That bitter-sweet smell, after the rain… there has to be a word for that.”
by Dave Ross
Petrichor opened last night at the Factory Theatre Mainspace. It is described as “a story of work and land, home and loss and how you can find love hoeing a row of tomatoes.” The story, written by Erin Brandenburg with songs and music by Henry Adam Svec and Andrew Penner, is so beautiful, so touching, and so real. My companion walked out of the theatre and as we waited for the streetcar, he exclaimed to me that while there were flaws in the story he “still LOVED it.”
First-Person: Johanna Nutter on My Pregnant Brother (SummerWorks)
by Johanna Nutter
[ED: This article is a reprint from Ms Nutter's blog. You can follow the entire saga of My Pregnant Brother at the company website mypregnantbrother.com]
Theatre For Thought, August 11, 2012
SPOTLIGHT SHINES ON SIMULATED MEDICINE joel fishbane
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