Review: The Arsonists

Fiona Reid (photo credit: Bruce Zinger)

Firebugs

by Dave Ross

@dmjross

Plays translated from their original language are always intriguing. Sometimes, the story manages to transcend language barriers, and sometimes things can get lost in the translation—caution must be exercised. Max Frisch’s The Arsonists was translated anew from its original German to English by Alistair Beaton in 2007, and made its Canadian debut last night at Canadian Stage, and to be quite honest, I wasn’t sure what to make of the story.

The program notes state that the play can be read as “a comment on the neutrality of Switzerland during World War II, in particular its 'don’t ask, don’t tell' response to the rise of Nazism.” I can see that interpretation but it was not apparent—I had to search for it. The Arsonists tells the story of Gottlieb Biedermann (Michael Ball) and wife Babette (Fiona Reid), an upper-class couple who find themselves the unwilling hosts to Schmitz (Dan Chameroy) and Eisenring (Shawn Wright), two arsonists who take up residence in the attic, along with their score of detonators and drums of gasoline. A surreal commentary on our ability to ignore acts of evil, the story is rife with opportunity for humour, but it’s also a very simple one. I expect much of the audience could enjoy the play without its intended moral message.

Review: The War of the Worlds

Foley sound effects artist John Gzowski in the 2011 production of The War of the Worlds (photo credit: John Lauener)

Theatre...on Radio
by Dave Ross
@dmjross


On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air performed their infamous broadcast of Howard Koch’s radio play The War of the Worlds. Last night, precisely 74 years later, the Art of Time Ensemble presented their dramatic staging of this same radio play. This production was originally presented as part of World Stage in 2011, and was revived for this season by Art of Time. They’ve created an artistic masterpiece – using only a 5 piece radio orchestra and an extremely talented foley artist, we get taken back to 1938 and that radio studio in New York.

Review: Tear The Curtain

(photo credit: Bruce Zinger)

A mindfuck...

or a live-action version of Lost?

by Dave Ross

Canadian Stage’s Tear the Curtain opened last night at the St. Lawrence Centre. It is no small secret that at least half of the production is presented as a movie. The film, shot over three weeks in Vancouver, is worked into a live theatre experience. The program for this play is among the most expansive I’ve seen, including a story synopsis, which I both appreciate and hate at the same time. It could leave one worrying about the play – if it can’t communicate its story through theatre, then what exactly are we in for?

What you’re in for is likely the most interesting theatre experience you’ll have this year. Visually, the show is amazing. Technically, the show is absolutely astounding. Story wise… well, you’ll just have to go and see this show to judge for yourself. 

Review: Dutchman (SummerWorks)

(photo credit: Brian Telzerow)

Hot-Button Theatre
by 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.

This production isn’t only site-specific, it is period-specific as well. Board the bus, and take a seat. Then spend a few minutes reminding yourself that it isn’t 2012—rather, it’s 1964. Racial tensions are still high, even ten years after desegregation. The civil rights movement is growing in strength. You will need to keep this historical context in mind as you watch the play, or it’s meaning becomes fuzzy.

Review: Extinction Song (SummerWorks)

One Play, One Child, A Man
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: 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.” 

Review: Barrel Crank (SummerWorks)

Spartan and Lush and Right
by Dave Ross

Barrel Crank has to be one of the best pieces of small theatre I’ve seen in a long time. A cast of four, a barrel, and a canvas sail as a backdrop are all that is used to tell the story of Annie Edson Taylor, the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survive. Tackling this subject matter, and the oversized glitz (and glamour?) of Niagara Falls on the stage at Theatre Passe Muraille’s Mainspace would be a challenge, but this production from Suitcase in Point in St. Catherine’s pulls it off in such a way that it seems utterly ridiculous in the best possible way. 

Review: France, or The Niqab

Charlotte Gowdy (l) and Beatriz Yuste

Social Commentary...and humour
by Dave Ross

“You are no doubt aware of the law that prohibits women from wearing a covering of the face in public.” This line, borrowed from a gendarme in France, or the Niqab, highlights the central issue of this play. The issue of women wearing traditional garments such as the niqab or burqa in public came to a head in France during the presidency of Nicolas Sarcozy, who passed a law stating that it was illegal for women to cover their faces in public.  Playwright Sean Dixon was inspired by the column “Minister Kenney, can I become a citizen in these shoes?” by Tabatha Southey.

Review: Life in the Raw (Fringe)

by Dave Ross

Life in the Raw from Thick and Thin Theatre Productions was a welcome respite for me. I’ve been seeing comedy pretty much exclusively, and this story of a family in 1930s Montreal couldn’t be farther from that. The script (Barbara Larose) is very strong, with a minimum of extraneous material. The story itself is a painful one: very little food for the table, a prideful father, and a mother dying of cancer. 

The performances are for the most part solid. Denise Norman does an excellent, fretful Kathleen who will do anything for her daughters, while Rick Jones’s William is a perfect counterpart to her. The daughters are the focus of the story, with Faith (Rielle Braid), Nellie (Kaitlin Lane) and Hope (Brianne Tucker) doing everything they can to care for their ailing mother while trying to advance hopes and dreams of their own. Special mention goes to Lane as Nellie. Her character experiences significant growth and change, and Lane executes this effortlessly. The entire cast has to sing, and all of them are strong vocally. A small quibble with the music is that the libretto doesn’t seem to match the music rhythmically in places, leading to what feels like run-on musical sentences with the emphasis falling on odd syllables. As a musician, I found this a touch jarring, but it’s a minor thing. There is no set designer credited in the program, but it was a versatile, unobtrusive set.

This is a strong show. It is definitely done in the raw, sparing no emotion as it tells its tale. Like most Fringe shows, it could use a bit of a polish, but it does remarkably well still.  If you’re looking to see a musical that deals with some heavy subject matter, this is the show for you. 

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Review: Tinfoil Dinosaur (Fringe)

by Dave Ross

I saw Tinfoil Dinosaur on a whim, after the actor/playwright Sam Mullins flyered me in a line while I waited to see another show. Mullins was already in-character, explaining how it was his story of moving to Vancouver and coping with a social anxiety disorder. He said it was hilarious, and moved on.  His impromptu plot summary was completely accurate – he moves to Vancouver to pursue his dream of living in a big city, and finds himself falling flat on his face instead. Overwhelmed by the city, the people in it, his finances dwindling, Mullins hit rock bottom, but was saved by, of all things, a dinosaur made of tinfoil.

Mullins’ show is just him, telling his story. The wonderful thing about his performance is that while this is the story of Sam Mullins, Sam becomes an everyman. As such, we can identify with Sam and his experiences, from his elation at moving to Vancouver, to wondering if he can keep doing “this.” Each of us can see parts of ourselves in Sam, rather like looking into a mirror. It is this reflective quality that makes this show so raw and true. Mullins’ comedic style keeps the content light though, and protects the show from treacle. 

Tinfoil Dinosaur was received well at the Montreal Fringe, won Best of Fest at the Winnipeg Fringe in 2011, and was Champion at the Vancouver Story Slam in 2010. This show is a must-see of the Toronto Fringe. Tinfoil Dinosaur only has 2 shows left (July 13 @ 10:30pm and July 14 @ 8:00pm) and is very popular so be sure to arrive early. This show is delivered with such integrity that it doesn’t deserve to be missed.

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Review: A Madhouse Dramedy

by Dave Ross

Dramedy serves this piece well. It’s funny, and I laughed, and the audience laughed. It’s an austere production, with the men wearing near-identical costumes, and the set consisting of two chairs and a handful of books. There is nothing to mention about the lighting, nothing to say of a sound design. This is a character piece, driven by the four actors and nothing else.

The story of a family, living together and loathing each other unfolds on the stage. It would be a challenging piece to perform, and I have to give kudos to the cast for managing the dialogue—the first section is entirely alliterative, resulting in a tongue-twister of a script. Rage delivered with a series of P-words is nothing easy to pull off, but the entire cast manages it effortlessly. 

Of the shows I’ve seen at the Toronto Fringe so far, this is the one I would recommend. The script and the delivery are consistent, and there is nothing I love more than being continuously amused by a production. Special mention goes to out to the therapist, who spends much of the show performing as a corpse. I won’t say more than that, as I wouldn’t want to spoil the show for those yet to see it, but it can’t be easy to pull off an Irish jig while deceased. 

Review: Tick (Fringe)

by Dave Ross

What a delightful trip through contemporary Toronto and its financial woes through the eyes of an activist child! Tick, or Tickailia (Jessica Moss), is a 10-year-old girl appalled by City Council’s decision to close public libraries. Or as she learns via conference call with her mom’s city-councillor-boyfriend Murray, “reinventing them as reading stations.” 

This show is exactly what it promises to be. Tick’s primary beef is the war on children, waged by adults, always telling them what to do, where to be, and how to behave. She gathers together her three friends Chelsea (Nathan Barrett), Dawn (Jenna Harris) and Rudeger (Tony Ofori) to join forces and stop the library closures. After all, they’re going to take the books away! Moss does a wonderful job on channeling her inner child, a role which could be exhausting, but she does it with aplomb. Barrett, Harris and Ofori get special mention for portraying three characters each. For the most part, they are distinct, though I did find Barrett’s characters bore a lot of similarity to each other. The play is a loud one, with lots of loud dialogue, but they are children after all. 

Review: The Soaps - A Live Improvised Soap Opera (Fringe)

by Dave Ross

“… and you can’t find a good brunch!” is one of the most memorable lines from this afternoon’s performance of The Soaps: A Live Improvised Soap Opera (“no brunch” is the last of three reasons given why one of the characters should not go off to war). Not that you can expect to hear that line again, as the show is (as the title implies) heavily improvised. You won’t find this production in the Fringe program either, as it was a last minute addition. 

Set in 1812 and billed as “a story 200 years in the making,” the rather large cast does a great job, adhering to the whims of the director. The show is very informal, as most improv work is. The actors are frequently seen restraining their own laughter as the director throws curveballs at them. The overall effect was successful, with the crowd laughing heartily at pretty much everything. I was impressed at how the humour stayed varied, without relying too heavily on clichés or repeated humour. My only criticism is with the pacing of the show at the beginning. It takes a long time to gain momentum, which is a problem in a show only an hour long. Once the show gets rolling, it’s a comedic romp through love in the time of war. Unfortunately, the cast of characters is quite large with hilariously convoluted names, and without attribution in the program, I can’t single anyone out for mention.

Review: Neighbours (Fringe)

by Dave Ross

Neighbours is billed as a comedy/physical theatre piece, with elements of comedic tension. I didn’t find it as such. RAYVAN (Mirian Katrib) is a Classified Learner who has been taken in for interrogation and she cannot fathom why she is being interrogated. The dialogue of the play is heavy in the use of alternate language—eating is gourmandizing, time is measured in cycles, and almost everything is a Proper Noun. This introduces a slightly unsettling barrier in understanding, which in turn produced a very effective unsettling feeling for the viewer. 

The plot reference many concepts that we as a population struggle with today—the blind interrogation of RAYVAN without cause is a nod to Guantanamo Bay, the Freedom Act a reference to the Patriot Act, and the neighbouring territory is an anagram of Canada. There are certainly comedic elements, but they are far outweighed by the distress we feel for RAYVAN, held against her will for crimes she can’t fathom, being moved from location to location without reference, and being unable to declare her innocence. It is clear that the interrogators have decided she is guilty. 

Review: Beauty and the Beast

Dane Agostinis and Emily Behny (photo: Joan Marcus)

Beastly

Ticket prices condemn this one

by Dave Ross

Beauty and the Beast took Broadway by storm, fuelled in part by a review from New York Times critic Frank Rich proclaiming the film as 1991’s best musical. The spark was lit, and Beauty and the Beast: The Musical opened in 1994, running continuously on Broadway until 2007, when it closed to make way for The Little Mermaid. Beauty and the Beast was the first of the Disney Musicals, and paved the way for many, many more excellent productions. 

This Dancap presentation of Beauty and the Beast is not the first time Toronto has seen this show, but it is the first time that this new, re-imagined production has been to our city. Not that the original show was tired, but after more than a decade it is refreshing to see new sets and choreography make their way into the mix.

A Message From Dave Ross, Associate Editor

“Who am I?”

by Dave Ross, Associate Editor, The Charlebois Post - Toronto

It’s opening night!

It’s time. A great team of reviewers has been assembled, dozens of shows reviewed, and here we are—the launch of The Charlebois Post - Toronto. 

Who am I? I joined CharPo in the fall of 2011, as a lowly contributor. My first show was The Golden Dragon at Tarragon, and I’ve been to dozens of shows since, both as a reviewer and a guest. Leaving Tarragon that night, I was nervous. How does one review a play? And more importantly, who am I to say anything about the craft? My theatre background is from a literary standpoint—I hold a Bachelor of Arts in English, have read more plays than I can count, but have only seen a few over the course of my life. I’ve never been a performer (unless you count my grade 2 debut as the eponymous lead in The Little White Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings). Fast forward a few months, and I’m contributing to a dynamic blog with reviewers across the nation, attending Gala festival openings at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, and covering the 33rd Annual Dora Awards. And now, I’m the Associate Editor of the Toronto edition of that same blog. What a journey!

Review: Pam Ann

Welcome aboard Pam Ann Flight 269 to Paradise…

… and in the words of our air hostess for the evening… FUCK OFF!

by Dave Ross

Pam Ann is the alter ego of Aussie comedienne Caroline Reid, a raunchy, bitchy air hostess extraordinaire. In her one-woman show, Pam tackles all the myths and stories of air travel from her viewpoint in the galley, hilariously portraying almost every stereotype there is. Throughout the course of the evening she adopts several different uniforms to serve her “passengers” in different manners. Pan Am Pam Ann (there’s a running joke here) opens the night with a series of cleverly edited sequences from the television show Pan Am. Later in the show, she turns into a first-class flight attendant, before morphing into a Gloria Gaynor-esque pride queen for her final schtick. 

Review: Clybourne Park

Mark McGrinder, Sterling Jarvis and Audrey Dwyer in Clybourne Park. Photo by John Karastamatis.

This Good

Clybourne Park is another dish of brill from Studio 180 Theatre

by Dave Ross

“I wish that every time I went to the theatre, it was this good.” These were the words my fellow CharPo contributor Stuart Munro shared with me as we left the Studio 180 production of Clybourne Park at the Berkeley Street Theatre Downstairs on Friday night. And I absolutely have to agree. 

The play is solely character-driven—there is no waiting for events, no guessing at what will happen next. Act I, set in 1959, introduces us to Bev (Maria Ricossa) and Russ (Michael Healey), a white middle-class couple preparing to move away. This first act begins innocently enough, but as more characters are introduced, we start to get uncomfortable. This climaxes with the arrival of Karl, who is dismayed that a “coloured” couple has been allowed to purchase the house, and his hearing-impaired wife Betsy. Karl is smarmy, but quickly moves from smarmy to reprehensible as he lays out his case for not having a coloured family move into the neighbourhood—all while Bev’s African-American maid Francine and her husband sit in the same room, and are even consulted on how they would feel moving in “next to a bunch of white folk.”  

Review: The Happy Woman

(L-R) Maria Vacratsis, Martin Happer, Maev Beaty, Ingrid Rae Doucet and Barbara Gordon in The Happy Woman. Photo Credit: Guntar Kravis

Story Time

Happy Woman has a strong plot...but other problems

by Dave Ross

“Happy, happy, happy…” These words open the production of Rose Cullis's The Happy Woman from Nightwood Theatre. The play is billed as a “darkly comic exploration of what happens when bliss gets in the way of truth and threatens to destroy the very foundation we rely on.”  The play gives us exactly that, a darkly comic story with tragic elements dispersed throughout. Unfortunately, the production itself lacks in several regards.

Interview: Patrick Kwok-Choon of War Horse

click photo to enlarge: The cast of War Horse (Patrick Kwok-Choon kneeling centre)

(photo credit: Brinkhoff / Mögenberg)

Riding the Horse to History

One of the puppeteers/actors in the country's biggest hit tells how

by Dave Ross

CHARPO: First, I’d like to say that I was at opening night this past Tuesday, and what an amazing show. I was blown away by the power of the performance, and it’s probably the best piece of theatre I’ve ever seen.

KWOK-CHOON: (Laughter) Well, thank you very much, that’s always wonderful to hear.

CHARPO: My first question for you is, what is it like to portray both a human and an animal character in this play? Is it particularly challenging or different in any way?

KWOK-CHOON: It’s amazing to be able to do both. I signed on to this production to work with the puppets. As you know, I help play baby Joey, but I also work with the muster horses during the cavalry charge. Creating an animal character is really not that different from portraying a range of human characters in a given performance. The difference is in the level of focus and detail. When working with baby Joey, there are three of us. You know the choreography and the steps, but you have to be constantly aware of the other puppeteers and of the space you’re in. The puppets take on a life of their own, but the most important thing is learning to work together as a team with the other puppeteers, breathing together and working to bring that life into the puppets. The puppeteers also rotate—sometimes I’ll play baby Joey’s head, sometimes the front legs, and sometimes the hind.