Review: A Christmas Carol

Joseph Ziegler (photo credit: Cylla von Tiedemann)

Bah, Humbug!

by Cassie Muise

Ebenezer Scrooge is a miserly old man, visited by three Christmas Ghosts who try to help him see the error of his ways before it is too late. A Christmas Carol is as thought-provoking, touching, and relevant today as it was when it was first written. 

Soulpepper rarely disappoints, and this is no exception. A Christmas Carol is a beautiful production from start to finish. It is just eerie and other worldly enough to honour the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, without being too scary. The few effects are strategic and effective, if simple.  I particularly enjoyed the dance component which allowed for interesting scene changes. It balances in a seamless way the comedy, joy, and love of Christmastime with the thought-provoking consequences of a life consumed by greed and selfishness. 

Opinion: Holger Syme on the new Soulpepper season

Albert Schultz (photo credit: Sandy Nicholson)

Soulpepper: Requiem for a Dream

This is an obituary.

by Holger Syme (reprinted, with permission, from dispositio)

Let me quote Soulpepper’s own company history, a history that traces the progress from a “dream” to “making the dream a reality” to the birth of “a new company”:

Soulpepper Theatre Company began with twelve actors who wanted to explore the great stories of classical theatre and inspire the next generation of artists and audiences. … A few years out of the Stratford Young Company, these actors were craving a return to the classics and saw that there was a void in the Toronto theatre scene. Why in one of the theatre capitals of the world was there not a world class classical theatre company? At a series of boisterous and passionate dinner parties over many months, the foundations were laid to form a theatre company which met that very need.

By opening the season with [Schiller's Don Carlos], the Soulpepper founders wanted to make clear that they were up for the challenge, ready to tackle even the toughest of texts and make them exciting and engaging for Toronto audiences.

The first season at Harbourfront was a huge success. The critics and audiences raved. Soulpepper had delivered what Toronto audiences were craving.

Fifteen years later, the company enjoys great success in its beautiful venue in the Distillery District. But the dream its website describes in such evocative terms? That dream is over.

The new season, just announced yesterday [ed: Tuesday], may be logistically ambitious. It may be unusual among Toronto companies in not being exclusively driven by brand new work, preferably written by Canadian authors. But what it isn’t is the kind of season “a world class classical theatre company” might put together.

Review: Alligator Pie

Raquel Duffy (photo credit: Jason Hudson)

Tickle my Tummy, Toronto
Soulpepper’s Alligator Pie is pure unadulterated joy

Stuart Munro

About five seconds into the opening night of Soulpepper’s new production, Alligator Pie, the audience knew it was in for a treat. One by one, as each member of the five-person Creation Ensemble poked its head through the stage floor, the audience was introduced to five unique personalities. In a manner reminiscent of the “Day by day” sequence in the film version of Godspell, each performer wandered through the piles of miscellany on stage, selecting items best suited to them, before launching into the children’s poems of Dennis Lee, Toronto’s first Poet Laureate. Just as that ancient text used in Godspell has become ubiquitous, these poems are now a part of our national fabric – growing up in BC, I remember grabbing a copy of Alligator Pie during a lunch hour and reciting poems to my classmates who were all eager to hear them again. But even if you’re not familiar with Lee’s work, you’ll find that you recognize yourself and the people you love in his words. There is an undeniable truth to these poems.

Review: Endgame

Joseph Ziegler (photo credit: Cylla von Tiedemann)

The End is Near.
by Shannon Christy
@schristy79

According to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry “Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away.” There’s not much left to take away from Soulpepper’s production of Beckett’s work Endgame and that’s why Director Daniel Brooks’s work is so powerful; he embraced Beckett’s austerity and had a terrific cast to work with. 

Mr. Brooks does such an excellent job at creating the sensation of dust, decay, pettiness, and general frustration that you end up dusting yourself off after the performance. The set is a grey dusty cube with two basement windows on opposite sides, two trashcans placed beside each other on one side of the room, and an old wheelchair occupied by Hamm (Joseph Ziegler), an immobile tyrant. Hamm’s domain consists of three creatures that are fed up with each other and exhausted from life. Costume designer, Victoria Wallace, continues the dreariness by covering them in ragged monotone colored clothes. Yet these dreary clothed creatures set in their grey cube somehow provide us with humor.

Review: Death of a Salesman

Joseph Ziegler and Ari Cohen (photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

A Death Foretold
by Beat Rice

It is common knowledge that Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is a staple in the roster of classic American theatre. It won numerous awards and is now studied in English and drama classrooms in high schools and theatre schools alike. I remember learning myself about about how Willy Loman is the symbol of the idealistic and unattainable American dream. I have even heard people use the name ‘Willy Loman’ as a term to refer to those who rely desperately on selling to make a living and to obtain self-worth. To some, Willy Loman may be a signifier of hopes had, and dreams lost. The remounted production at Soulpepper acknowledges this, but also shows Willy Loman for what he really is: a human being, just like the rest of us. 

Review: The Royal Comedians

Sarah Koehn & Diego Matamoros (photo by: Cylla von Tiedemann)

Singing the Under-sung

Soulpepper delivers a little-known gem

by Christian Baines

Mikhail Bulgakov’s black satire The Royal Comedians arrives at Soulpepper Theatre Company, reminding audiences of a time when playwrights were answerable to both state and church for the content of their plays. Bulgakov experienced such censorship first hand. Earning the ire of Soviet authorities by supposedly making a joke of the regime, it was only the intervention of an unlikely fan, Stalin himself, that kept the writer from prison.

So it’s perhaps unsurprising that he should find solidarity with Molière, his subject and protagonist in The Royal Comedians. Like Bulgakov, the Molière of this story enjoys the favour of his nation’s leader, much to the dismay of the resident doctrinal gatekeepers (in Molière’s case, the church). 

Review: The Sunshine Boys

Welsh (l) and Peterson (photo credit: Cylla von Tiedemann)

Talent Crush!

Sunshine at Soulpepper amid reflections on passing time

by Cassie Muise

I have always had a bit of a crush on everything Soulpepper. From the Distillery District, to the Young Centre, to the founding members – who doesn’t love Ted Dykstra’s Two Pianos Four Hands? Albert Schultz in The Odd Couple = talent crush! – so I was excited to get the chance to see their production of Sunshine Boys. Luckily, it didn’t disappoint my high expectations. Off the top the smooth, warm lighting transitions, ukulele and harmonica music, paired with the clean, flawless set bring the audience into the world of the play effortlessly. 

Review: Speed-the-Plow

Ari Cohen and Jorden Pettle (photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

Soulpepper's Males

Mamet's people

by Zoë Erwin-Longstaff

From F. Scott Fitzgerald, to Norman Mailer, to David Mamet himself, many a serious writer has gone to Hollywood to pay the bills and then tried to create art out of the spoils.  Speed-the-Plow, Mamet’s riveting three-hander contends with the film industry’s ever-present contradiction between art and the box office.  This play, and indeed Soulpepper’s production, does what Mamet does best: lays bare the jousting/jesting relationships between male co-workers and rivals.  And so we meet Bobby and Charlie, colleagues and competitors, in a Hollywood studio which has just elevated producer Bobby into a position where he might for once attempt to rise above the usual schlock.  This threatens erstwhile friend and co-worker, Charlie, who, swallowing his humiliation after being passed over, has just brought his rival a sure-fire prison-buddy script, with a hotshot Director thrown in for good measure.