My relationship to reality TV is uneven. I’m fanatical about Survivor, grumpily fanatical about Big Brother and the Bachelorette, passively loyal to So You Think You Can Dance, and sporadically interested in American Idol and Dancing with the Stars (there was a Backstreet Boy on this season! I couldn’t not watch). I long ago gave […]
Both of Canadian Stage’s current offerings are about people sleeping with people they shouldn’t be sleeping with. Both remarkably self-satisfied domestic dramas purport to be about “so much more” but that’s really about it. In the one-act contemporary opera Julie, well-to-do scorned woman Julie (Lucia Cervoni) sleeps with her callous, manipulative, engaged servant Jean […]
Workshop productions aren’t really supposed to be reviewed, especially when they’re only playing for one weekend and the reviewer can’t make it on opening night. So, I suppose, you shouldn’t really call this a review. It’s more of a monologue about Holger Syme’s wonderful new adaptation of Ödön von Horváth’s Casimir and Caroline with The […]
Two nights in October, I did something I haven’t done in far too long- I went to the symphony. But these were not regular nights at the symphony. There was no Peter Oundjian, an uncharacteristic smell filled Roy Thomson Hall, the average age of the patrons was at least 20 years below expected and, when […]
I realize that the title of this piece may be a bit misleading. To “bash” something, at least in my line of work, is to pan a production so aggressively that you run the risk of being pulled from the comp list. Luckily, Shakespeare Bash’d and I are not in the same line of work. […]
Banana Boys (Factory Theatre) I’m loving the Naked season at Factory. The text-centric, stripped down approach the company is taking to all the pieces in their so-far-so-good fall seasonette is spotlighting great performances, inspiring directorial creativity and refusing to let great texts get overshadowed by trappings. Banana Boys is the perfect example of what’s so […]
To celebrate the home entertainment release of their action-packed stoner (romantic?) comedy, Elevation Pictures has given us two copies of the Blu-ray to give away to some lucky readers. To enter, follow us on Twitter and tweet us your favourite action movie quote. Contest closes on Friday, November 20th. We’ll PM the winner with details the […]
I know everybody’s really into the UK 6-episode TV model but there is no world in which I’m happy that Together, BBC3’s charming, strange, hilarious, heartwarming little gem lasted a total of, what, Two Hours once you factor in commercials? Why not just make a film and be done with it? I wanted to live […]