Written and performed by Dora Nominee Ahmad Meree, UNCIVILIZEDdraws from Meree’s experiences of coming to Canada as a refugee from Aleppo, Syria, in 2016. The set up is instantly striking. We find Meree centre stage, facing a video camera projecting his image onto the back screen. A disembodied woman’s voice comes over the loudspeaker, […]
Currently onstage at Buddies in Bad Times, director Jay Northcott’s production of the ridiculously named Bootycandy is a triumph. Blazingly funny and brutally sad, Robert O’Hara’s zinging text links together a vignette structure through unexpected metatheacricality that brilliantly interrogates itself as well as the larger landscape of contemporary theatre in all its diverse, performative, well-intentioned, […]
A 1s1 Theatre and Nightwood Theatre co-production in association with Modern Times Stage Company and Why Not Theatre, playwright Erin Shields’ poetic and at times gruesome one-act To A Flame is a visual treat and sensory rollercoaster set in a lush world of gothic horror, directed by Josette Bushell-Mingo with additive beauty to be fully accessible to deaf audiences (with […]
Icarus Theatre’s production of Walden currently playing in the Theatre Centre’s BMO Incubator is an intimate and intricate presentation of a bold and inspiring text. Amy Berryman’s script (here receiving its Canadian premiere) is my favourite kind of script, one that is accessible and enjoyable on a blind first viewing but also makes me […]
Rock solid tragicomedies with memorable visuals, rich design, and reliable casts, this duo of productions represent what the Shaw Festival does best. In Sleuth, the excellent directorial debut of fan favourite performer Peter Fernandes, a badger-haired Patrick Galligan brings his veteran gravitas to a role that perfectly capitalizes on the little twinkle he always […]
A swift kick of theatrical intensity, this lean one-act from playwright Adrienne Kennedy receives a calmly unadorned production that stands out for its impact in a lighter-than-average Shaw season. The play is functionally a solo show starring the ever-reliable Sophia Walker as an author guest lecturing at her titular alma mater. While André Morin is […]
Waiting for Godot is a frustrating one for me because, unless something goes really wrong, it’s a pretty standardized piece of theatre. Beckett is famously a dictator with stage directions and design instructions, his estate keen to sue if you make too many creative decisions of your own, so the interpretive work of Godot tends […]
Years ago, I saw Tom McCamus in a coffee shop. I was probably in my early twenties and I’m surely not remembering it accurately but, as the encounter lives in my mind, he was wearing a leather jacker (highly improbable) and drinking straight espresso with lots of sugar (fucking iconic). What is definitely true is […]