Rosemary Doyle’s Red Sandcastle Theatre holds a lot for a small venue, seating up to 70, and almost every seat was taken on one of the first snowy nights of winter. It’s an unassuming place – and you definitely don’t want to arrive too early, especially on a cold night, because they really mean it […]
Patricide is not a subject many people wish to tackle, especially not in the confines of the theatre. Thebes Land tells the story of a man, who calls himself T, writing a play about a patricide named Martin. The show encompasses both the interviews between Martin and T and the rehearsals leading up to the […]
Rural Illinois in 1979. A flagging old man wastes away on a couch watching sports on his tiny TV and sneaking swigs of whiskey when alone. This is Dodge (Ed Harris), the moribund, impotent pillar of the play. His wife Halie (Amy Madigan) calls out from above. She can’t get over her all-American son Ansel’s […]
The final piece in Filament Incubator’s 8-plays-in-8-months experiment, Caitie Graham’s Paradise Comics is the perfect strong finish to a rocky but rewarding exercise in ambition and opportunity creation, combining the best elements of everything that led up to it- the quick banter of Rowing, a lighthearted approach to darker issues like ‘Til Death, the brutal […]
The Angry Brigade by James Graham takes place in 1970s London, and as I walk into the theatre, I’m wondering what it might have to say to us in our current political climate. The stage floor is painted with a Union Jack: a colourful and intense symbol, and one which evokes a history of colonialism, […]
“That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” Uncle Walt’s verse gets renewed life on stage in the millennial classic Dead Poets Society – an ode to nonconformity and self-expression in a world that vows to stamp out individualism in favor of conservative practicality. Despite its flaws, the film remains one […]
Secrets of a Black Boy (Playing with Crayons/Theatre Passe Muraille) A constantly evolving mix of storytelling and narrative theatre, playwright Darren Anthony’s moving and evocative Secrets of a Black Boy brings five very different black men together for one last game of dominoes before their community centre closes. The play begins with a theatrical montage […]
Recounting the short but significant life of Charles Hamilton Sorley, a Scottish poet of World War One, It is Easy to Be Dead is a sombre take on the brutality of war. Told through a collection of letters and poetry, the play follows Sorley from his time at Cambridge to his studies in Germany before […]