The Canadian Opera Company has been slogging through Wagner’s interminable Ring Cycle over the past three seasons. And I’ve been slogging through my reviews of said marathons of melancholy Germans singing about dwarves. The summary was always the same: the set is bonkers but impressive, the singers and orchestra are technically sound, no one is […]
The Winter’s Tale (Groundling Theatre Company) I’ve talked about this production before, focusing mainly on the problems that overwhelm the action of the first and last acts of this strangely dichotomous play. Sicilia is grey, over-dramatic, over-acted and full of unnecessary melisma but what I discovered upon a return trip (this time set against the lantern-lit […]
Liv Stein at Canadian Stage manages to achieve the strange combination of beautiful mediocrity. Nino Haratischwili’s play is about a couple, Liv and Emil, their angst over the loss of their son, and that aftermath of that grief. Liv (Leslie Hope) is a pianist, someone once renowned for her interpretations and performances of Rachmaninov but […]
Kate Hennig’s contemporary history play traces the story of King Henry VIII’s sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr (Kate) – beginning with his awkward and aggressive pursuit of her, her negotiation of their marriage (and sex life, which was pretty impressive), to Kate’s attempt to be both a mother and political advocate for Mary and […]
Dirty Great Love Story started as a 10-minute poetry duet featuring the two writers, Richard Marsh and Katie Bonna. It then went on to Vault Festival, Edinburgh Fringe and became a massive success in various theatres across the UK. Poetry in a play? I was reluctant, to say the least. It seems that every time we […]
The Summoning, by Charlotte Ahlin, is an ambitious slapstick three-person play with comedic moments that never quite becomes more than the sum of its parts. From the moment I sat in my seat and saw a giant pentagram chalked on the stage floor, I really wanted to like this play. As a fan of science […]
As the curtain went up on A Doll’s House, I was instantly pleased and very impressed by James Noone’s set design. The Huntington Theatre Company so often errs on the side of banal hyperrealism in its sets. While the gorgeous visuals and almost painfully precise attention to detail of those designs are obviously the result […]
Other than Harry Potter, if there was a book series that dominated my childhood, it would have to be A Series of Unfortunate Events. The stories follow the Baudelaire orphans as they are pursued by the evil Count Olaf who wants to seize the orphans’ fortune. Despite the dark premise, the books were clever and […]