A Mamet play is all about the language. Everything you need to know is right there in the half sentences and blustering speeches, the interruptions, the curses, that strange combination of grandiosity and hyper-realism. In the slice-of-life one-act Lakeboat– with the exception of Stephen Macdonald, whose leading performance as a sensitive recruit is marked far more […]
Oh, Giuseppe Verdi, how I adore your dedication to stories worth telling. You are, of course, a splendid composer whose soaring melodies and lush orchestrations fly beautifully from the mouths of the COC’s chorus and the bows of its spectacular orchestra (here under the capable baton of Marco Guidarini) but the real reason I love […]
IFC’s latest comedy Benders is about grown men who are obsessed with their division eight hockey league. Three episodes in, the bro-ish series from Tom Sellitti and Jim Serpico (both fresh from the Denis Leary stable) mostly just feels like a weak League imitation. Lindsey Broad is somewhat fun as a refreshingly-not-a-drag wife but, for […]
Guns and those who flaunt them recklessly are hardly a laughing matter, yet guns are the subject of Dylan Lamb’s serious and seriously funny comic drama Ten Ways on a Gun, currently being presented at Theater for the New City in the East Village. An analysis of behind-the-scenes theater politics as well as the propensity […]
They Say He Fell is a fascinating experiment, both aesthetically and narratively. Based on the stories of Toronto-based photographer Nir Baraket (who unfortunately passed away earlier this year), the play is a rumination on memory; how we remember facts versus our embellishments, and does it really matter which is which? The play circles around a […]
Canadian Stage just opened its 2015-2016 with Beckett Trilogy (Not I/Footfalls/Rockaby) at the Berkely Street Theatre. Directed by Walter Asmus (Beckett’s long-time friend and collaborator) and starring Lisa Dwan, this trilogy – performed back to back without intermission – is essentially an hour long one-woman show. But this is not a typical theatre piece, and […]
An Enemy of the People was originally an Ibsen play that has been translated by Maria Milisavljevic and adapted by Florian Borchmeyer then staged by Tarragon artistic director Richard Rose with a distinctly Canadian political slant and is now being remounted with mostly new actors. The plot is so incredibly relevant to our current politics that […]
A night of laughter is always a night enjoyed. Everyone loves stories bursting with absurdities and humor, which is exactly what Michael Frayn’s comic farce, Noises Off, is able to deliver. Currently playing at the Bridewell Theatre, Matt Gould’s production, while thoroughly entertaining, is a little bit too long. It does have some great moments […]