It’s difficult with a play like this to separate the effectiveness of a production from one’s emotional reaction to the story being told. It’s Anne Frank- dark and devastating, punctuated by heartbreaking moments of lightness, romance and even joy. Anne’s words, structured by playwrights Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (adapted by Wendy Kesselman), are so […]
Gord Rand is new to Stratford; he did one studio production back in 2002 but Oedipus really feels like a brand new introduction. Like with Maev Beaty last season, this is a strange reality that gets people talking about a well-established and highly respected performer as if they are just now being discovered. In the […]
I’m drawing the line. The Toronto theatre community is big and getting bigger and the My Theatre staff is small (also getting bigger, but still small). It’s impossible to cover everything so, if we’ve given a particular company bad review after bad review, the only thing I can think to do is scratch them off […]
A very well executed production of a unique and interesting new play, And Then Come the Nightjars is simultaneously funny, heart-breaking and eye-opening, and is a real credit to the writer, production team and cast. Centred on the Foot-and-mouth crisis of 2001 and how it affected a South Devon farm, the play tackles an […]
Two shows hit TV this year that had a lot to say about Millenials. Both of these shows have creators and lead characters who reside firmly in Generation X, they just have thoughts and feelings about the younger folk that they really needed to share. The more annoying of the two is Happyish, a whiney […]
‘Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o’erweigh a whole theatre of others.’ Act III, Scene II Shakespeare summarises my feelings towards this latest attempt at Hamlet better than any else […]
Possum Creek Beth Ann, a naïve farmer’s daughter with a heart of gold (and, ostensibly, unlimited ink and paper) left behind over 3000 letters written to her husband Joseph after he left home to fight in the Civil War just one day after their marriage – letters that would later serve as the basis for […]
The Witch opens with straight-on, successive shots of adolescent children, staring just off camera, listening to a member of their small Puritan community in 17th century New England banish their father and thus their entire family from its borders. For all its supernatural terrors and shocks, Robert Eggers’ debut feature is driven as much by […]