Created in three weeks through collaborative improvisation, Athol Fugard, John Kani, & Winston Ntshona’s complex rumination on identity premiered in 1972 South Africa at incredible risk. The performers were jailed for their story of life under apartheid and the personal compromises forced upon Black and Coloured citizens in order to survive. It’s an honour to […]
Though indie theatre is still scrambling to exist, Toronto’s mid-tier theatre scene finally feels well and truly alive again. This April was the first time since early 2020 that there were so many openings that critics had to pick and choose and I’m thrilled to report that I haven’t seen a bad thing all season. […]
Touting an 8+ year development process, countless participating artists, and the longest list of donors and grants I’ve ever heard, the Shaw Festival’s long-awaited presentation of Why Not Theatre’s Mahabharata premiered yesterday with a double header of its two parts: Karma and Dharma. Everything about the way Mahabharata is being presented feels like the […]
There is something special about experimentation. The willingness, the joy in playing with technology to deliver a performance experience and artistic experience that takes a concept done to death but aspire to do something different with it. The concept of identity is both broad and an easy target for artistic exploration. This critic has seen […]
At about the fifteen minute mark of seeing this show, a thought crossed my mind that whined, “Oh (insert expletive) me, is this gonna be art with a capital (insert expletive) A?” But what I found myself instead was a state of deep intimacy, emotional connection and an environmental love. From the theatre performance group […]
The libretto (Hedwig Lachmann) to Richard Strauss’ Salome is loosely based on Oscar Wilde’s play of the same name. The iconic artists added their own exceptional flair to a barebones bible story where we don’t even have a name for the girl known only as the daughter of King Herod and Herodias. Early historians would […]
Alice in Wonderland in all of its iterations has primarily focused on Wonderland being a mental representation of Alice and her current situations. Whether it was from the original story about Alice embracing the nonsensical and learning to question, or the American McGee games that took Wonderland and Alice to more mature/darker realms of living […]
If you believe a hair salon an unlikely place to find community, you’d be wrong. In fact, in Trey Anthony’s iconic play ‘da Kink in my Hair, directed by Weyni Mengesha, it’s even more than that: it’s a place of healing, a forum where the vulnerable or voiceless step into the spotlight for a moment. […]