Before I begin going over the details, I’ll tell you right now: the six-show run of this production was far too short. This was my first Flat Earth play, and if Pillowman is any indication of their work, it will be the first of many. I had high hopes going in, having heard good things […]
While this was my first Happy Medium show, I have heard good things about them. I was hoping for a moving experience, unfortunately there was something missing in this production. I’ll save you the anticipation: the show was poor. What interests me here is why it was such a deeply flawed production. With the resources […]
The studio theatre last year was home to some of my favourite Shaw Festival productions. It’s where the festival breaks out of the period mold, drops the accents, and explores a little bit. But it only works if the text being put on is worthy of the creative space, like When the Rain Stops Falling […]
Director Eda Holmes was very thoughtful in her approach to George Bernard Shaw’s Misalliance. In her director’s note she talks about the idea of experimentation (the mixing and matching of couplings and alliances to see how each turns out) and how she and designer Judith Bowden interpreted that theme into a Petri dish “where all […]
The summer air has begun to cool down, but With Somebody Who Loves Me, an independent production by Manzo Entertainment, is heating up the Tarragon. A shortened version of the dance spectacle just completed a successful run at this year’s Toronto Fringe Festival, where the cast of eight dancers played to packed and enthusiastic houses […]
Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in response to McCarthyism in the 1940s-50s, and it is appropriately infuriating. Responding to the communist witch hunt that was targeting writers like himself, Miller wrote a piece that would become one of the most widely produced American plays in history, about an actual witch hunt. He uses the 1692 […]
I love Andrew Lloyd Webber; his shows are always big, colorful and dramatic. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat calls for a ton of small characters- eleven brothers, eleven wives, an entire children’s chorus. So, I was intrigued by the idea of a production of Joseph in a black box that advertised a small cast […]
Come Back, Little Sheba is a disjointed play. During the first act, it feels like a trivial tragedy not tragic enough to earn that description. The characters are fretting losers with problems so superficial that it’s remarkable how easy they would be to fix. Marie: date nicer boys (and try just one at a time); […]