I wish I had gotten this review out earlier for many reasons. Of course it would have been nice if the show was still running and maybe some of you reading this could decide to go see it on my recommendation; it’s also a lot easier to write with the show freshly in mind. But […]
Here’s the thing: the backstage aspects of The Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s production of Kiss Me Kate (you know, the parts where the actors are playing actors, not the parts where the actors are playing actors playing some of Shakespeare’s broadest characters) made for a cute, light and altogether not all bad musical. That stuff, the […]
At least once a year, my father tells me he’d rather not go see Romeo & Juliet. When I ask why, he always says it’s because he’s seen it before. Personally, I think the great thing about Shakespeare is that it’s always different. No matter how many times you’ve seen Hamlet, the actors and director […]
Easily the most emotional production at the Stratford Festival this year is For The Pleasure of Seeing Her Again. I’m not usually a cryer at the theatre but I was inconsolably moved by this piece. Here the Canadian master playwright Michel Tremblay shares his most intimate story, that of his mother. That’s it; it’s just […]
I, like almost everyone else, had never seen The Winter’s Tale before this year at the Stratford Festival . I’d read it, discussed possible stagings, and analyzed the characters, but never seen for myself the play with 2 worlds. That, I suppose, is a theme at Stratford this year: 2 contrasting worlds in a single […]
I love Toronto. There are many many reasons for this, not the least of which is the independent theatre scene. Every week it seems I stumble upon another company dedicated to doing theatre their way, whatever way that may be. Often small, rarely well-funded and often brimming with talent, Toronto’s many many theatre companies are […]
Dangerous Liaisons (at the Stratford Festival this season) is pretty badass. It’s badass in embarrassingly large and frilly french wigs (Yanna McIntosh as Mme de Volanges wears a particularly silly one). It’s badass in petticoats, badass in tights and badass while perched daintily on lavishly ornate pieces of furniture. This solid piece of badassery is […]
Do Not Go Gentle, Geraint Wyn Davies’ one-man show at Stratford, was a strange experience for me. I didn’t care about the life of poet Dylan Thomas going in and I can’t really say the play convinced me I should change my mind. But it didn’t seem to matter if I cared about Thomas, as […]