Ranking: #1 Of the 11 productions at The Shaw Festival this year, there wasn’t a single one I enjoyed more than the lightening-paced lunchtime one-act The President. The zippy script by Fenrenc Molnar moves so fast that director Blair Williams seems to have choreographed it more than staged it- the entrances and exits are so […]
Ranking: #2 What makes The Admirable Crichton so notable is that it’s the only Shaw Festival production in my top 5 that really fits with the festival’s brand. While not a GB Shaw script, This JM Barrie play enjoys the conventional staging, English accents and Shavian commentary on the class system that proved so ineffective […]
His Greatness at the Factory Theatre is an interesting if not totally engrossing production. Writer Daniel MacIvor also plays “The Assistant” with an excellent blend of subtle heartbreak and perfect dry wit. His longstanding relationship with “The Playwright” (Richard Donat) is well established and his constantly moving, ever-tidying movements are wonderfully specific. Donat plays “The […]
Ranking: #3 I was dreading Topdog/Underdog. I had to read Suzan-Lori Parks’ Fucking A in school and could not have despised it more. I was anticipating an angry, expletive-ridden, crass 2 hours designed to provoke response through discomfort. It’s possible that the script could read that way, but Philip Akin’s production in the Shaw Festival […]
Ranking: #4 There are a few truly stunning productions at the Shaw Festival this year- the top 5 in my rankings all really impressed. One of the most creative, most interesting, most effectively executed productions I’ve seen in quite some time was When the Rain Stops Falling in the Studio Theatre. With a criminally short […]
Ranking: #5 The new musical from Jay Turvey and Paul Sportelli brings something very new to the Shaw, even if the plot is nothing new for musical theatre. Essentially a mashup of Carmen’s tropes and Aida’s plot, Maria Severa tells the story of a young Portugese prostitute (the titular Maria) who falls for a man […]
The rarely-produced Candide is a literary torment to stage; not only does the musical feature an impressive and daunting score, but there is a large ensemble of characters, numerous set changes through magical worlds, and a distinct comedic style that borders on the macabre. I can think of few companies other than the Huntington Theatre […]
Ranking: #6 There are a few recurring themes at Shaw this year; the first is conventional staging, the second is excellent design, the third is strong supporting players, the fourth is obnoxiously long productions and the fifth is, well, Shaw I guess. What I mean by that is strong scripts with fantastically clever dialogue and […]
Ranking: #7 The first thing that stands out about The Shaw Festival’s current production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is Sue LePage’s perfect set. Tennessee Williams is notoriously detailed in his stage directions; he describes the feel of the place just as much as the look- the sounds, the smells, the generally intangible. […]
Ranking: #8 Candida is a play that is both fascinating and a little dull at the same time. It’s an inconsequential marital squabble that goes on a bit too long and contains perhaps a bit too much philosophizing on the meaning of love and marriage. It’s also revealing and engaging as a social study and […]
Ranking: #9 My notes on The Shaw Festival’s production of My Fair Lady contain only one word: “Birds!!!”. The reason for this is that there is very little to director Molly Smith and set designer Ken MacDonald’s interpretation apart from the far-from-novel metaphor of birds and bird-related things (various “spread my wings” themes and such- […]
Ranking: #10 Drama at the Inish, a comedy written by Lennox Robinson and directed by Shaw Festival Artistic Director Jackie Maxwell, does nothing in particular wrong. The dialogue is clever, the plotting concise, the staging effective, the set well dressed. The talented cast aptly juggles their quick comic material with excellent Irish accents. But the […]
Ranking: #11 At 2 hours and 15 minutes, The Shaw Festival’s weakest production of the year drags unforgivably. The story of a weak-willed Prime Minister whose sudden socialist enlightenment causes great tumult, On The Rocks has within it some great themes of idealism in government and the importance of standing for something, but it falls […]
Company, is a masterpiece in Sondheim’s body of work. The simple story is so nuanced and steeped in human reality that it is actually one of the composer’s most complex works. So when the NY Philharmonic announced that they’d be assembling an all-star cast to take on all the “Sorry/Grateful” contradictions of the piece, I […]
The final show of Soulpepper’s summer season baffled me a little bit. Judith Thompson’s White Biting Dog was effectively executed by first time director Nancy Palk and Soulpepper’s stellar acting company, but the point somewhat eluded me. It had its moments of poignancy, some of them very pronounced, but overall left me some mixture of confused […]
In our first year covering Toronto’s Summerworks Festival we saw a total of 10 vastly different productions. From the beloved to the despised; from uber professional to pathetically amateur; pretentious to earnest; new works, established favourites, ensemble projects, two person vignettes, musicals, absurdist parables, dance pieces, hits, bombs, comedies, dramas and every possible thing in […]
As the background notes in Soulpepper’s Glass Menagerie playbill remind us, Tennessee Williams had a preoccupation with delicate people. He loved them. Himself being a fairly delicate person, he found them the most sympathetic, the most relatable. I, who greatly admire Williams’ poetic language and unrelenting dedication to emotional complexity, really struggle with the plight […]
Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia is one of the most interesting theatrical pieces written in the 20th century. It’s quick-witted and academic, funny and touching, thought-provoking, heart-breaking and wildly entertaining. With heavy parallelism linking the superb characters between two eras in a single household (1809 and 2011- the studied and the studying), Arcadia becomes a sort of […]
I’m a little bit in love with Argos Productions. With a charismatic artistic director and a mandate to perform original works with the writer involved in the development, Argos is the latest company after my heart. Their inaugural production, however, is a little shaky. Junkie, a new work by John Shea, takes the form of […]
I saw Billy Bishop Goes to War years ago. The version I saw featured a middle-aged Billy boastfully recounting his historical triumphs and the antics of his charismatic younger self. It was light and full of energy, clear but reflective, a really enjoyable and engrossing piece of theatre. But as the years have passed, creators […]
There were a couple shows that we just couldn’t get to (but really wanted to) during Fringe this year. Luckily, there’s The Best of Fringe Uptown where the best of the best productions are remounted for a handful of performances each. This year the selections included some of our favourites from our week at the […]
Ted Dykstra’s solo interpretation of Tolstoy’s novella was a fascinating and engrossing work. A dynamic and surprising performer, Dykstra captivated an audience for the entire run time by doing nothing more or less than telling a story. Within the profound piece that framed artistic collaboration as the ultimate intimacy, Dykstra faced the impossibly lonely task […]
We are often surprised to find the world is not what we first expected; brothers can betray us, wives can die unexpectedly, and the world can be a more beautiful place than how we’re accustomed to seeing it. The MIT Gilbert and Sullivan Players presented a captivating and surprisingly talented interpretation of Marsha Norman and […]
We were working hard this Toronto Fringe, taking in a total of 16 plays ranging from dance to drag to one-man displays or neurosis. There were companies of one, companies of ten, staged readings, fully-mounted musicals, lots of laughs, a couple of tears and grades ranging from A to D. Read on for our absolute […]
We were working hard this Toronto Fringe, taking in a total of 16 plays ranging from dance to drag to one-man displays or neurosis. There were companies of one, companies of ten, staged readings, fully-mounted musicals, lots of laughs, a couple of tears and grades ranging from A to D. Read on for all the […]
I was raised on Rodgers and Hammerstein; in fact, I didn’t think there was any musical that I hadn’t seen by this famous musical writing team. And then I remembered Carousel. Richard Rodgers is cited as saying that it was his favorite of all his musicals, quite a compliment given that Oklahoma! preceded it by just […]