Currently on tour, Taking Flight is a selection of three plays, chosen as the winners of a competition that aimed to produce pieces by first-time playwrights from within the British East Asian, South Asian, and Southeast Asian communities. Obviously, the politics of the aim can’t be ignored: that there is something particular about British-Asian (or […]
This is not a review. The Company Theatre’s production of John– a dense, complex, hilarious personal epic by celebrated playwright Annie Baker- is extraordinary on a hundred different levels and every single person who has seen it (or certainly written about it) has said pretty much the same thing. I’m usually skeptical of consensus but […]
Created by Khari Wendell McClelland, Freedom Singer is a gorgeous, thrilling, and refreshing theatre experience. The show is launching the Scotiabank Community Studio space at Streetcar Crowsnest Theatre in Toronto, and will be going on a cross-Canada tour throughout February (Black History Month). Juno-nominated singer-songwriter McClelland narrates his search to find out what he can […]
Written and performed by Laurel Brady, Surfacing is a story of a young woman telling her mother about her mental illness. In the programme notes, Brady confesses that the show was inspired by a monologue that she wrote about her own depression and anxiety. These are stories we are often afraid to tell other people, […]
#neverlookback You see the above hashtag for a second of Sh!t Theatre’s hour-long show. It’s in footage of Manor House, the duo’s local area, on a billboard apparently for an E-cig company called Vivid; I thought it was from Nike (of ‘Just Do It’ fame), because both sentiments suggest a vaguely life-affirming yet thoughtless life […]
The Canadian Opera Company has been slogging through Wagner’s interminable Ring Cycle over the past three seasons. And I’ve been slogging through my reviews of said marathons of melancholy Germans singing about dwarves. The summary was always the same: the set is bonkers but impressive, the singers and orchestra are technically sound, no one is […]
The Winter’s Tale (Groundling Theatre Company) I’ve talked about this production before, focusing mainly on the problems that overwhelm the action of the first and last acts of this strangely dichotomous play. Sicilia is grey, over-dramatic, over-acted and full of unnecessary melisma but what I discovered upon a return trip (this time set against the lantern-lit […]
Liv Stein at Canadian Stage manages to achieve the strange combination of beautiful mediocrity. Nino Haratischwili’s play is about a couple, Liv and Emil, their angst over the loss of their son, and that aftermath of that grief. Liv (Leslie Hope) is a pianist, someone once renowned for her interpretations and performances of Rachmaninov but […]