A uniquely bizarre story, Side Show follows the life of conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton as they are saved from their tortured life performing as ‘freaks’ in a Texan sideshow and propelled into stardom as the hottest act on the opium circuit. The musical, which first premiered on Broadway in 1997, has a rather […]
]This Seven Siblings Theatre production of Titus Andronicus is set in a fantasy world that mirrors a dystopic future: after a long and gruesome war with the Goths (fierce scavengers of the surface), the Andronicus family takes Tamora, Queen of the Goths, and her sons, to their military bunker in the catacombs of Rome, a […]
The blatant irony of a title like Breathing Corpses, as with something like The Walking Dead, is that it is the ostensibly living characters who are all to some degree deceased: both because their lives are caught in a deadlock, and also because by the end of the play we know that many of these […]
The Belarus Free Theatre has taken on a challenge by putting on Tomorrow I was Always a Lion. Portraying mental health onstage, especially schizophrenia, is no easy task. Because many people do not know how to address the issue, it can be a little overwhelming to go see a play that is entirely centered on […]
Nightwood Theatre defines itself as a feminist theatre company whose mandate includes providing an ‘essential home for the creation of extraordinary theatre by women.’ These two pieces, currently on stage at Buddies in Bad Times, certainly hit that mandate. Quiver Written and performed by Anna Chatterton, Quiver is a story about a mother and […]
It’s over-expansive and yet at its most expansive it’s simultaneously at its best. Disregard (or don’t) the critics who call the ending effusive mush or ’emotional blackmail’. The ending is the best part; it’s the only good part, in fact. A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer, now at the Dorfman, is a Serious […]
Big British playwright David Hare offers The Red Barn, a new work which adapts La Main, a novel by prolific Belgian Georges Simenon. Simenon was a guy who wrote thrillers and he wrote a lot of them, and Hare mentions in the programme that his novels generally concerned those at the ‘bottom of society’. For […]
Yes yes yes and once again yes. In five years covering the Canadian Opera Company, I’ve never seen a rep season with this much storytelling depth and theatrical impact. I’ve never seen a perfect balance between homegrown talent, international stars, and homegrown international stars. I’ve never seen female characters with this much agency and this many […]