This quasi-thriller (produced by Public Radio and Camera Assembly and part of this year's SummerWorks) about Isabelle, a film studies professor whose progressive and open minded nature inadvertently invites an anonymous student to psychologically harass her digitally sounds good in summary but unfortunately falls flat on stage. This is despite capable performances, clear and elegant direction by Joanne Williams, and an above average set and production design; most of the blame falls on playwright Norman Yeung who appears to be reaching for a ‘big idea’ play without actually making many compelling arguments.
There is something charming and heartwarming about the fact that the quirky tight-knit family of artists and performers of modern lore still do exist. In the case of Molotov Circus (currently on as part of SummerWorks), Winnipeggers Arne Macpherson and Debbie Patterson are joined by their offspring, budding teenager Gislina, and youngster Solmund in the telling of a tale about a travelling family of Russian circus performers who struggle to keep a modicum of normalcy about their lives despite their unusual lifestyle. This proves to be most challenging for rebellious Albina (Gislina) who yearns to plant roots and seems...
Let me say preface this review by saying that I saw Legoland three times, and still believe that it’s one of the best pieces of whimsical theatre we’ve seen nationally in recent years. The pressure for Atomic Vaudeville’s latest Ride the Cyclone to at least live up to its predecessor was huge.
In word! sound! powah!, the third installment in monodramatist d’bi.young.anitafrika’s incredible matrilineal saga that started with the Dora award-winning blood.claat, anitafrika offers a distinctly different perspective.
The gods of the chick flick, or whatever its stage equivalent may be, have smiled on Nora Ephron once again. She teamed up with fellow writer of many mediums, Delia Ephron, to create a five-woman stage show that has audiences laughing to their hearts’ content. The actors sit behind music stands, literally reading the stories of their lives. The stories represent all women’s lives, so an audience full of women on the night I attended welcomed them with open arms.
Mary Walsh, left, Louise Pitre, Andrea Martin, Paula Brancati and Sharron Matthews in Love, Loss, and What I Wore
What if the stodgy prime minister’s strategists built a whole campaign on their most random PR stunts? The idea doesn’t seem that far-fetched, since Harper started hobnobbing with Bryan Adams and Taylor Swift. It all started about nine months ago, when Harper played “A Little Help From My Friends” at the National Arts Centre. People loved it, and it seems his publicists caught on. So did the Shehori brothers.
Fairy Tale Ending Although this show from Role Your Own Theatre is part of the Fringe Kids programming, they have obviously not sacrificed quality or attention to detail just because their youthful target audience are perhaps not as discriminating as more experienced theatre-goers. In fact there is a real maturity to this piece about Jill, a girl whose favourite fairy tales’ endings have suddenly been turned on their heads; unlike many kids shows which end neatly and toothlessly or with a simplistic moral statement, Fairy Tale Ending rests on a far more complex and profound note than...
Jack Frost folk are left to right: Aaron Knight (Diktak Montag), Jackie Pijper (Trudy Montag), Michael Balazo (Jack Frost), Kathleen Phillips (Mayor)
Powerpoint-utilizing autobiographical storyteller extraordinaire Barry Smith is back with a show that is billed as being about his habit of keeping every record, photo, and scrap of personal information that passes through his life, but is more accurately about his colourful youth spent growing up in backwater Mississippi and southern California.
Metro sparkles with vivacity and real experience. It’s a dance creation by Linette Doherty that puts a lens on how people interact on public transit. It’s funny, touching and uplifting in tone. All that’s on top of the dancing, which seamlessly combines ballet, jazz, hip hop, tap and well, everything.
This latest offering from under-recognized writer/director Maya Rabinovitch is yet another fantastic example of how ensemble casts can be used to great effect, but does lack some of the narrative elegance of her previous works.
Double Double: From left: Erin Fleck, Claire Acott, Daniel Sadavoy, Kate Kudelka, Jaclyn Zaltz, Matthew Eger, Shannon Currie, Perrie Olthuis Photo by Dan Epstein
