Soup Can Theatre selects a 1920’s Berlin cabaret as the setting for their contribution to the Toronto Fringe Festival, Love is a Poverty You Can Sell, a musical revue focusing on the legacy of composer Kurt Weill. Space gets a little tight in Bread & Circus with a ten piece orchestra providing accompaniment, but rubbing elbows with the conductor does cultivate the atmosphere of the underground cabarets of old.
The venerable PLANK Panel return with their take on the Canadian Opera Company's recent production of Gaetano Donizetti's Maria Stuarda
Justin: It may be strange to start a opera review with a note about a work’s libretto - one of the unmodifiable elements of any Canadian Opera Company production - but it is still a key part of the artistic experience and as such a legitimate topic of discussion. The thing that strikes me most about Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda is the drastically unfamiliar treatment Queen Elizabeth I receives in this work. Compared to the moderate and headstrong...
Simone Osborne as Anna Kennedy and Serena Farnocchia as Maria Stuarda. Photo credit: Michael Cooper
Fenulla Jiwani’s trite comedy 30 Dates, currently at Canadian Stage in a Fenstar Production, follows Priti (played by Jiwani) through one brutal year of ambitious dating. It’s been called My Big Fat Greek Wedding meets Sex and the City. Sure, it’s about the hope, humiliation and heartbreak of searching for love. The difference is, My Big Fat Greek Wedding is funny. And Sex and the City has SJP.
The first thing to note about Eddie Izzard’s latest comedic offering, Eddie Izzard: Stripped is that the content of the show has nothing to do with its title, or if it does, only in the loosest of terms. Any member of Izzard’s recent Massey Hall audience expecting a raunchy set, or a soul bearing purge would have been surprised, but not disappointed, by the performance and the performer.
After a long too long hiatus, the venerable PLANK Panel returns with their take on the Canadian Opera Company's current production of The Flying Dutchman, currently on at the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto.
The Canadian Opera Company’s production of The Flying Dutchman. Photo Credit: Michael Cooper
Halfway through Jake Ehrenreich’s autobiographical one-man show A Jew Grows in Brooklyn we find that his career began as a lounge MC in the Catskill Mountains, entertaining rooms full of vacationing families with corny jokes. Suddenly the preceding hour is put into context, as no sign of stylistic evolution from these early days can be found in Ehrenreich’s performance.
Amongst the sacred cows of theatre, Shakespeare undoubtedly sits atop them all. His work has been some of the most frequently adapted, borrowed, and updated by contemporary storytellers across all media and failing to do justice to them is guaranteed to bring forth the ire of audiences and critics alike. In many respects, Bear Production’s adaptation of A Midsummer’s Night Dream, simply titled The Dream, walks on thin ice but ultimately delivers an entertaining and noteworthy show. For that reason, one cannot help but feel they pass the threshold of success - if tenuously.
Ryan Ward as Oberon and Alana Bridgewater as Titania; photo credit: Andy McCraw
Whetstone Productions doesn’t produce a work of theatre often . . . once every few years, at best. Wingéd, the one-man show in three acts, written and performed by David Tomlinson, is worth the wait. Its quality is uneven –petering off in the end, but the first two acts are strong enough to make the audience forgive the short third act. Inside the DeLeon White Gallery, the space only seats about 50. The intimate setting allows Tomlinson to address audience members as friends or colleagues. Surrounding paintings and sculptures on display, video screens overhead and a strobe light mark...
It was after seeing Sebastian Croon’s Fringe show Circus last year that I lamented the rarity of horror genre work in theatre, so you can imagine my glee upon hearing about The Mill, an ambitious project conceived by Daryl Cloran and Matthew MacFadzean for Theatrefront. The Mill is a series of four plays forged under the manifesto, as described by MacFadzean, to “make Canadian history less boring”, particularly by telling it through the lens of fear. March saw the delivery of the series’ third installment, though I was lucky enough to catch up on the first two...
Ryan Hollyman and Michelle Latimer are at the mill.
