Many Shakespeare plays present an imposing barrier to entry even for educated audiences. Directors devise increasingly inventive ways to make them accessible or relevant – or at least to have their own fun and leave their own mark on the work in the guise of doing this. Othello weds a simple plot, touching on familiar […]
Gruesome Playground Injuries is all about variations on themes. Director Chris Bretecher writes that, in following the characters through their unlikely and unlucky journey, “we acknowledge topics of mental health, sexual consent, substance abuse, self harm, and risk taking behaviours”. This is far clearer in the literature than the text: the playbill explains the production’s […]
1979 is a political thriller – but not like that. The (rise and) fall of one of Canada’s most forgotten and forgettable leaders sounds more like a mischievous improv prompt or DVR description for a History show than a recipe for gripping theatre – but it works. It’s easy to see why the production went […]
At Mirvish Productions’ The Play That Goes Wrong, only the title is an understatement. Audiences are quickly enveloped in a fully immersive farce that never lets go- not during the curiously long intermission, and not even leaving the show as fears linger that the ‘fuh-caydes’ of the whole world could collapse at any moment. It’s […]
Christmas cheer is descending on the city, and nowhere more than at Campbell House. The historic museum is the perfect venue for The Three Ships Collective’s adaptation of A Christmas Carol, a rare example of a site that is from the same era as the story and retains its aesthetic. Most authentic Victorian buildings are […]
Scorch, Stacey Gregg’s award-winning play about one teen’s struggle with gender identity and the legal system, is ‘based on a true story’. Beneath that lifeless description Scorch’s real power is in telling the true stories of a larger family of people, who find their right to write their own story under attack, without claiming to […]
Norman Yeung’s Theory is an ambitious meditation on thorny and topical issues, from free speech in academia and society to race and representation in media. Isabelle, a proudly progressive film professor, sets up an anonymous and self-moderated discussion board for her radical new syllabus. Students flood the forum with vicious comments and a campaign of […]