David Yazbek & Itamar Moses’ slinky musical adaptation of the 2007 Israeli film The Band’s Visit is one of those artistic oddities that wins incredible acclaim and most people still have never heard of it. Its 2017 Broadway premiere earned 10 Tony Awards, including all the big ones, including Best Musical, but it hasn’t captured […]
The 1978 play Betrayal comes alive through Soulpepper’s production. The cast and crew are immaculate, and the set is designed in an incredibly effective way. Time slides through the cracks in the audience’s fingers, manipulated with slight changes of costume, hairstyle, or the addition of a single prop. Streamlined and sensual, Betrayal brings to light […]
If staging the perfect murder is hard enough, staging a good murder mystery has its own challenges. With all the mischievousness of its main characters, Patrick Hamilton’s Rope dodges those responsibilities by flipping the script: the murder is made in front of us and the motive is the mystery. It’s been a while since thrillers […]
Shakespeare earned the right to phone it in. It was clear that even his less daring and promising works would be feted beyond their merits – anything bearing his name would get the benefit of the doubt when the same script by a lesser or less famous playwright would be passed over. More generously, any […]
If reality TV taught us anything, it’s that there’s little easier to lampoon than the lives of the rich and famous; long before and through the television age, Noel Coward recognized and exploited this wonderfully. His wildly eccentric charm along with his inimitable talent and style made him the darling of the aristocracy whose attention […]
The safest compliment for art is that it knows who it’s for. Stratford’s roster in a given year mostly consists of sober, supposedly thoughtful pieces aimed at some cross-section of a reliable clientele: there will be something for the Shakespeare crowd, a high-concept work that tickles critics pink, and maybe a disappointingly rote dalliance with […]
This, its 30th year of existence, was my first Bard on the Beach season…
I was so excited to find myself in Vancouver during the Fringe Festival this fall (it’s crazy that there are still Fringe Festivals happening once it’s officially “fall”). Having covered the Toronto leg of the epic Canadian indie theatre circuit for years, I was curious to see how things compared out on the west coast. […]