Banana Boys (Factory Theatre) I’m loving the Naked season at Factory. The text-centric, stripped down approach the company is taking to all the pieces in their so-far-so-good fall seasonette is spotlighting great performances, inspiring directorial creativity and refusing to let great texts get overshadowed by trappings. Banana Boys is the perfect example of what’s so […]
Written and performed by Sarah Thorpe, Heretic is a modern retelling of the story of Joan of Arc. Currently at the Theatre Passe-Muraille Backspace, this Soup Can Theatre production is a remount of an earlier version that Thorpe helped to produce last spring. In the programme, Thorpe tells us that the show was inspired by […]
There’s something really special happening at the Theatre Centre right now. Actually, there are two (soon to be three) special things happening at the Theatre Centre right now. They are the productions that make up Why Not Theatre’s latest theatrical experiment and I can’t say enough about them, or it. The November Ticket is an […]
Edmond (The Storefront Arts Initiative) In David Mamet’s bleak one-act Edmond, nearly every actor plays multiple roles. Director Benjamin Blais has his large, diverse cast nearly omnipresent and in perpetual motion, creating a swirling, oppressive crowd through which Tim Walker’s frantic Edmond has to constantly fight to make his way to each of the 23 […]
The Immigrant (Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company) You know Mark Harelik, or at least you know his face. He has a recurring role on The Big Bang Theory; he was Topanga’s dad on Boy Meets World; he’s in an episode of Breaking Bad! The reason Mark Harelik is here to be a familiar face in […]
Written by Caryl Churchill in the 1970s, Objections to Sex and Violence was Chruchill’s first production on a mainstage. Currently downtown at the Artscape Sandbox, it is a surprisingly relevant play, set against the political background of the 1970’s: the sexual revolution, and the global protest movement. But Churchill’s play invokes the political in a […]
Age of Arousal (Factory Theatre) The best thing I’ve seen at the Factory Theatre in ages, Linda Griffiths’ Age of Arousal is funny and sad and executed with plenty of pathos to balance its slight lecturing vibe. As the lone man in the play, Sam Kalilieh is the exact kind of charming that leaves you […]
Frankenstein Live opened last weekend at the Walmer Centre Theatre in the Annex. The script was written by Warren MacDonald, and is a stage adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. There is no dialogue in the book, and so MacDonald notes in a recent interview that his biggest challenge was to imagine the dialogue realistically while […]