I find opera very hard to connect to most of the time. The outrageous plots, the technicality of the music, the stiffness of the acting, the surtitles- it all works out to a medium that rarely holds my attention the way I want it to. That’s why Peter Grimes is proving such a refreshing change […]
We all have them. Those books or plays we battled in high school and despised for a plethora of reasons, some legitimate (with all due respect William Faulkner, punctuation is a useful writing tool that you should consider wielding) and some less so (dear Holden Caulfield, please stop being emo, thanks). Do not get me […]
“How will they stage a radio play?” I had no doubts that a creative theater company could very well stage a radio play, especially if the play in question was written by Angela Carter, the late British woman-of-many-letters, a novelist/journalist/dramatist/critic known for drinking deeply from the Gothic and the fantastic in literature, and infusing much […]
After seeing a total of seven productions at this years SummerWorks theatre festival in Toronto, I decided to grade my reactions on an ascending scale. This began with two shows that somehow either went over my head or never really near it at all: Show and Tell Alexander Bell and Entitlement in Part 1, followed […]
It is a rare treat when a talented cast gets a hold of an engaging play that leaves the audience cracking up one minute and utterly subdued the next. Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of Joshua Harmon’s Bad Jews, directed by Daniel Aukin, at the Laura Pels Theatre is a darkly comedic and compelling show about […]
I cannot help but think that Nina Mansfield conceived of Gymnos: A Geek’s Tragedy while hobbling along on an elliptical machine in an over-crowded gym. Do not get me wrong, I am 100% behind my illusionary version of Ms. Mansfield – gyms suck. Gyms are terrible. Whoever thought that communal exercise was a good idea* must […]
The Canadian Opera Company is kicking off their 2013/14 season with a really smart choice. Puccini’s La Bohème is among the world’s most famous operas but it’s also one of its more entertaining. Far from the unrelenting doom and gloom of every other example I can think of (except Gianni Schicchi, that one is a Hoot), […]
The performance time listed on the company’s web page was the first detail to catch my eye. I have not seen many small theatre performances that list their end time along with their start time, much less list it accurately. But there it was: Saturday September 28th, 2013, 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM. This was […]