Ever since I had the pleasure of seeing their impressive production of Next Fall last September, I’ve been consistently surprised and excited by SpeakEasy Stage Company’s 2011-2012 season. Their most recent production of the Tony-winning Red delivers even stronger performances by the small, but intensely talented cast. Not only is the direction and acting strikingly poignant, but the […]
Sometimes you see those shows where everything clicks from the script to the acting to the production elements. Everything works as an integrated whole to create a visceral experience. My night at the Huntington’s God of Carnage was one of these experiences. I wasn’t familiar with Yasmina Reza, the playwright, or her work, but I’ll […]
Soulpepper’s 12-play 2012 season officially began last week with the January 19th opening of Kim’s Convenience. The heartfelt, hilarious and supremely Torontonian play is an essentially unchanged remount of the same production from last summer’s Toronto Fringe Festival. The set is a little bigger- now a fully-dressed convenience store on the Michael Young Stage, oddly […]
Argos Productions‘ second excursion in Boston theater, Wandaleria, written by David Valdes Greenwood and directed by Brett Marks, was an exceptional presentation of a wonderfully written, funny play. The script itself is new. The Author, a former Boston Globe columnist and accomplished playwright, creates a piece that is not only exceedingly clever, but well structured. The story moves […]
Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret is a fundamentally flawed piece of theatre; it’s absurdly constructed, tonally conflicted and full of disjointed and ill-conceived numbers. Then Adam Brazier got hold of it. The charming tenor-turned savvy director took on none of the musical’s high-profile baggage when he began preparing to stage the problematic piece at Hart House Theatre. […]
Walking into Buddies in Bad Times Theatre is always an entirely new experience. One of the more versatile spaces Toronto has to offer, the Buddies stage played host to two massively different productions in the past few months, both of which had something big to say. In October I had the distinct pleasure of getting […]
“Why did I come to Copenhagen?” one of the characters asks, late into the second act of Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen. I asked myself the same question after seeing Flat Earth Theatre’s production last weekend. I am a huge Noises Off fan, another play by Michael Frayn, but his two scripts are nothing alike. Copenhagen […]
As I mentioned in my last review, November was full of Shakespeare. My second show was at Brandeis University, featuring an original adaption of Comedy of Errors by Bill Barclay, a Resident Acting Company member of the Actor’s Shakespeare Project. Barclay also directed this unique production, which starred Brandeis University students with award-winning community actors. […]