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On Why Trilling Matters
Reviewed in this essay: Why Trilling Matters, by Adam Kirsch. Yale University Press, 2011. Lionel Trilling was a major figure in his times: revered, loathed, and full of contradictions. He was—with perhaps only the exception of Edmund Wilson—the most well-known and respected American literary critic throughout the nineteen fifties and sixties. He was the first…
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Reviving the ‘Radical’ in Canadian Theatre History
Reviewed in this essay: Committing Theatre: Theatre Radicalism and Political Intervention in Canada, by Alan Filewod. Between the Lines, 2011. Alan Filewod, arguably the most prolific scholar of leftist political theatre in English Canada, has skillfully analyzed the history of radical performance in this country, from the mid-nineteenth century to the most recent G20 demonstrations,…
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As Store or Play, Kim’s Convenience is Canonically Canadian
Reviewed in this essay: Kim’s Convenience, from Soulpepper Theatre Company. Written by Ins Choi and directed by Weyni Mengesha. Until February 11th at Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Mill Street, Building 49, Toronto. Reopens May 17–June 9, 2012. 416-866-8666 or www.soulpepper.ca. Building a play around a racial stereotype is risky business, especially when…
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Kate Beaton: Canada’s Cartoonist
Reviewed in this essay: Hark, a Vagrant, by Kate Beaton. Drawn and Quarterly, 2011. On the web at harkavagrant.com. If you haven’t heard of Kate Beaton until lately you’re a little late to the party. Since Drawn and Quarterly released a collection of her work last fall, the cartoonist has exploded in popularity: a book…
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It’s A Man’s World: Alumnae Theatre Company Presents MacEwen’s Masterful Adaptation of The Trojan Women
Reviewed in this essay: The Trojan Women, from Alumnae Theatre Company. Translated and adapted by Gwendolyn MacEwen. Directed by Alexandra Seay. Produced by PJ Hammond & Tabitha Keast. Until February 4th at Alumnae Theatre, 70 Berkeley Street, Toronto. 416-364-4170 or http://www.alumnaetheatre.com/tickets.html. In Gwendolyn MacEwen’s adaptation of The Trojan Women, the world of men is defined…
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Where’s the Beer? And Jamie Fitzpatrick’s You Could Believe in Nothing
Reviewed in this essay: You Could Believe in Nothing, by Jamie Fitzpatrick. Nimbus Publishing, 2011. Until a few weeks ago, I thought I knew hockey culture. Like many Canadians, I grew up playing the game, and put in my time watching Don Cherry in the 80s and 90s. And, like Derek in Jamie Fitzpatrick’s fine…
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Have We Dreamed so Big?: A Review of Rebecca Rosenblum’s The Big Dream
Reviewed in this essay: The Big Dream, by Rebecca Rosenblum. Biblioasis, 2011. Have we dreamed so big, only to awake small, suburban and fragile? Rosenblum’s collection of linked short stories is a chronicle of the disappointments of waking/growing up, only to find that the golden palace of your dream is a squat, square low-rise commercial…
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Ecce Homo Theatre’s Loving the Stranger… Examines the War that Never Ends
Reviewed in this essay: Loving the Stranger or How to Recognize an Invert, from Ecce Homo Theatre. Written and directed by Alistair Newton. Until January 15th at Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst Street, Toronto. Part of The Toronto Fringe’s NextStage Festival. 416-966-1062 or www.fringetix.ca. One of the final slides projected onto the screen hanging onstage during…
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Much Ado in Theatre Brouhaha’s Titillating Commentary LoveSexMoney
Reviewed in this essay: LoveSexMoney, from Theatre Brouhaha. Written and directed by Kat Sandler. Until January 15th at Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst Street, Toronto. Part of The Toronto Fringe’s NextStage Festival. 416-966-1062 or www.fringetix.ca. If hotel rooms could talk, what stories would they tell? And would you really want to know what they have to…
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Soup Can Theatre’s Truncated Cabaret is Well Worth Weill
Reviewed in this essay: Love Is a Poverty You Can Sell, from Soup Can Theatre. Written by Justin Haigh, featuring the music of Kurt Weill and others. Directed by Sarah Thorpe. Musical Direction by Pratik Gandhi. Until January 15th at Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst Street, Toronto. Part of The Toronto Fringe’s NextStage Festival. 416-966-1062 or…
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Vladimir Nabokov: Lectures on Russian Literature
Reviewed in this essay: Lectures on Russian Literature, by Vladimir Nabokov. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002. At Wellesley College in 1941, before he secured financial independence with Lolita (1955), Nabokov was a one-man Russian literature department. Lectures on Russian Literature collects his lessons on Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev, Gorki and Dostoevsky from that period, including after he…
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The Party Faces Are Off at NextStage in Jules Lewis’s First Theatrical Production
Reviewed in this essay: Tomasso’s Party, from Rooftop Creations. Written by Jules Lewis. Directed by Nigel Shawn Williams, and produced by André du Toit. Until January 15th at Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst Street, Toronto. Part of The Toronto Fringe’s NextStage Festival. 416-966-1062 or www.fringetix.ca. It’s a performance that gives “pillow talk” an electrifying new meaning.…