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People We’ll Never Meet: A dance on the topic of strangers
Eiden: Eidos See: Know Hail, Mary, Jean-Luc Godard’s film about the immaculate conception was banned by the Vatican because it imagined what it might have been like to be Mary. I saw a woman lay her head over the streetcar tracks. We spy on strangers. Bodies leaping from…
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Indigenous Writers’ Gathering A Smashing Success
Renowned authors Lee Maracle, Daniel Heath-Justice, Richard Wagamese and award winning Metis poet Marilyn Dumont all descended on the U of T campus for the one-day Indigenous Writers’ Gathering last week. After a breakfast with the writers, panels kicked off with traditional Metis Rogarou stories. Other workshops included discussing fiction with Richard Wagamese, “Declaring and…
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Mahmoud at the Toronto Fringe Festival
Reviewed in this essay: Mahmoud at the Toronto Fringe Festival (Tarragon Extra Space), 30 Bridgman Avenue, Toronto. Remaining show-times: July 10 at 3:30 PM, July 11 at 11:00 PM, July 13 at 12:00 PM, July 14 at 8:45 PM. Tickets available online or at the door. It takes a special kind of performer to bring…
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Banachek’s The Alpha Project and the One-Person Theater Show
Reviewed in this essay: Banachek’s The Alpha Project, The Fleck Dance Theatre, Luminato Festival, 8-10 June 2012 Do certain individuals have the ability to see the future, to read the thoughts of others, or to communicate with the spirit world? Whatever your answers to these questions might be, in his show The Alpha Project an…
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Looking At The Opera
Considering which member of an opera’s creative team tends to call the shots, Anne Midgette writes in the New York Times, “We have seen the age of the singer, the age of the conductor and, now, the age of the director.” No one, apparently, worries much about the set designer, but that doesn’t mean the…
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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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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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TRB Podcast: The Master Critic and the Review – Robert Cushman at York University
On October 18, 2011, renowned critic Robert Cushman spoke on “The Master Critic and the Review” at York University: the TRB is delighted to be able to bring you his lecture. [audio:cushman.mp3] Cushman’s bio on the York event page is as follows: Born in London and educated at Cambridge University, worked for the BBC’s radio…
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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…