My Theatre

We're Movin' On Up!

2011-12-27T22:54:00.000-05:00

Hi My Theatre Readers,

This is my final message to you on this version of the site.

Over the last few months we at My Theatre have been working on the development of the central My Entertainment World site where we'll be joining with our current sister sites My TV, My Cinema, My Sports Stadium, My Bookshelf and My Music. The new central hub will feature highlighted articles from across My Entertainment World and a feature showcasing our biggest exclusive interviews as well as the most recent posts from all 6 existing branches (and our brand new venture My Games).

But never fear, My Theatre will live on with it's own page as a branch under the My Entertainment World umbrella. At www.myentertainmentworld.ca/mytheatre you'll be able to find all the same content from this site brought to you by your dedicated authors in Toronto (myself) and Boston (Brian) and all the My Theatre contributors: Jim, Borah, Maddi, Tessa.

Our annual My Theatre Awards and Nominee Interview Series are coming up soon and we'll be launching our New York coverage with our new head of My Theatre's NYC Division, Rebbekah Vega Romero, So be sure to come with us over to the new site, you won't want to miss it.

Thank you all for your dedicated readership of My Theatre over the past few years.

To all the performers, directors, writers and designers who've inspired us and supported us, this new site is dedicated to you. I can't wait to show you our new and improved selves.

We launch www.myentertainmentworld.ca this week- get excited and I'll see you there!

All My Love,

Kelly Bedard
Managing Editor, My Theatre

Hannah Moscovitch's Children's Republic

2011-12-17T21:35:00.000-05:00

The newest play from Canada's beloved playwright Hannah Moscovitch is a stirring and inspiring drama about groundbreaking Polish/Jewish educator Janusz Korczak, set in Warsaw in pre-ghetto 1939 (Act I) and oppressive and war-torn 1942 (Act II). Against Camellia Koo's innovative set of destructible paper orphanage walls and directed with sublime understanding by Alisa Palmer, Moscovitch's truthful and nuanced dialogue tells the story of The Children's Republic with great dexterity and heart, creating characters so palpably real it's all you can do to not leap out of your chair and try to save them.

As the central doctor and philosopher of childhood education, Peter Hutt is the best I've ever seen the stage veteran. His smart and tender performance contains a lightness and optimism that's key to the character's investment in children. The subtlety in Hutt's performance is what makes it so superb, he maintains a wonderfully dry humour as long as he can; a slow descent into illness and hopelessness is fought bravely with head held high. Korczak proclaims that children have the right to learn, love, make mistakes and be treated as full human beings, not just future ones, something that Hutt's intelligent kindness champions throughout the play.

Moscovitch gives her child characters those very rights in her character development. Misha, Mettya, Sara and Israel are the true stars of the piece, complicated children who learn, love, make mistakes and function through more grief and anger than countless "full human beings" put together. Elliott Larson particularly stands out with his soulful performance as Misha, the reluctantly fragile orphan whose heartbeat proves one of Korczak's most fundamental points. Mark Correia is also wonderful in The Children's Republic's most demanding role, that of the doctor's volatile new charge Israel, a severely damaged street kid with overdeveloped instincts to both fight and flee in equal measure. His understated love story with Katie Frances Cohen's optimistic and caring Mettya is a brilliantly humanizing element, sweetly conveying the gentleness Korczak's fighting to bring out in Israel. Emma Burke-Kleinman rounds out the group of children with her quietly hurting performance as the violin prodigy Sara.

The final piece to the puzzle is Korczak's deadpan and steadfast assistant Stefa, played with the perfect mix of no-nonsense strength and aching sympathy by the superb Kelli Fox. Amy Rutherford's kindly Madame Singer is the least interesting presence on stage, though the purpose she serves in establishing Korczak's educational priorities is a fascinating one.

The Children's Republic is one of those pieces of theatre that stays with you, haunting your thoughts as you exit the Tarragon Mainspace. It's a look back at one of the most terrifying pieces of human history and a celebration of a good man fighting for the survival and success of the next generation.

Soulpepper's Parfumerie

2011-12-14T15:00:00.000-05:00

Adam Pettle and Brenda Robins' 2009 adaptation of Miklos Laszlo's 1937 Hungarian comedy Parfumerie, about the behind the scenes lives of employees at a beauty supply store, is not something you would assume would be a hit. But it is. Most performances of the Dora-winning remount have already sold out and a discerning friend of mine with superb comic taste called it her "absolute favourite thing at Soulpepper". As directed by Morris Panych with beautifully whimsical set design by Ken MacDonald, Parfumerie is a delight of comic distraction and a brilliant showpiece for company MVP Oliver Dennis.

As George Asztalos- an unexpected romantic lead, as bitter as he is sweet- Dennis is tremendously charming. With a cheerful face, brisk voice and stiff posture, his Asztalos contains all the contradictions necessary for his bungled double life as a daytime confrontational bachelor and nighttime anonymous letter-writing lover. When those worlds collide, the battle amongst Asztalos' contradictory instincts results in some superb physical comedy from the always-wonderful Dennis.

As the woman whom Asztalos picks on and unknowingly woos pen-pal style, Patricia Fagan has just enough sass to keep up and just enough heart to ground the unlikely (read: not that surprising, also the basis for You've Got Mail) love story. Her chemistry with Dennis is at its best when they bicker, though their Act II slow-burn romance is plenty wonderful too.

The supporting cast is anchored by Joseph Ziegler's endearing turn as shop owner Miklos Hammerschmidt, a fundamentally good man driven all sorts of crazy by the thought that his wife is cheating on him. Kevin Bundy is an appropriately skeezy/charming Stephan Kadash, the Hammerschmidt employee helping her with the cheating. Michael Simpson shines as a daffy do-right clerk who serves as counsellor to the love story and unfortunate fifth business to the infidelity plot. And the adorable Jeff Lillico gives the funniest performance of the lot as the upstart apprentice Arpad, whose mid-action promotion opens him up to an Act II full of riotous pride and self importance, bossing around the eager new apprentice Jancsi (Mike Ross, naturally, pulling double duty as the prat-falling and setpiece-jumping Jancsi and the accordion-playing Musical Director).

The practiced rhythms of the employees at Hammerschmidt's store play like a well-oiled and quirky ensemble should, their less-highlighted interpersonal relationships just as developed as the main plots (the friendship between Dennis' Asztalos and Ziegler's Hammerschmidt is particularly moving). The pace may sag from time to time but vibrant performances make all the difference in Laszlo's wordy comedy.

The Christmas-set comedy is the final piece in Soulpepper's outstanding 14th season, a very sweet way to head into 2012. Helped along by the Distillery District's annual Christmas market, a trip to the ever-so-slightly holiday-tinted Parfumerie is the perfect way to kick off the season.

Soulpepper's current production of Parfumerie plays at The Young Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto's Distillery District until Dec 31st.

*photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

In Albert Schultz's Toronto

2011-12-10T13:09:00.000-05:00

I went to University in Boston. Don't ask me why but I had it in my head that I had to leave home after highschool, live in another city (another country, as it turned out), get some space from the town where my parents live, where I'd spent all of highschool and lived since I was 13 years old. What I learned while I was away was just how much I love being here, in Toronto. My Boston friends still laugh at the extreme enthusiasm with which I convince them to visit my hometown, but when they finally agree to come- Bostonians and New Yorkers all skeptical about Canada's greatness- the city never fails to win them over. Because it's the best place there is; that sounds hyperbolic, but I've been lots of places, and I've never found a city as vibrant and welcoming and just plain cool as Toronto.

In the past year, this firm-held opinion of mine has grown immeasurably due mostly to the influence one man has had on the artistic and cultural experience of Toronto. Downtown, in the heart of the ever-gorgeous Distillery District, sits the city's most valuable performance space: The Young Centre for the Performing Arts. The beautifully designed venue sports a spacious lobby with The William Hutt (*moment of reverence*) Library and a bar that serves everything from local beers and good wines to delicious espresso drinks, chai hot chocolate, gourmet sandwiches, soups and salads and the best fresh-baked cookies this side of my mother's kitchen. It's also home to no fewer than four diverse and convertible theatre spaces (not to mention studios, classrooms and offices). This space was built in 2006 to house George Brown College's theatre department and a little company called Soulpepper. Its General Director is Albert Schultz and it's from this perfect little slice of the city that he has designed and implemented more city-shaping initiatives than any other arts professional in recent memory. When I'm down in the Distillery, I'm in Albert Schultz's Toronto, and there's nowhere in the world I would rather be.

The Young Centre poobah is also (or, rather, coincidingly) the founding and current Artistic Director of Soulpepper, a thrilling repertory company that is in many ways the centre of Toronto's theatrical community. At only 15-years-old, Soulpepper easily rivals the acclaimed Stratford and Shaw festivals in the acting talent it attracts and with a year-round season of diverse works, it's the unrivaled go-to company for quality productions in Toronto. And Schultz is at the centre of it all as the face of the company as well as a participating actor and director.

The upcoming 2012 season hosts yet another lineup of promising productions covering all genres and periods. I'm particularly looking forward to seeing Kim's Convenience again, the 2011 Fringe festival hit written by Soulpepper Academy graduate Ins Choi, as it kicks off the new season on January 12th. In February, My Theatre favourites Evan Buliung and Gregory Prest will take on the intense Long Day's Journey Into Night with Soulpepper's go-to actress Nancy Palk in O'Neill's most demanding role, while the super wonderful Oliver Dennis and Mike Ross will appear with Diego Matamoros in High Life directed by Stuart Hughes. Schultz will direct Home in May and David Storch will take on Speed-the-Plow in July (Mamet's always done well for Soulpepper, being that they're mutually awesome and all). Big name Kenneth Welsh will return to the stage with The Sunshine Boys and Schultz will direct The Crucible followed by a remount of his hit production of another Arthur Miller piece, Death of a Salesman. Endgame (Lord help us all, but if anyone can convince me to like Beckett, it's Soulpepper), You Can't Take It With You, The Royal Comedians an A Christmas Carol round out the eventful season to come.

As an actor and performer, Schultz has quickly become a favourite of mine in my first year reviewing the company. He has an affable charm that makes him a superb figurehead (he can be seen wandering the halls of any Young Centre event, schmoozing and taking in shows) but he's also in possession of an incredibly unique blend of passion, seriousness and fun. Everything he does is executed seemingly effortlessly (the mark of a lot of effort) and he consistently has audiences eating out of the palm of his hand. Albert Schultz gives a sense of enthusiasm that's both unmistakable an infectious, a quality that's never more clear than at the Young Centre Festivals- weekend long events celebrating the arts, conceived by Schultz and the team and at The Young Centre (including 12 resident artists). A man whose job it is to run (and direct for, and act in) one of the most successful theatre companies in the country, you'd think would be content to just sit back and enjoy his work, but Schultz seems intent on supplementing it with celebrations of music and the spoken word at The Young Centre's Global Cabaret and Word Festivals.

Once a year, The Young Centre is filled with 3 days worth of Toronto's greatest musical talent at The Global Cabaret Festival. This year's was at the end of October, and it was the coolest weekend I've ever spent in this city.

The 4th annual showcase featured more than 150 musicians in 44 performances from Oct 28-30 and was composed of 3 types of cabarets: The Featured Artist Series showcased, well, featured artists, including some of Canada's most legendary talent (Jackie Richardson to Sharron Matthews to Daniel Taylor) performing their signature material. The Album Series was a set of tributes to the great artists and songwriters of the world (The Beatles, Paul Simon, Carole King, and more) music directed by the festival's resident artists and each featuring a plethora of guest stars. Finally there was the Theatrical Cabaret Series, which consisted of re)Birth: E.E. Cummings in Song, a Soulpepper original re-mounted from its earlier run, and The National Theatre of the World: The Carnegie Hall Show, a completely improvised musical event that was different at each performance.

I kicked my weekend off early Saturday afternoon at Albert Schultz's kids cabaret Young At Heart. The casually charming concert (which Schultz has performed for over a decade and recorded for the CBC) is a loving tribute to comedian/singers like Danny Kaye and a celebration of youthful wonder (he does a "cat medley" that includes "Everybody Wants to be a Cat", "Tigger" and "If I Were King of the Forrest", which he delivers in endearing goofy voices); it also features priceless contributions from the great Don Francks and Jackie Richardson. Housed in the Michael Young Theatre, beautifully transformed with cabaret tables and twinkling candles, Young at Heart was my favourite cabaret of the whole wonderful weekend and showed off exactly what it is that makes Schultz so incredibly good at the coolest job in the world.

Next, I was lucky enough to catch Jackie Richardson's own cabaret, a delightful hour of jazz and blues as delivered by one of Canada's most awesome performers. Richardson's show dragged only a little as she got lost in some of her more wandering anecdotes (most of which were simply hilarious) but the power of her voice and her engaging stage presence proved impossible to ignore.

Things slowed down from there when I wandered cluelessly into The Stan Rogers Songbook. Headed up by endearing performers like Miranda Mulholland and the endlessly charming Brendan Wall, I'm sure this particular cabaret was wildly entertaining to fans of Stan Rogers' downhome melancholy, but I found it a little less than rousing (through absolutely no fault of the performers). The reason I went was to see one of the featured guests, Mike Ross, who delivered a couple strong vocals and livened up the proceedings with some cute banter, an anecdote about his expected baby (6 days overdue by then) and some fake rivalry fun (he accidentally knocked over Wall's guitar). Standing in line for a later show I overheard the audience members behind me discussing the E.E. Cummings piece that Ross was a major contributor to: "That Mike Ross is a genius" is not an uncommon sentence to hear at The Young Centre but that doesn't make it any less true. I thought he was great as a conflicted sociopath in White Biting Dog, then amazing in Acting Up Stage's Leonard Cohen/Joni Mitchell tribute, but the boyishly charming multi-hyphenate seems to whip out another mastered skill every time I see him and impress me even more. I'm just sad that at The Global Cabaret Festival I only got to see him sing Stan Rogers.

Next up was Sharron Matthews, of whom I've heard much but seen very little. The exuberant singer lived up to expectations with one of the most fun cabarets of the whole festival. With more of a focus on storytelling than the rest, Matthews gave the outright funniest performance I saw, complete with her divalicious takes on popular songs and a vicious demand for the monstrous Rob Ford to "get out of office and we'll feel alright" (sung to the tune of Bob Marley's usually peaceful "One Love"). Matthews' exuberance comes with a certain degree of self-righteousness, earned from a bullied childhood and years as an industry underdog, but that can be forgiven when she makes the glasses tremble with her powerful belt.

After that, I made the mistake of trying to get into The Beatles's Abbey Road from the Album Series at 8:15, missing my last chance to see the E.E. Cummings show I'd missed earlier this year at Soulpepper. When The Beatles turned out to be too popular (duh!), I called it a night.

I spent my Sunday with a musician friend of mine who was working at the festival instead of scouting out the rest of the Featured Artist Series (I figured between Schultz, Richardson and Matthews I'd gotten my money's worth). After dinner, my media pass got me in to see the final few minutes of Prince's Purple Rain, which I was glad to have mostly missed after musical director Suba Sankaran's gratingly forced enthusiasm proved too much for me to handle.

At 9:15 I capped off my excellent weekend at Toronto's coolest yearly event with the most popular show of the festival: Abbey Road. It was alright, not as memorable as I would have liked. After some of the brilliant cabarets earlier that weekend and the example set by Reza Jacobs' innovative takes on the Mitchell/Cohen songbooks, I'd come to expect a little re-interpretation when dealing with songs as famous as a Beatles track. But with the exception of a little extra drumming, the famous tunes remained largely untouched, delivered prettily but with a somewhat disappointing sense of adulation.

But a few underwhelming shows aside, the Global Cabaret Festival was freaking cool.

The Word Festival, which took place 2 weeks ago, was a less glamorous affair just in its first year of existence, but the slightly nerdy low-key-ness of the weekend gave it a sort of passion project feel that made it all the more fulfilling.

On the festival's opening night, Schultz MC'ed the Elmer Iseler Singers concert. He told a story about being a 15-year-old high school student asked to read Hamlet aloud in class. Most of the other students were struggling but he sailed right through, despite having never encountered Shakespeare before. He described the feeling of reading the verse like the experience of coming home, and realized that the reason he was so comfortable with the melodic, old-timey text was because he'd been raised going to church and singing in the choir; he'd been raised on the King James Bible. A classical acting career later, Schultz landed on the additional realization that we were in the year of the KJV (King James Version)'s anniversary, 1611, and that that was the same year Shakespeare produced his final play, The Tempest. So, for the 400th anniversary of 1611, Schultz and The Young Centre organized a celebration of the spoken word, honouring the publication of the two most influential texts in the English language- The King James Bible and The Complete Works of Shakespeare. It's a fascinating idea and resulted in a weekend of events, some utterly memorable, some wonderfully inspiring and some a little bit boring.

A main attraction of The Word Festival was the Live Reading of the KJV in the lobby of the Young Centre. 24hrs a day, 76 hours straight, someone was reading until the entire book had been spoken aloud at the festival. Soulpepper company members, the Young Centre resident artists and other prominent performers were called in to lend their voices to the reading, which concluded Sunday afternoon as Schultz read the final words and, punctuated by a fire alarm with a sense of humour, closed the book on Revelations. The whole thing streamed online, in case you were awake at 3:30am and just wanted to make sure they were still going, and was a fascinating thing to encounter as you moved from performance to performance.

Before the Elmer Eisler concert, the actual first event of the festival was a somewhat underwhelming introductory Shakespeare Panel that addressed the Bard's global influence. A Shakespeare nerd to the core, I was super psyched to hear from Professor Jill L. Levenson (who edited the Oxford R and J!) and Dr. Toby Malone (Soulpepper dramaturg, among other things). But what I found was that a panel discussion with festival artists (or, specifically, Schultz, if we're being honest here) would have been a lot more engaging. Academics like Levenson, though knowledgeable, can get caught up in theory (Levenson, for example, read from a prepared speech much of the time), whereas theatre actors/directors or just plain Shakespeare lovers are free-er to speak off-the-cuff, something Malone was much better at and panel guest Anthony Del Col (co-author of the comic book series Kill Shakepeare) excelled at. I would have loved to hear their in-depth thoughts about the texts themselves, to know which villain most inspired Del Col's narrative or pick Levenson's brain about what she thinks is the most important element in Romeo and Juliet. As it was, the stiff panel saw the expertise of its guests a little wasted.

But then I moved on to the Elmer Iseler singers for 2 hours of choral music that featured enough highlights to distract me from the fact that I was spending 2 hours listening to choral music. As narrated by Schultz, the concert was a lot more fun than expected. Reading corresponding Shakespeare and KJV passages, telling stories and cracking jokes, Schultz spread his love of choral music to the audience (as well as contributing some memorable sonnet reads and a truly great rendition of "All the World's a Stage" with the casual air of someone for whom Shakespeare is their native tongue). The singers themselves were beautiful, singing a combination of complexly harmonic contemporary pieces, some songs from Shakespeare plays and even a few jazz numbers accompanied by Gene DiNovi and Dave Young. They shone the brightest in the acapella numbers where their incredible layering really came through.

Next up was National Theatre of the World: Impromptu Splendor. The award-winning 3 person improv troupe's play series features a brand new hour-long improvised play at each performance, generally done in the style of a particular playwright (Mamet, Miller, etc...). At The Word Festival, NTOW did two performances: one inspired by the KJV and one inspired by Shakespeare. Though I'm sure I would have loved the latter, the former was the one that fit into my schedule and, though impressive, it was sort of underwhelming. The bible's just so abstract for long-form improv to use as inspiration, the stories themselves more allegorical than dramatic (and NTOW had the misfortune of finding an aged Solomon groupie in their front row, who tripped them up a bit by guiding them towards the Old Testament king and away from the much more well-known and therefore spoofable New Testament Jesus stories). The way that the three players picked up on each others' cues and and constructed stories on their feet was tremendous, making me wish all the more that I had gotten to see what they did later in the festival with the complete works of Shakespeare.

I returned to The Young Centre that Sunday for a jam-packed Word Festival calendar that made up for my missing Saturday (mostly, I only missed the Song of Solomon movement piece that I wasn't all that interested in and The Festival Cabaret, which I was very sorry to miss since it was hosted by, you guessed it, Mike Ross).

I started Sunday with The Gospel According to Mark, which I thought would be a dramatic interpretation but was in fact just a reading of "The Gospel According to Mark". But that reading was done by stage legend Kenneth Welsh and if there's one truth that was unavoidable at The Word Festival it's that you haven't heard the bible until you've heard it read by a proper Shakespearean actor. Welsh, whom I've never actually seen perform outside of The Word Festival, gave a spectacular reading- grand and evocative, surprisingly funny at times. Nonreligious as I am, I may have zoned out from time to time (it was 2 hours of just bible, after all) but the overall effect was a powerful one.

Besides, I had all sorts of fun to look forward to at my next performance- my most anticipated of the festival. I first heard about Kill Shakespeare when Stratford Festival Assistant Artistic Director Dean Gabourie gushed about it in his My Theatre Nominee interview earlier this year. I'd been in touch with co-creator Anthony Del Col about an interview for sister site My Books, but had simply run out of time and never gotten around to reading the comics. So I was beyond thrilled when The Word Festival hosted a staged reading of the series. Creators Del Col and Conor McCreery were joined on-stage by some of Soulpepper's best talent (including Prest, Malone, Wall from earlier in this giant article). The cast sat in two rows behind microphones, providing sound effects and the voices of the characters in Del Col and McCreery's epic battle of Shakespeare's heroes vs. Shakespeare's villains to save or kill the wizard Shakespeare. The whole presentation was pretty cool, the cast each voicing multiple characters, providing the shouts of a crowd, the murmurs of spirits, hoof prints, the sound of the wind and whatever else the story called for (Wall even played the score on a small keyboard to the side of his microphone). Andy Belanger's beautiful comic art was projected on a large screen as the story was told, giving the audience an excellent experience of the comic books, just a little more lively.

After Kill Shakespeare, was what turned out to be one of the best events of the weekend- Stand Up Shakespeare. In a nice reversal from his serious intensity during The Gospel According to Mark, Kenneth Welsh took to the cabaret stage as a drunken Shakespearean standup comedian, pulling lines from Shakespeare's cannon and piecing them together to create a coherent and laugh-out-loud funny standup act. He sang songs (accompanied by, wait for it.... Mike Ross! That guy is everywhere), did a little puppeteering, drank a lot, and after about 20 minutes of such wonderful tomfoolery, the show appeared to already be over. So Welsh then pulled out a presentation board with dozens of character names written on it and asked the audience to "pick one". For the next 40 minutes, one of North America's leading classical actors performed monologues on demand, brilliant renditions of the most famous works in the English language, just nestled in his pocket ready to be pulled out for the entertainment of 30 odd people in the Young Centre cabaret on a November Sunday afternoon. It was remarkable to see, if a little self-indulgent. Welsh "howl"d his way through Lear's heartbreaking 5.3 and joyfully exclaimed the Berowne-y "Love Combo". He delivered an obscure Launce speech from Two Gents, then the rousing St. Crispin's Day from Henry V (stunning, his best by far). A bitterly hateful Lancelot Gabbo was followed by that play's more famous (and PC) "if you prick us do we not bleed" from Shylock. "All the World's a Stage" made its second appearance at the festival (I won't say whose was better, but it was Schultz's) then the 69-year-old Welsh wooed youthfully as an exuberant Romeo, grumbling "they never let me do that one" as he finished. There's nothing quite like a renowned actor playing for the sake of play, and Welsh's brilliant tour through whatever Shakespeare monologue we willed was something I would kill to see again.

After that I caught the end of Raoul Bhaneja's Hamlet (solo), a remarkable feat of nuanced characterization, human determination and insane line memorization. Bhaneja is a wonderful performer, each character being at once remarkably distinct from the others but still subtle and not over-played. With a bare stage, a single spot, no props and just black costuming, Bhanja's Hamlet is compelling and intricate, though I can't imagine I'd have been able to follow had I not known Hamlet incredibly well going in. The production is brilliant nevertheless, full of interesting interpretations (Polonius channels the actor's father with a subtle posh Indian accent) and compelling drama. Alone on stage, Bhaneja's focus is unparalleled- the fire alarm went off near the end of Act III so Bhaneja calmly broke character to explain what was going on and wait it out, cracking jokes and sipping water, then he slipped right back into it with mere seconds to refocus when the alarm stopped. Hamlet (solo) is massively impressive, but more than anything it made me want to see what the capable and complex Bhaneja might do with a properly supported shot at the title role alone.

The final show of The Word Festival was a comic look at The King James Bible through the eyes of 4 devout Christians; something I was hesitant about seeing but ended up loving more than anything else at the festival (yes, including all the Shakespeare). The KJV:The Bible Show is filled with rousing original songs and hosted by 4 captivating artists, each of whom take to the mic at least once to share a monologue of their experiences with The KJV. What makes The KJV: The Bible Show unique is its earnest appreciation for its subject and unabashed honesty about what it means to be a Christian in today's society. It's not cool to care about or believe in anything anymore, as Ins Choi points out in one of his superb monologues, he'd get nervous whenever someone found out he was a Christian. Usually the voices pointing such things out are harsh and stubbornly conservative ones on Fox News or worse, but the irreverent self-awareness of The Arts Engine (Choi, Rebecca Davey, Kris Van Soellen and Arthur Wachnik) gave the argument a whole new light. The KJV: The Bible Show is a wildly funny, completely dorky, honest presentation of what The KJV is, the influence it's had, what it means to these 4 people and even odd little factoids about the book. The rollicking good time simmers down as Choi delivers a hyperbolic and senseless sermon calling for everyone ever to "repent" that's at once funny and disturbing, but it's supposed to be. The performers then each take to the microphone to explain the ways in which they and the world have used The KJV as a tool for hatred and evil. It's a startlingly honest show that almost brought me to tears as the multiple sides of what's supposedly The Good Book were highlighted. The KJV: The Bible Show is a remarkable piece of theatre that entertains as much as it forces you to re-organize your thoughts on what it means to be a believer of any kind.

I don't think there's anywhere else in the world where so many brilliant theatre artists and musicians could come together in a place like The Young Centre. Across the Soulpepper seasons, The Word Festival and the Global Cabaret Festivals, the diversity of culture, style, generation and point of view is unbelievable; it all feels very Torontonian somehow (and not just because the artists weren't all New York imports, they're ours). The Young Centre is a place for artistic celebration, no matter what the trappings, and its Albert Schultz who's let it be that way. Whether I'm chatting with actors at the opening of Soulpepper's Parfumerie, laughing at Bhaneja's daffy Polonius, or sitting in the back of the Michael Young as a packed house taps their toe alongside Jackie Richardson, I can't help but grin because this is where I live.

Take a tour of The Young Centre with Albert Schultz.

Out of Stratford: Behind-the-Scenes with Richard & Hosanna

2011-12-07T17:58:00.001-05:00

Canadian theatre icon Seana McKenna's take on the title villain in Richard III was one of the star attractions of The Stratford Shakespeare Festival's 2011 season; Gareth Potter's ballsy (forgive the pun) and brash turn as disillusioned drag queen Hosanna in Michel Tremblay's heartwrenching play of the same name was a personal highlight. Their physical transformations (some of the biggest in festival history) are chronicled in this beautiful short film.

Through backstage shots and intimate interviews with the two thoughtful actors, the film delves into what it takes to slip into someone else's skin. It's quite the beautiful exploration- oddly melancholy as McKenna and Potter discuss leaving the roles they've spent so much time shaping (Potter, in particular, talks about how Hosanna will always stay with him).

But it's funny too. You haven't lived until you've heard Potter's recounting of "getting raunchy in the [ladies] dressing room" after putting on his lingerie and heels, and the usually very serious McKenna discussing "shift[ing] the bumps to the hump". It's a rare glimpse into the process of the Stratford actor and an insight into some of 2011's most fascinating performances.

Mayor Ford's Just Gotta Dance

2011-12-06T16:20:00.000-05:00

Author and Ford-critic Margaret Atwood and Barenaked Ladies frontman Steven Page as Cannon Dolls;
Mayor Rob Ford stuck in the middle.

Toronto's mayor is a Mr. Dursley-esque grump face with a popularity rate so low in the heart of the city that I've literally never met one of his supporters. They like him in the suburbs I guess, or so the electoral map suggested, but down where we use the TTC and go to the theatre and have GBLQT friends and spend time in city libraries, he's not so popular. The arts community, in particular, has it out for Ford- whose crusade to lower the city's out-of-control taxes seems to threaten their very existence (right from the get-go he freaked out during a debate on arts funding, declaring "people, we have roads to fix!"). Even when he is, on occasion, right, the mayor is so incapable of presenting an idea as anything but hate-filled bullying that he's become a symbol of everything the artist-intellectual downtown core hates. And with each "shut up, I'm going to my cottage" decision he makes, Ford only makes it worse.

So today's announcement that he's joining an age-old tradition of arts solidarity came as quite the surprise (and, frankly, a PR miracle for Ford's office). On December 10th, the National Ballet of Canada will open their yearly production of The Nutcracker (James Kudelka's oddly beloved Russian-influenced version that was created specifically for the company) with a 2pm matinee. Rob Ford will be there, but not in the audience. In Act I, the roles of the Cannon Dolls who begin the battle scene are generally reserved for special guests (past Petrouchkas include celebrities, politicians and sports stars like Margaret Atwood, David Miller and Mats Sundin). At the Dec 10, 2pm opening performance of the 2011 Nutcracker, the marshmallow-looking mayor of Toronto will play the role, dolled up in bright colours (and, I pray to god, a nice pair of tights!).

It seems every time I go to the theatre lately there's an improvised comment, a sarcastic dedication or a scripted joke at Ford's expense (he's all over this year's Ross Petty Pantomime, just for starters). Maybe he's finally realizing that Toronto lives and breathes with its artistic and cultural identity, it's what sets the city apart, and the artists have voices too loud to let them hate you this much. And maybe he was bullied into it, maybe the National Ballet isn't exactly the struggling institution he should be focusing on. But hey, it's a start, right?

Stratford 2012: Coming Soon

2011-12-04T04:22:00.001-05:00

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival is gearing up for their 60th Anniversary, recently posting the promotional photos for the 14 productions in their 2012 season. Head to www.stratfordfestival.ca for details on the upcoming shows.

42nd Street
A Word or Two
The Best Brothers
Cymbeline
Elektra
Henry V
Hirsch
MacHomer
The Matchmaker
Much Ado About Nothing
The Pirates of Penzance
Wanderlust
The War of 1812
You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown

Performances begin with a preview matinee of 42nd Street on April 12th.

Seeing Red at CanStage

2011-12-03T22:30:00.001-05:00

by Kelly Bedard

In my University writing classes I always wanted to write inside baseball stories about how Shakespeare people talk about Shakespeare. Every professor I ever had (playwriting, screenwriting, tv writing- all of them) told me I wasn't allowed. They said the audience would tune the characters out because they didn't understand, that everything had to be accessible, identifiable, universal. If a character was an expert, well, they had to be explaining their concepts to an audience proxy, for clarity's sake. But most great plays I've ever seen are about smart people talking inside baseball in some form or another. Red, the 2010 Tony winning play by screenwriting big shot John Logan now playing at Canstage, is a one act two hander wherein art people talk about art. If you don't know your Pollock from your Warhol you have to work a little harder to keep up with the characters and their points of view. But you do keep up, because it's worth it to try and keep up with one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Or you could just tune him and his brilliant and daring assistant out and go see Mary Poppins instead. But if you listen, the truth of Red is that it's actually impossible to truly understand everything Rothko and his assistant have to say, because they don't even understand everything they believe themselves.

I don't really have a head for art. I don't know my Monet from my Manet, let alone my Rothko from a hole in the wall, but the key with Red is to try and understand what the characters are saying through their conversation about art (Pollock, for example, serves as a metaphor for emotional freedom and the dangers of fame, it's not just about Pollock). To me, abstract expressionist paintings usually look like gradeschool art, the kind that the weird kid in the back of the class always makes, giving up on stick figures in favour of random smudges. But what's clear as day in Logan's play is how Rothko and Ken feel about abstract expressionism, about life and death and intellect and emotion and fame and money and all the other stuff- or at least how they think they feel at any given moment. They tell you how they feel about the world when they talk about the paintings. When Rothko and Ken talk about the colour red, they show you who they are. And if you're listening, you don't have to know the difference between carnelian and crimson to understand what they're saying. They'll contradict themselves, go round in circles, change their minds, but as well as the characters can, the audience can understand the incredibly human way Rothko and Ken explore their own beliefs- incoherently and indirectly.

Jim Mezon and David Coomber play the master and his apprentice with great energy (though I would've loved to have seen the original interpretations by Tony winner Eddie Redmayne and the legendary Alfred Molina). The frantic unease in Mezon's Rothko, his restless anger and dissatisfaction, create a fascinating contrast with Coomber's fresh-faced but steady-footed Ken. Rothko teaches Ken about life through art and art through life but there's a sort of discrepancy of groundedness between Mezon and Coomber that makes their relationship more complicated, their power dynamic more malleable and Ken's eventual outburst more believable. Coomber, hindered a little by repetitive speech patterns within some clunky dialogue, plays Ken with learned patience and surprising humour, as if he, as a commoner, is able to grasp a bit of perspective the great art idol Rothko can't see. Mezon, is the flip side, a thundering man/child obsessed with thoughtful consideration yet prey to catastrophic mood swings and emotional impulses. He believes in his views, his theories on life and art, his principals, so strongly that he spends more time spouting them than adhering to them. Rothko waxes poetic about the backdoor reasoning and political statements behind his decision to take a large commission for paintings to hang in a restaurant, but he spends so much time posturing that he doesn't notice his own obvious hypocrisy. It's a complex and contradictory performance that Mezon delivers with great finesse. As Rothko grapples with the world ceasing to care about his artistic identity (he's been replaced by pop artists like Warhol, whom he considers worthless), he desperately clings to all the possibilities of who he might actually be.

Director Kim Collier and designer David Boechler's work with moving walls and projections of colour and popular art is inspired, but I found Alan Brodie's lighting design a bit too on-the-nose. The colour red is everything in Red- it's the colour of paint Rothko uses almost exclusively, it symbolizes the blood Ken thinks he sees surrounding Rothko's collapsed frame, it's a metaphor for life and vibrancy and darkness and death and anything the contemplative characters can think it to be. It doesn't need to wash over the entire set at key moments too. At one point Rothko and Ken stand in the studio doing nothing but listing things that are red- it's the colour of tomatoes, and of dried blood in the carpet after a murder. It's everything. The characters never reach a conclusion about red, and I think I could watch Red a hundred times and each time reach a different conclusion about them. It's that uncertainty, the messy and imprecise study of human behaviour, that's what makes Red worth it; it's supposed to be hard to understand, because life and art are too.

Over the Rainbow with Ross

2011-12-03T01:04:00.000-05:00

by Kelly Bedard

Ross Petty's annual Christmas Pantomime has been a beloved event in Toronto for 16 years. I can remember going as a kid and getting to see Canadian legends like Mr. Dressup (Ernie Coombs), Fred Penner, Kurt Browning, Rex Harrington and Karen Kain onstage as absurd twisted fairy tale creatures. It was the thrill of the season (never so much as the year when Aladdin featured household favourite Bret "The Hitman" Hart as a hilariously threatening Genie). We went every year, long past the age when it really made sense for me and my older brother to be there. But that's the thing about the Petty Panto, it's got jokes for everyone, and that camp-happy infectious optimism is even more important for us Scroogy adults misplaced in the audience.

This year's offering is The Wizard of Oz, except in this version Oz is actually a bizarro version of "Aus"(aka Australia), the tin man is Dorothy's love interest, the Wizard is a rock and roll wannabe and it's a massive blizzard that sweeps our heroine away from her hometown of cold and urban Toronto instead of a tornado from Kansas farm country. Oh, and it's Glinda who guides us through the story; well, it's the Glinda figure, who we've actually got is Splenda, the good witch of the South (the direction L Frank Baum forgot to name). Jessica Holmes is hilarious perfection in the odd-ball role, all lisping good intention with a feisty wit she pulls out just fast enough to knock the practiced Petty off his villainous feet. The man behind the brand, producer Ross Petty, steps into his usual role as the boo-able bad guy with the same deadpan, deep-voiced silliness he plays every year (this time as the predatory Wicked Witch of the West, riding around on a motorized broom/bike and casually hitting on Russell Peters who made the mistake of sitting in the front of the audience where Petty could find him).

Of the many, let's call them "liberties", co-adaptors Nicholas Hune-Brown and Lorna Wright take with Baum's famous work, one of the biggest is the expansion of Auntie M into an excitable and world-weary, but still fabulous drag queen named Aunt Plumbum (a recurring character from previous Petty Pantos) who gets carried along on the adventure by being in a portapotty at the wrong time. As played by Dan Chameroy, Plumbum easily becomes a crowd favourite (even among the kids, who clearly don't get 90% of her jokes). I adore Chameroy, have for as long as I can remember, and what makes his Pantomime performance so wonderful is that the dashing leading man (known for machismo roles like Gaston and Miles Gloriosus) seems like he's having more fun than all the kids in the audience combined and doesn't give a flying banana about anything but the silly exuberance of it all. There's a great joy to any Chameroy performance, but he's never seemed happier than he does in Plumbum's tacky spandex and insane wig.

As for the central quartet heading down the yellow brick road, Elicia Mackenzie is an adorably spunky Dorothy, a misplaced snowboarder with mad karate skills and a strong mezzo belt. Her chemistry with Yvan Pedneault's quirky magician/miner/temporary tin man Donny isn't the strongest, but with Shawn Desman's catchy and possessively Torontonian "Night Like This" as their adorably enthusiastic love anthem, they're cute enough to get away with very little sizzle. As for Pedneault himself, he's as charming as ever, if a little stiff beyond his tin man duties. He and his wife (Kelly Fletcher, ensemble/dance captain) provide the show's biggest scene stealer- their little dog Hauli, who plays the cutest Toto ever seen. Steve Ross and Kyle Blair are my favourites though, as a fussy/cuddly cowardly lion named Napoleon (Nap) and a hilariously limber, self-deprecating brainiac named Fig Newton, after the cookie not the physicist (aka Fig the Scarecrow). Both give wonderful comic performances (including brilliant physical work from Blair) and their strong friendship is more touching than any on stage.

The adaptation is a rollicking good time (though I could have done with more inventive song choices- Lady Gaga and "Funkytown"? Really?) and worth the price of admission for the cast's infectious enthusiasm alone. Oh, and any time a chorus of expert male dancers whips out a rendition of "Macho Man", my life gets just a little bit better.

Shakespeare in Action: Macbeth

2011-11-29T07:08:00.000-05:00

photo by Joel Charlebois

by Kelly Bedard

Shakespeare in Action's second tragedy isn't as strong as its repertory companion Romeo and Juliet. While the casually modern staging works wonderfully in R and J, in a modern Mackers a low budget can make things look haphazard because of the precision necessary to pull off a military look. The company would have been better off going bare bones with it- all black, no set; just actors, their voices and some weapons. As it is, the capable company fights against the contradictions of their world the entire time- it's presented as though it's supposed to be big, but it just isn't.

David Shelley, whose open-faced sweetness and approachable charm serve him well as Mercutio, doesn't quite stand up as Macbeth. Lauren Brotman, similarly 'nice' as Lady Macbeth, also lacks the cutthroat quality that usually marks the role. Together they make for an odd duo whose demeanor and actions don't quite line up. A more sympathetic take on the infamous couple could prove remarkably interesting, but we'd have to see more justifications, more antagonism in the other characters, more corruption from outside forces to make the plot still plausible. Without those adjustments, the softer characterizations just don't jive.

The actors playing the witches make for some of the most interesting parts of the production. Kaleb Alexander, Shaina Silver-Baird and Marcel Stewart are more than usually acrobatic as the supernatural chorus, mystically weird as opposed to the more common just unpleasantly odd interpretations. In the small company, Alexander, Silver-Baird and Stewart then transition to play many other key roles (including Alexander's valiant Macduff and Silver-Baird's charming scamp of a Fleance), as well as filling out almost every other scene as cloaked lords. The effect gives the witches a sort of omni-presence, a rare sinister feature in an otherwise light production.

Despite a few standout performances (Brotman's excellently paralleled Lady Macduff is another small highlight), and some truly excellent stage combat, Shakespeare in Action's Macbeth lives up to none of the company's potential, lacking all the passion and verve that makes their Romeo and Juliet great and failing to tap into the play's dark complexity.

From My Cinema: Anyonymous Takes on Shakespeare

2011-11-29T03:17:00.001-05:00

by Kelly Bedard

In the weeks before Anonymous hit movie theatres I was asked no fewer than 20 times how I felt about the film. "Could it be true?" people wondered of the absurd tagline: 'Was Shakespeare A Fraud?'; "are you outraged?" demanded others, inquiring whether my bardolatry had me on the defense; "why is Xenophilius Lovegood in it?" some pondered, rightly wondering why the bright and witty Rhys Ifans was on the poster. "I don't know yet" was my answer to questions 2 and 3 since I'd yet to actually see the movie; question 1 has long had a definitive "no" attached to it, complete with a long rant about the gross pretentiousness that accompanies each and every theory positing that William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wasn't educated or rich or respectable enough to be talented.

No, the outrage never came. And as for Ifans, I suspect it had little to do with anything other than the studio's need for a familiar face who could speak in a straight line and the actor's need for a paycheck.

See, many were expecting me and my scholarly, bard-loving friends to leap right to the defense of our favourite playwright, arguing adamantly against the absurd proposition presented by the should-know-better actor Derek Jacobi, who opens and closes the story with authoritative monologues presumably filled with "facts" that lend the film weight. Instead, what the 4 of us sitting alone in the theatre with our English degrees and theatrical expertise found was the unintentionally funniest movie we'd seen all year.

Anonymous is flippin' hilarious. Rife with inaccuracies ranging from the should-be-dead Marlowe cavorting in the tavern to the incorrect assertion that Shakespeare has only 37 plays attributed to him (38's the real number; 40 including Cardenio and Love's Labour's Won), the film presents a version of "history" so preposterous that it's less threatening and more amusing, as though it'd been re-imagined and already satirized by Seth MacFarlane for the enjoyment of Fox's Sunday animation audience.

We started chuckling from the very beginning (after, I grant you, a few moments of heckling Jacobi for entertaining conspiracy theories) when Ben Jonson kicked off an action sequence by being chased through crowded streets, captured then tortured for information about harmful manuscripts. They tortured Ben Jonson! Any world which cares as much about the guy who wrote Batholemew Fair as it does about, you know, bombers and stuff, is already pretty out there. We howled when they introduced a Midsummer written about 40 years before its time and how it got the young-and-pretty queen hot and bothered for a 12 year old. And oh when that queen proceeded to have the world's most predictable affair with said kid then turns out to be his mother- a twist that comes out yet another secret illegitimate birth later-, we could barely breathe we were laughing so hard. By now, Queen Elizabeth was being played by an oh-so-slumming-it Vanessa Redgrave, whose wizened face deserves much credit for staying straight through all the lunacy (as does Ifans', for the record).

Wonderfully, hilariously, ridiculous incest stories aside (because Queen Elizabeth I was nothing if not a slut who had nothing better to do than bed every kid in the kingdom then disappear for 9 months to, in turn, have his kid!), Anonymous frames entire stories around things like the Earl of Oxford writing Richard III as a way to incite a riot that would surely banish one of the queen's advisers from court. Right, because Richard III was very clearly an ANTI-Tudor piece of propaganda; as long as you cut act five. Oh, and did you hear that Macbeth was written in the late 1500s? It had to be, because the entire action of Anonymous takes place before the death of the queen in 1603. Forget that Shakespeare's final play (The Tempest) came out in 1611 and Macbeth, specifically, was indisputably written for King James I. Tiny insignificant details, who's got time for those?

Like I said, most of that stuff didn't actually bother us. (Though the assertion that Ben Jonson didn't have a clear authorial voice of his own did almost get my friend Borah out of her seat and swinging at the screen). It mostly just made us laugh. But the thing is, Anonymous isn't a comedy. It takes itself monumentally seriously. If it were an action-adventure caper with the sort of rip-roaring purposeful anachronism that marked the recent remake of The Three Musketeers, for instance, it might have even been a success (had, you know, the writing and direction been better, and all that). The academic seriousness with which major Shakespearean name Derek Jacobi presents Anonymous' argument, however, makes that in-the-moment joy of mockery the film inspires hard to sustain when viewing the picture as a whole.

We were meant to take this seriously, which means that the complete misrepresentation of historical fact ceases to be funny and becomes somewhat alarming. Thank god the film tanked (hey, thanks pedantic writing and clunky direction, the academic community and Shakespeare fans the world over owe you one!) because for every viewer who doesn't know to laugh, Anonymous could really be messing with some heads. You can't count on every college kid to know when Macbeth was published or the average Joe to have read Richard III, so Anonymous rewards them with a hearty helping of "haha, you don't know any better!" and presents them with a supposedly real world full of unsettling conspiracies, sexual and political corruption and a lower class that apparently can do nothing of merit except claim things that aren't theirs- helpful!

Go ahead and mess with history for the sake of story-telling (you won't ever find me complaining about Shakespeare in Love's fact-light mythology), as long as you present it as though you're telling a story. No one's going to see Titanic then wonder why Jack Dawson doesn't appear on passenger manifests; they got the dates and locations right, then elaborated from there. What Anonymous does is pretend it's telling the truth. But there's only one real rule when it comes to telling the truth: You're Not Allowed To Just Make Stuff Up!

The New Yorker nailed the issue in a recent column (read it HERE) that took on the absurd misrepresentations in Anonymous and the classism and ignorance inherent in its founding conspiracies by putting hyperbolic pen to tongue-in-cheek paper and, well, making it worse. The hilarious lies formulated by Eric Idle are past plausibility, making it easier to discern the truth than it could be in Anonymous. His point, is that sometimes you just have to shut up and accept that maybe the truth isn't quite as entertaining or grand as you want it to be. Shakespeare wasn't an Earl, he had affairs but none of them were particularly interesting, and there was likely no incest involved whatsoever. So what? Does that somehow make King Lear any less brilliant? Is "what light through yonder window breaks" less beautiful when written by a peasant? And what of Comedy of Errors- are we claiming that this fancypants Earl wrote the crap stuff as well? Because I'm sure there are a few duds old Willy would be more than willing to escape the shadow of.

Genius doesn't live in the walls at Cambridge; they don't pump it into the Harvard water supply or distribute it as an automatic bonus when your offshore account exceeds a couple billion. I'm sure Edward de Vere, the conveniently timed Earl of Oxford, was a brilliant man, but he wasn't Shakespeare. I know that, my friends know that, all my professors knew that. I bet Rhys Ifans and Vanessa Redgrave know. Hell, I bet screenwriter John Orloff's even got a sense that he's spinning yarn instead of sharing history. Now if only we could convince Derek Jacobi...

Getting Dizzy on the Cyclone

2011-11-24T03:37:00.000-05:00

photos by Tim Matheson

by Kelly Bedard

I'm loving the fact that Atomic Vaudeville/Acting Up Stage's Ride the Cyclone has all the buzz in the world heading into the last 2 weeks of their sold-out run at Theatre Passe Muraille, not because I adored the show (it's good, but nothing to write home about), because it's weird. Really weird. And when it comes to weird, it's not easy to get much mainstream love. The fact that Ride the Cyclone, an off-beat, largely structure-less, potentially alienating exploration of youthful oddity is a bonafied hit gives me hope that Toronto's everyman eyes might finally be opening to the theatrical world that lives beyond The Lion King and Mirvish's gilded playbills. The talent and creativity behind the wackadoo show is plenty to get excited about, so I'm thrilled to find that people are indeed excited.

Jacob Richmond's story about a dead teenage show choir and the oh-so-metaphorically loaded roller coaster that killed them kicks off with the play's wittiest character- a automated carnival fortune teller named Karnak who narrates the action from stage right and "tends to anthropomorphize his friends" (in a wonderfully dry twist, the rat who's about to kill Karnak by chewing through his powercord plays electric bass for the purpose of the story's musical interludes). The kids Karnak introduces prove charming enough, but I couldn't help wish he didn't hand over the microphone so easily, so to speak.

Said kids are led by an exuberant Rielle Braid as the over-achieving and sunshiny Ocean Rosenberg. With a powerhouse voice and enough energy to power Karnak, powercord or no, Braid is easily the standout of the cast, even in the role most designed to annoy (I particularly enjoyed her smiley cruelty towards her "very best friend" Constance). Matthew Coulson offers up a fair share of laughs as Misha Bachinsky, a hilariously angry Ukrainian orphan who's taken up gangsta rap alongside his glee club commitments. Kelly Hudson is all sorts of adorably awkward as townie Constance Blackwood, lending the trod-upon girl a delightful shot of kindness and optimism.

The always-endearing Elliott Loran lets his inner freak out as the socially hindered Ricky Potts, a boy with an imagination that turns him into a "swingin', space age, bachelor man" tasked with saving the planet Zolar. Obviously. It's a ballsy performance that threatens to steal the show on multiple occasions, even as Loran stands inocuously to the side or plays the piano to accompany the others. Kholby Wardell is also a highlight as Noel Gruber, the boy who taught Ocean that not all gay people are fun to be around (ha!). His divarific drag piece I think sells the superb singer short a bit but his many wonderfully deadpan moments easily prove his comic chops. Sarah Pelzer rounds out the crowd with her beautiful and strong soprano and creepily inhuman movement as the decapitated Jane Doe putting a damper on the club's farewell concert.

Hank Pine and James Insell's simple set design pairs with Ingrid Hansen's dead-on costumes to set the tone perfectly. Insell's brilliantly detailed puppetry work with Karnak is also key to the production, in design, movement and voice.

My biggest gripe with Ride the Cyclone comes down to the songs (music and lyrics by Brooke Maxwell and Jacob Richmond). They're well-constructed and showcase the voices well but just aren't quite catchy enough. The performances are rousing, the characters engrossing, the story and tone delightfully refreshing, there should be songs that grab you and have you humming all the way out to the car and beyond. These just don't do that. The production numbers are too long, with sometimes indecipherable lyrics, and follow a fairly strict story-solo formula that left me wanting more (not in a good way). What really got me was the overwhelming feeling that Maxwell and Richmond could do better, and the actors certainly deserve better. Cyclone's is one of the most wholly talented ensembles I've encountered in some time, but I just don't feel like the ride takes them quite as high as it should.

Shakespeare in Action: Romeo and Juliet

2011-11-23T02:30:00.003-05:00

photo by Joel Charlebois

by Kelly Bedard

I am extraordinarily picky when it comes to Romeo and Juliet. I adore the play and have what my friend Maddi calls "thoughts and feelings" about it, meaning I'm overly attached to a very strict interpretation that exists in my head of the pedestalled piece. I know it like the back of my hand, to the point where I'm counting off the scenes as they go "okay, 1.5 down, wow they completely cut 2.1, straight into the balcony?". Basically, I'm an R and J geek who believes that Lord Capulet is a key character, it's grossly detrimental to try and stage it in period, Paris should be highlighted and that the only truly great Romeos are those elusive golden boys with the priceless ability to light up a room just by walking into it. Shakespeare in Action's student-geared, pared-down matinee version is far from perfect, but when Romeo and Juliet is taken off the page by the right director and ensemble, it sweeps you up until you don't care about the details anymore.

The star of the production is Kaleb Alexander's dashing Romeo. That aforementioned priceless quality? Alexander's had it in spades since I first met him more than 7 years ago; he's probably always had it, actually, and always will. His Romeo is entrancingly charming, the perfect balance of boyish enthusiasm and sweeping romance. Alongside Benvolio (Marcel Stewart) and Mercutio (David Shelley), he displays the sort of deep-rooted camaraderie that perfectly establishes their friendship; and Alexander isn't afraid of the graphic sex jokes, while never running the risk of the romantic lead slipping into sleaze territory. He's bright and joyous (despite his 1.2 melancholy) until the play's turning point when he collapses in on himself (in a good way), heartbreakingly dimming as Romeo struggles to even stand up straight. With Shaina Silver-Baird's Juliet, the chemistry is strong, Alexander playing both clumsy nervousness and easy sex appeal (eliciting more than one "whoop" and whistle from the adolescent girls in the audience). The final moments of his death are perhaps a little melodramatic- stumbling, wheezing, clutching and gasping as Romeo reacts to his poison- and the stakes in the all-important nightingale/lark scene don't seem quite high enough, but I'll forgive Alexander almost anything on the merits of his superb command of the language, accessibly modern style, and heartbreaking "banished" scene.

photo by Pierre Gautreau

Silver-Baird is at her best with Alexander and in comic moments with Nicole Roberts' exuberant Nurse. The practised exasperation act she plays out with her mother (Lauren Brotman- inconsistent but refreshingly conflicted as Lady Capulet) adds a nice touch to that relationship as they listen to the Nurse prattle on in 1.3, though it does serve to distance her from her Nurse a bit more than is usually expected. That ground is made up in an excellent 2.5 as Juliet coaxes information from her tired and teasing confidante. It's what makes that scene standout that also hinders Silver-Baird a bit in some of Juliet's more innocent moments. Despite her small frame, Silver-Baird has never been what I think of as a natural ingenue- she's too tough, too crafty, too unlikely to fall for some preposterous plan involving heart-stopping drugs. In short, she's a savvy actress- an excellent thing to be at the age of 22, but a tricky thing to be when faced with playing a silly 14-year-old who falls madly in love at first sight then makes a series of legendarily bad decisions. Alexander's irresistibility helps her case, but Silver-Baird is an awkwardly grounded Juliet, overcompensating a bit with a lilting cadence in early acts, her wheels turning just a little too much, her skeptical brow furrowing a bit too quickly, her dance moves a bit too effortlessly sexy (a strong triple-threat, Silver-Baird's training makes her Juliet an expert salsa dancer). Those very qualities make her performance in Act 4's impossibly ghoulish potion speech and Act 5's climactic suicide more refined and impressive, but as the sweetly optimistic girl of Act 1, I just don't buy it. Silver-Baird will someday make a tremendous Lady Macbeth; I would love to see her Cleopatra, her Gertrude, her Queen Margaret, but unfortunately her current young, short and pretty-ness will see her miscast for at least another decade.

Also miscast, or rather misused, is Eze Angius doublecast as Paris and Tybalt. The former takes the handsome and charming actor and makes him a snivelling dork; I would have much preferred a more even-keeled Paris who doesn't make a liar of the Nurse when she drowns him in compliments. The latter is an odd Karate Kid-like combatant who, with fewer than 20 lines, seems more full of words than fire. A few attempts are made at establishing some sort of connection between Tybalt and Lady Capulet but he generally seems sourcelessly and unconvincingly angry, a caricature when he needn't be one. David Shelley's Mercutio is similarly uninteresting, though at least significantly more likable. It's remarkably difficult to deliver a truly remarkable Mercutio; he's always expected to steal the show yet not outfitted with scenes that make that particularly easy (especially here with most of his bawdiest humour deleted). Shelley does an admirable job with what is actually incredibly demanding language and very little character guidance, though he gets swallowed up by Alexander's dynamic spotlight competition and out-endeared by Marcel's Stewart's sweet hipster/nerd Benvolio. Mercutio dies before truly establishing who he is in the text- he's clever, he makes some good jokes, points out the occasional truth, but gets no story of his own- it's the actor's job to attribute him a rich character life, but Shelley relies on excellent comic timing and the strength of the text to carry him, which isn't quite enough.

With only 9 ensemble members, cross-casting like Angius' is to be expected. And for the most part it works quite well. Peter Smith is the grand poohbah of older male roles, differentiating his many characters easily, while clever costuming and a conveniently invisible Apothecary help to clarify who's who. The only time it bothers me is when Nicole Roberts dresses her Nurse up in a police uniform to double as the Prince. She's simply ill-suited to the role, her shrill Nursy daffiness grating on my nerves when she speaks lines of authority, though it's perfectly fine the rest of the time.

There might be a few casting issues, the occasional character interpretation misstep, but Shakespeare in Action's Romeo and Juliet flies along as the generally talented ensemble delivers the bard's verse with the clarity and understanding that I like to take for granted from professional companies (though I often find it lacking). All my little R and J quibbles matter only on paper as I sit and nitpick after the fact. The modern staging is right on the mark and the time-efficient cut barely even broke my heart at all (though I was sad to see Paris deleted from Act 5 and Mercutio lose his 2.1. Oh, and Romeo's 5.1 dream speech- I missed that too!). But when it comes down to it, I'm not sure I've ever seen a Romeo and Juliet as successful as this one. I've seen interpretations more innovative (like Sarah Gazdowicz's 2010 production) and performances far more refined (Des McAnuff's 2008 version, for instance), but I've never been quite so convinced to actually care about the silly teenagers in the title and their ever-so-misguided love. With Kaleb Alexander and Shaina Silver-Baird, it didn't feel all that misguided, because I was swept into the love right along with them, until I turned into a silly teenager too.

Romeo and Juliet plays until November 25th at The Central Commerce Theatre in Toronto.

My Theatre Watch List: 18 Under 25

2011-11-23T02:17:00.000-05:00

by Kelly Bedard

We at My Entertainment World have a long history of predicting the future. For instance, My TV sang the praises of 2011 Emmy winner Ty Burrell as early as March 2008, and current it-girl Emma Stone first hit the site in early 2009. At My Theatre we've been placing our bets on early-spotted favourites like Jesse Nerenberg and Jessica Moss for over a year now and they're yet to disappoint.

One of the greatest pleasures in growing up around aspiring theatre artists is seeing people you've known since they were 15 take to the stage and blow the audience away. I experienced just that this week when two actors I'd known separately years ago ended up playing Romeo and Juliet opposite one another.

So I got-to thinking about some of the most incredible performers I've ever encountered outside of my reviewing chair. They're alumnists of schools and programs I used to attend myself, all still performing, all under 25, all so brimming with talent that it's just a matter of time until people take notice even more than they already have. Two are singers I first heard when we sang operettas together at age 15; one travelled with me to Ireland 8 years ago; there are six university classmates, four high school castmates, three alumnists of a company I created and one from a company I volunteered for; and there's one current all-star student who impressed me when I went back to my old high school for a performance. (And some people fall into more than one of those categories). Some are my close friends, some I haven't talked to in years, some I've never really met, some I've already profiled on this site, some have yet to land their first real gig. But they all stood out as the best of the best of the talented crowds I've encountered over the years.

So without further ado, in alphabetical order, here are 18 names you WILL be hearing again:

Kaleb Alexander- 24- Toronto, ON

Christopher Behmke- 22- New York, NY

Michael David Blostein- 24- Toronto, ON

Nicanor Campos- 23- Manila, Philippines

Borah Coburn- 21- Basking Ridge, NJ

Sarah Gazdowicz- 24- Boston, MA

James Graham- 22- Washington, DC

Elizabeth Johnston- 22- Toronto, ON

Shruti Kothari- 22- Toronto, ON

Jonathon Lerose- 21- Toronto, ON

Marguerite McHale- 21- Boston, MA

Matthew McKay- 24- Toronto, ON

Emma Robson- 17- Toronto, ON

Kate Ryan- 19- Vancouver, BC

Shaina Silver Baird- 22- Toronto, ON

Chris Tsujiuchi- 23- Toronto, ON

Rebbekah Vega Romero- 24- New York, NY

Fraser Woodside- 20- Toronto, ON

The RLD Warns of FIREraisers

2011-11-17T04:30:00.000-05:00

by Kelly Bedard

Toronto's Red Light District is the only company that's ever gotten me to like things I don't like- from audience participation to Trinity Bellwoods after 9pm to German expressionism to blatant stage sex. They sell all these off-putting adventures to this closed-minded critic by using them as mere wrapping paper for greater meanings that stay with me for weeks after the production. In a somewhat disappointing season for the company (two canceled productions and an underwhelming ... la ronde...), FIREraisers has proven a reassuring return to form, even if its director is different, its space is foreign and its text is entirely more modern than the company's usual fare. At its heart FIREraisers has things to say, and that's what I always think of when I think of the RLD.

When I heard brilliant artistic director Ted Witzel would be handing over the directing reigns to untested company member Lauren Gillis, I'll admit I was a a little skeptical. As an actress, Gillis had always been reliably nuanced, but who knew if her first directing attempt could measure up in a company known for its out-of-the-box directorial voice. What I found when I entered The Imperial Pub last week for the intimate staging of FIREraisers was a dinky/smelly old back room, a tiny house and a distracting roar from the main pub that leaked through the curtain and into the playing area. Once the action got started, however, despite some overdone bits of weirdness, I fell quickly in love with Gillis' reworking of Max Frisch's 1948 faux-morality play.

Gillis' version changes the gullible business man at the play's centre (Biedermann) into a high-powered and over-worked modern woman with an a sheltered husband too afraid of the world to leave his bedroom (Robert- voiced offstage by Marcel Dragonieri). Though exaggerated, Robert's fear is not without merit as they live in a world where PSA announcements chime incessantly, warning of the phenomenon of "fireraisers"- people who've been entering homes, preying on kindness and burning the house down. Gillis then updates another crucial character as the imposing Joe Schmitz, an enormous circus performer, becomes Josephine Schmitz, a large and bumbling homeless woman who raises Biedermann's PSA-induced suspicions. Traditional maid Anna becomes a modern well-intentioned and over-used housekeeper and Willie Eisenring is fascinatingly given no explanation at all- he's as unkown to us as to Biedermann- a risky but intriguing move on Gillis' part.

As Gillian Biedermann (ironically, a fire insulation salesperson), Briana Templeton gives a wonderfully exhausted performance. The young actress easily taps into the exasperation and impatience of a middle-aged career-oriented control freak, reading unquestionably as twice her own age without needing to rely on aesthetic crutches. The well-intentioned but careless way she orders Eve Wylden's charmingly curious Anna around easily establishes Biedermann's priorities: acceptable social behaviour, self-preservation. When Courtney Lyons shows up as a charmingly oafish yet underlyingly intimidating Schmitz, Biedermann's suspicious nature and desperation to be politically correct battle it out. The slight chill Templeton brings to Biedermann's business affairs opens the door for her insecurity about seeming "heartless". Paired with Lyons' alluring take on Schmitz's troubled past and the not-so-hidden threat in her voice, Biedermann's hangups lead her to welcome the homeless woman into her home, despite her completely founded fears of arson.

As more characters are added (a little confusingly, a little unnecessarily) to the power struggle, Biedermann's determination to seem neither naive nor prejudiced is made incredibly sympathetic in Templeton's capable hands. An over-choreographed chorus of firefighters in whiteface makeup (Marcel Dragonieri and Alaine Hutton) performing the eerie PSAs from a window/TV hybrid adds that sense of "okay, this is weird" that all RLD productions seem to have. But despite that silliest of elements, Gillis' direction only brings out the best in the fascinating but originally quite flawed tale.

Gone (but not irretrievably eliminated) is the socialist metaphor, replaced by a far more complex exploration of how we treat others and our motivations for doing so. The modernization of Biedermann allows the audience a window into the action as we confront the fact that we wouldn't know what to do either, and thinking about it is just making it harder to see clearly. And as the homeowner motionlessly watches her home's ill-fate approach, we're left with that "why are we so screwed up" sense that characterized the RLD's 2010 productions so wonderfully. But while Woyzeck and The Witch of Edmonton explored the ways in which societal pressures and corruption keep us from helping those in need, FIREraisers poses a more ambiguous question: not "why do we not do the right thing?" rather, "what is the right thing?".

FIREraisers plays at The Imperial Pub in Toronto until Saturday, November 19th.

“Spring Awakening” Stirs Energy and Passion from its Talented Cast

2011-11-11T23:44:00.001-05:00

by Brian Balduzzi

I never saw the original production on Broadway; in fact, the F.U.D.G.E Theatre Company production (one of the first in the New England area) is my first foray into Spring Awakening’s dynamic rhythm of awakening youths. Impressed with the company’s summer production of Carousel, I was anxious to see Joe DeMita’s creativity in the punk-rock style, but, more specifically, I wanted to see if he would appreciate the German expressionism from the original play.

I wasn't disappointed in DeMita’s choices towards minimalism when it came to the set and staging. The stage is almost barren from start to finish- the actors bring on chairs, tables, and appropriate props to differentiate the scenes and locations- and stage manager Julia Murray keeps the production moving at a wonderful pace. DeMita’s creative use of ropes tethered to the ceiling, wrapped around characters, and tugged in interpretive choreography is effective in some points of the show, but it also distracts from the stunning chemistry and relationships between the actors. In a play about intimate bonds, I felt disconnected from the characters, wondering what the undead-looking ensemble members were going to do with the ropes next. I appreciate the wonderful metaphors around tying the characters up in their own confusion and emotions, but the choice ultimately detracts more than it adds.

But despite any strange devices thrown into the production, absolutely nothing could detract from the solid performances at its core. Jared Walsh’s Melchior Gabor is stunning and compelling. Walsh creates a boy on the brink of manhood with responsibility, earnestness, and compassion, displaying intense chemistry with everyone who enters his world. His presence drew me into the story as his moral dilemmas became enthralling and convincing teenage angst with unshaking intensity and conviction. His rich tenor voice adds to his smooth sex appeal, a necessary and welcome trait for the understatedly tricky lead role.

Joining Walsh at the centre of the story is the talented Alaina Fragoso as Wendla Bergman, the young and naïve ingénue desperate to learn about life’s mysteries, specifically the age-old question of where babies come from. Fragoso starts out slow with an underwhelming rendition of show-opener "Mama Who Bore Me". The melancholy ballad pays homage to the original production by copying its worst choreography (though its echoes in "Totally Fucked" are conspicuously absent) and Fragoso's voice wavers feebly through the challenging song. But she quickly settles into the role, leading the female ensemble expertly and improving with each number until her climactic "Whispering". With the help of Walsh’s phenomenal chemistry, the relationship between Melchior and Wendla is exciting in the best possible way, perfect for the curious and confused adolescents who are anxious and unsure about exploring their desires and feelings. Fragoso is superb at her vulnerability, but her Wendla is a pawn to others’ whims; I would have enjoyed seeing such a strong actress challenge the role’s limitations. Her “Those You’ve Known”, however, is especially strong and haunting, harmonizing beautifully with Walsh and Ben Sharton’s Moritz Stiefel.

Sharton, in the musical's flashiest role, is at his best here; his voice soars in “Bitch of Living” and “I Don’t Do Sadness”, showing an impressive range and tone through the difficult music. His accomplished singing is limited, however, by his acting. Though their on-stage friendship has a well-developed bromantic strength, Sharton seems lost without Walsh’s command- a dynamic that isn't altogether unhelpful considering the characters' relationship, but robs Moritz of some of his more fascinating layers. In Sharton’s defense, the script is hardly forgiving for struggling actors, taking some of the oddly phrased dialogue directly from Frank Wedikind’s original play in translation.

Without Walsh's strong presence beside him, Sharton's key scene with Ilse flounders slightly, the slack picked up by Jackie Theoharis’ phenomenal performance as the socially ousted free spirit. Theoharis captivates every moment she's onstage; I often found myself distracted during ensemble numbers by the beautiful blond with the dynamic stage presence. The ensemble's other standout is Matt Phillipps as the easily overlooked Otto, the only person on stage who ever managed to pull focus from Theoharis. With a comfort and enjoyment for the stage, he adds a delightful energy to ensemble numbers, making such soaring anthems as "Totally Fucked" truly memorable.

The ending of the show was a bit of struggle as I found myself not caring for Moritz as much as I needed to. Thankfully, Jim Fitzpatrick’s stunning turn as Moritz’s father was enough to bring tears to my eyes. He and Linda Goetz ease seamlessly through their many adult characters, delivering diverse performances and rare empathy for the somewhat two dimensional authority figures. His performance in this was also the best I’ve seen from Brian Vaughn Martel, as the dry and domineering Hanschen. Vaughn Martel’s comic timing is spot-on during “Bitch of Living” and he milks each moment in the limelight. I will never agree with the typical interpretation of Hanschen and Ernst’s relationship, but Vaughn Martel and Adam Schuler are appropriately awkward together and play the scene for its usual effect.

On the technical side, the lighting design by PJ Strachman is particularly effective (especially in such a minimalist show), appropriately transforming the stage from schoolroom to woods to cemetery. Equally effective is the strong, yet small, band led by musical director/conductor/keyboard player Steven Bergman. Though the rich orchestrations do suffer from the pared-down arrangements (and, in particular, a lack of strings section), Bergman does an impressive job with the ensemble numbers, especially in Act 2. The on-stage band blends brilliantly into the set while creating the appropriate level of intimacy between the singers and musicians. While there are some notably strained voices, the ensemble members mostly blend well and feature some talented vocalists in extremely catchy numbers. For a modern musical, the songs of Spring Awakening are surprisingly addictive and I can’t help but repeat my favorites, wishing I had F.U.D.G.E.’s cast to sing and harmonize the beautiful score for more than the mere two-hour show.

If you missed the original production on Broadway or you are looking to revisit this recent gem in modern musical theatre, catch the final weekend performance of this talented and progressive production.

Spring Awakening closes tomorrow night, Nov 12th after a final 8pm performance at the Watertown Arsenal Center for the Arts.

BU's Bug Shocks and Stuns for Less Gruesome Reasons

2011-11-02T13:57:00.000-04:00

by Brian Balduzzi

On a particularly stormy night, I ventured out to Boston University Stage Troupe’s production of Bug by Tracy Letts, directed by veteran Chris Hamilton, hoping for a night of horror and suspense.

Unfortunately, I was less than smitten with the results. Billed as “the play that gets under your skin,” I was not moved by the production or many of the performances in it. Thankfully, some secondary characters were compelling and spot-on, but too few, too late.

The horror was in the production team. From the sound design to set design, each piece was unified but off-point for the play. The sound was loud; tip: subtlety and silence are unnerving. The music, while appropriate to the themes of the play, didn’t fit with the concept of creating a horror story. I was greatly annoyed when music and fighter noise played during one of Peter’s speeches. As I will say below, Dan Stevens (Peter) can deliver a speech in an interesting and compelling way. Just let him speak!

While I may not agree with the horror story production concept for Bug, I appreciated Hamilton’s innovative approach to the script. I didn’t feel like the production elements fit and worked towards this concept. The motel room set was appropriate, but it didn’t feel unnerving, nor did it really create the perfect impression of a motel room with its standard sheets, nightstands, or lamps. The bed was also one of the biggest flaws in the production. I sat in the third row and I could only see one person at a time when both Agnes and Peter sat on the bed. Perhaps turning the bed or placing the characters further upstage or even putting the bed on another level could’ve solved this problem.

The lighting and costume designs were probably the best executed, but they still did little for me to move the production forward. The lighting intensity was often dim, a great effect for the suspense and ambiance, but I had trouble seeing many of the characters during these dully-lit scenes. The costumes were good, but nothing remarkable; they set the scene perfectly, but what girl wears matching bra and underwear? The first night between Peter and Agnes felt too much like a striptease. Otherwise, the costumes depicted character and personality, but lacked a clear concept other than "dirty".

The blood and gore team was excellent, but I would expect nothing less for this play. I was consistently impressed with the cast’s skill in applying the blood, especially during fight scenes. The scars were also top-notch because they seemed to ooze fresh. My only concern was Peter’s dried blood. Blood does not always dry dark red and I would have appreciated more imagination in using the gore to really surprise and frighten the audience. Overall though, this team was excellent in its execution, far out-shining the other production aspects.

This production featured an interesting twist at the beginning: the ushers were employees at the motel. I tried to talk with one female usher, but she was virtually non-responsive. It was a creative idea that seemed to wane in execution. The opening of the show was rough; the pacing seemed to be slow and awkward in the first scene.

Honestly, I foolishly thought Allie Romano (R.C.) was forgettable in the first scene. Her character bumbled about in an awkward way and did not feel as grounded in the action or motivation as I would have liked. Luckily, Romano delivered in Act 2 and she quickly became one of my favorite actors in the show. While I didn’t think she used many different tactics, the tactics she used were well-executed and strong choices. Nazvad Dabu (Jerry Goss) was also particularly good as the abusive, but interestingly considerate ex-lover of Agnes White. Dabu’s thin frame helped make him alarmingly frightening, but almost endearing when he took an interest in Agnes’s deteriorating condition. Bravo for changing my perception of the character and using “against type” casting to your advantage. I didn’t understand the Doctor’s role in this production of the show; she almost felt like a “bad guy” put into the scene late in the show to add a needless amount of conflict. I think there is enough conflict among the characters without adding Lindsay Kopit’s (Dr. Sweet) maniacal smile to the mix.

As previously mentioned, Stevens delivers in his monologues; he is compelling, interesting, and motivated in his delivery. I couldn’t take my eyes off him when he spoke. Unfortunately, there was something off about his relationship with Ali Irwin (Agnes White). Irwin was particularly frightening when she began to get into the hysteria of the conspiracy, but for other scenes, she lacked motivation. I didn’t get that either Irwin or Stevens wanted or needed something from their scene partner. With the exception of the particularly engrossing ending, I didn’t really believe either of them. Their physicality was spot-on, though, especially Stevens’ twitching.

As a final note, any time there is fighting onstage, please get a fight choreographer. I know too many directors and actors are comfortable with orchestrating their own stage fights, but I can tell when a company brings in someone with an objective eye for stage-fighting. Additionally, while I found the accents good, I worried that they were impeding the actors from accessing the full range of their voices.

The show presented an entertaining night of theatre, but I think it missed the concept and point in places. There were unexpected laughs from the audience in the most serious scenes, confusion during stage-fights, and awkward relationships among the characters. But the ending was stunning and, as usual, worth the time sitting through the previous scenes.

Horror-pop Halloween: Zombies, An Evil Videogame, and A Sinister Suburb

2011-10-23T18:40:00.000-04:00

by Borah Coburn

Happy Medium Theatre’s production of Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom by Jennifer Haley is often funny, endearing in a nerdy (and sometimes intensely angsty teenage way), and engrossing. The basic story is that in the creepy/Stepfordian suburb of an unnamed town, all the teenagers have become totally engrossed with a videogame that uses satellite photos of the players’ neighborhood and zombifies its inhabitants. But the game isn’t just a game, and the consequences of in-game action start appearing in the real world—so what happens at the final level? It’s an enjoyable night of theatre, especially if you like the scary side of Halloween and/or gaming.

When I walked into The Factory Theatre I saw a paint splattered stage and acting blocks, bloodied picket-fence posts covered in numbered post-its and various suburban-life props (golf club, hedge clippers, etc), and was greeted by a wave of midi music. Now, I’m not a gamer myself—I know, I know, WHERE IS THE DORK CRED? Sorry, it’s out sick today—so I definitely missed the references in the music, but I heard a neighbor whisper, “Whoa. Old school Mario.” I’ll trust her. In any case, the empty playing space and the music pulled me in. I was also greeted by The Walk Through—a silver-gilded, wire-wrapped entity that announced levels and helped orchestrate the scene transitions.

The play began by having The Walk Through (Barbara Digirolamo), and a trio of clown-ballerinas (Kendall Aiguier, Elizabeth Battey, and Lauren Elias) display the “avatars”/characters. Framed by the ballerina’s arms, the characters walked on-stage, revolved, and then walked through the audience single file. It was a good simulation of the avatar selection menu. And even in this walk-through introduction, the entire acting company did a great job of making very specific physical choices about their characters—I could instantly tell who was a mom, who was a teenage kid, who was an overachiever, etc just by how they held themselves. They used that physical specificity throughout the entire play. Well done.

Then the leader ballerina (on pointe. Ouch. And bravo, Kendall Aiguier) did an increasingly frantic routine to a metal song, eventually getting pushed back and forth between the other two ballerinas.
From then on, the play unfolded as a series of scenes, presented as “levels.” Especially toward the beginning, much of the dialogue felt like clunky exposition time, although Melissa DeJesus (as Makaela) and Nick Miller (as Trevor) did a great job of pulling charm and humor out of the awkward first scene.

That note can be extended to the whole cast- they were able to be funny with broadly written, sometimes stereotypical characters, and find some charm or likability even with over-whiny and often insensitive teens.
- Barbara (E. Abigail Matzeder ) was very well-rounded, and I really have to give extra credit points to Matzeder; acting to horror-movie-standard fright on stage takes a lot of commitment and physical stamina, if nothing else.
- Leslie (Lizette Marie Morris) was endearing and suitably frantic, and big kudos to Luke Murtha as Ryan, that’s a prolonged period to keep up a high level of emotion, which is always tough (plus, I love me a good Cassandra figure).
- I liked Steve (Sean A. Cote), not so much for his character, as for his execution of the role. He was tough and enraged, and I got where he was coming from.
- I thought Vicki (Alyssa Osiecki) was often very funny, even though much of the writing was broad, and sort of caricature-of-a-drunken-housewife.
- Doug (John Geoffrion) was hilarious, but effectively flipped the switch to an insistent (sometimes dictatorial) dad when necessary.
- Madison (Melanie Garger) was engrossed in the game, and engrossing to watch—between clearly interacting with her computer and her twin, and really investing in the charged moments.
- And poor Jared (Mikey Diloreto). He was by far the most endearing of the teenage set (probably because he seemed to actually care about the consequences of his actions), and even in his brief appearance, Diloreto clearly gave him the weight of full motivation and used his physicality and costuming to his best advantage.
- Blake (aka zombiekllr14 aka Michael Caminiti) presented a highly charged, funny, angry, snappy teen. When he delivered the line: “My mom drives me insane”—like when he threw a hamburger at the backdrop—I bought it.

As the scenes progressed, the pace in the writing picked up, and I felt less adrift as the number of tangents about things like garden gnomes and the comforting logic of their ceramic-face temperatures decreased. Yeah. Ms. Haley, I’m docking those points from you. But as the play continued to unfold, the action became swifter and swifter, and as people started to get eliminated, the show became totally engrossing.

Throughout the show, the lighting, set design, costuming on the “avatars,” and the majority of the sound design created an appropriately malleable—yet specifically suburban—world in the playing space. The lighting especially gave us color and depth and didn’t let us see exactly the violent, gory moments we shouldn’t (but couldn’t help looking for). The only tech element that I found jarring was the use of both live and recorded sound for The Walk Through. I accepted the recorded and altered sound as part of the videogame sphere, but felt jolted out of it with the use of live voice. The costuming for The Walk Through and the ballerinas was just distracting and broad—I wonder if it would have helped me accept the ballerinas as a functional part of the story if they had zombie make-up. Made up as dark scary clowns, I found them totally extraneous, and they felt alien to the rest of the production.

By the end of the show, while I was watching Joy (Audrey Lynn Sylvia) threaten her son, Blake aka Zombiekllr14 with a hammer, I was totally sucked in. It sneaks up on you. It’s not a perfect show—it’s definitely not a perfect script—but it’s a fun production for an easy night of entertainment.

Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom is playing at The Factory Theatre in Boston, MA until October 29th.

Rigoletto at the COC

2011-10-21T18:48:00.000-04:00

by Kelly Bedard

Verdi's brilliant 3-act opera is given a beautiful if sometimes silly staging at The Canadian Opera Company this fall.

Tenor David Lomeli was my favourite of the very capable company of singers, performing the role of the lascivious Duke with aplomb and a cold, delivering a memorable vocal performance throughout, specifically in the painfully famous "La Donna e Mobile". His casual manner and on-stage ease quickly prove his best acting traits, easily defining the Duke's nonchalant machismo, though his staged moments of sex and violence lack the passion and aggression that would make the character more visceral.

The acting is overall somewhat weak as almost no truly believable relationships are formed amongst the characters. Simone Osborne as Gilda sings with a beautiful but rather thin soprano that grasps for its top notes, but her biggest failure is truth-less acting. Lester Lynch's Rigoletto fares better but walks the strange line between seeming indifferent and overdramatic.

One of the more compelling characters in the piece is Phillip Ens' Sparafucile, an assassin hired to kill the Duke. With stark blond hair streaming out of his black top hat and dark round glasses hiding his eyes, Sparafucile is far more interesting than the rest of the characters on stage and Ens' rich bass performance enhances his effectiveness as a sinister symbol of the characters' corruption.

Kendall Gladen's performance as Sparafucile's whorish sister Maddalena is appropriately passionate though her contralto gets easily lost amongst the higher voices in the quartet.

photos by Chris Hutcheson

Michael Levine's stage design is, as it always seems to be with the COC, beautiful and rich. The decision to stage the whole thing in a single parlor room, a wonderfully detailed high-end man cave of sorts, instead of various locations in and outdoors didn't bother me one bit, though it should facilitate easy transitions, which it doesn't seem to. Between acts the audience is treated to bizarre and pointless downstage pantomimes while stage hands very noisily adapt the one room set into a slightly different version of that same room. The effect is comical and far from desired.

Almost every major issue I found with Rigoletto lies with Christopher Alden's direction. Silliness like unnecessary table standing, falling rose petals and the bizarre moment when the male chorus begins to run in circles around the set really takes away from the power of the piece. The lack of relationship development seems a little too across-the-board to place the blame on the actors; more likely it too is a direction mishap. What Alden needed for Rigoletto was editing, a chance to focus on the things that really mattered and leave the grand silliness behind.

Rigoletto plays at The Four Seasons Centre in Toronto, ON until October 22nd.

Dueling Cabarets

2011-10-06T15:10:00.001-04:00

by Kelly Bedard

Sonus Stage Company's Sondheim revue Side by Side just opened at the Walmer Center Theatre. Earlier this week I had the opportunity to enjoy excerpts from Acting Up Stage's Both Sides Now, a revue of Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell songs. Sonus' production, a less polished restaging of a pre-existing cabaret has none of the jaw-dropping talent and music direction innovation of Both Sides Now, though they begin with more iconic musical theatre material.

The 1975 revue hasn't been updated since its original staging and therefore lacks many of Sondheim's most famous and more current melodies and while the company does an excellent job making the niche composer accessible to non-fans, an update would have really helped their cause.

Acting Up Stage, conversely, was all about innovation in their interpretation of the iconic folk and rock songs. With a perfect cast featuring stunning turns from Marcus Nance, Arlene Duncan and Bruce Dow, the highlight was an all-female quartet on Mitchell's famous "Big Yellow Taxi" featuring the superb Sara Farb (who also had a brilliant solo on "Chelsea Morning"), Kelly Holiff, Amanda LeBlanc and Eden Richmond. Mike Ross' piano-pounding jazz rendition of Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat" was also a sheer delight. But the real star of the show was music director Reza Jacobs whose inventive and beautiful interpretations of well-known songs into musical theatre character numbers was a real star turn.

Ultimately, the capable singers Tammy Everett and John McNeill can't keep up with the Both Sides Now singers and though Mikaela MacGillivray most definitely has a developing star factor, the stars are already shining at Acting Up Stage.

Side by Side plays at the Walmer Center Theatre in Toronto, ON until October 23rd.

Theatre Smash's Ugly One

2011-10-06T14:56:00.000-04:00

by Kelly Bedard

Theatre Smash’s production of Marius von Mayenburg’s dystopic one act The Ugly One is a whole lot of funny and whole whack of unsettling all wrapped into a tiny 1 hour package.

Director Ashlie Corcoran and designer Camellia Koo pair to stage Maja Zade’s superb translation of the excellent play in a unique and effective way, using Tarragon Theatre’s Extra Space to full effect with a massive multi-use table taking up 80% of the playing area and characters joining the audience to observe during their down time. Jason Hand’s excellent lighting design makes interesting use of brightness to startle the audience out of its stupors and mimic the trademark surroundings of an operating room or big budget corporate presentation.

The cast is similarly exceptional. Summerworks standout Jesse Aaron Dwyre gives an excellently underhanded performance as an ambitious young inventor and Naomi Wright moves swiftly from role to role with standout comic timing. David Jansen grounds the action excellently as Lette, a grotesquely ugly man whose total facial reconstruction leads to a harrowing tale of image obsession, conformity, corporate competition and the things we’ll do to be and stay “ideal”.

It’s a remarkable piece of theatre. Down to the visceral use of on-stage sound effects to recreate the violent surgeries, The Ugly One is a piece that really stays with you.

The Ugly One plays in Tarragon's Extra Space in Toronto, ON until October 16th.

In Stratford: Twelfth Night

2011-10-06T14:38:00.004-04:00

photo by Andrew Eccles

by Kelly Bedard

Ranking: #1
The most fun I’ve had at a Shakespeare play in a very long time was at Des McAnuff’s raucous celebration of anachronism: Twelfth Night, my favourite Stratford Production of 2011.

I love anachronism as a concept. The universality of Shakespeare’s plays makes it okay for them to exist in a vacuum of “anytime, anywhere”. Oftentimes, opening up the entire world’s history of dress allows a character to express who they are in that very moment, regardless of arbitrary fashion. That same virtue applies to anachronism in music selection- whatever fits. The effect is a production that gets at the heart of who these people are and what they’re feeling. In a flirty scene, Olivia might appear dressed for a 1920s tennis game, while a later coy Olivia takes a more classical approach to her wardrobe. Debra Hanson's set is similarly contradictory, making use of classical themes with modern frames. Without limitations of time and place, Twelfth Night is not only more fun, but more expressive.

Current artistic director Des McAnuff has had great success so far with his musical interpretations of Shakespeare’s comedies (his surrealist As You Like It delivered the most rousing ditties I’ve heard from my beloved comedy) and Twelfth Night is certainly not an exception with music composed and arranged by McAnuff and Michael Roth. “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” is a particularly great time as a sort of group cabaret number and the disruptively fun “Hold thy Peace” is simply outrageous. Who knew Ben Carlson was secretly a rock star? I, personally, had no idea, but his vocals as troubadour fool Feste are kind of massively impressive. Throw in a cameo by John Lennon delivering a pizza and Twelfth Night is nothing short of rock and roll.

McAnuff, a notoriously restless director whose roots are more in the higher octane Broadway world than in the text-heavy Shakespearean one, injects the production with further vibrancy by staging scenes in fun and interesting places. I’m a big fan of giving characters something to do in a scene apart from emote, and McAnuff’s various batting cages, tennis matches, golf games and steam rooms give the scenes good context and the actors more business to play around with. (The steam room also allowed for an incredibly amusing, I’m assuming accidental, mishap involving Sir. Andrew’s towel).

Cast-wise the production fares well, though the early-season injury of leading lady Andrea Runge does hinder it irreversibly; standby Viola Suzy Jane Hunt puts in a valiant effort but sadly comes up a bit short. Coming up far from short, however, is Cara Ricketts, an actress I’m so glad to finally get the chance to like. Her Maria is funny, smart and feisty, holding her own alongside stage legend scene partners like Brian Dennehy and Stephen Ouimette- a superb Sir. Andrew whose comic pauses prove twice as funny as his lines. Juan Chioran does excellent work in the completely cut-able character of Fabian, a testament to the value of bench depth, and Mike Shara is exactly as I expected in his perfectly cast role as Duke Orsino, meaning daffy-proud, a bit bewildered and utterly excellent. Sara Topham is better here than everywhere else but is still unspeakably annoying (has anyone ever tried her on a part that won’t allow for her girlish affectations? I wonder if they might go away with proper casting like Ricketts' did). The great Timothy D. Stickney is wasted in the minuscule role of the sea-captain who saves Viola, but Michael Blake delivers a refreshingly confident performance as the oft-silly other sea-captain Antonio, who saves Sebastian. Trent Pardy is mostly un-noteworthy as Sebastian, though most likely chosen for his remarkable resemblance to Viola (both Runge and Hunt).

But as much as I loved the work of many of the aforementioned actors and, of course, McAnuff’s inspired and flat-out fun interpretation, Twelfth Night belongs to one man and one man only, Mr. Tom Rooney. I feel like I say this every time I sit down to write anything at all about The Stratford Festival but Rooney really is the best performer I think I’ve ever seen live. The chameleonic and unassuming actor was faced with two potentially very similar fops this year in Merry Wives’ Master Ford and Twelfth Night’s Malvolio, but he manages to play them as hugely distinct from one another. While Ford is frantic, jealous and silly, Rooney plays Malvolio as serious, tragic and surprisingly smart. He does what all great Malvolios should do, which is play the broad comedy as though it were his own personal tragedy. His highly capable Malvolio may be a victim of his own pride but as seen through Rooney’s all-consuming eyes it becomes clear what most audiences have never really noticed before- that Maria, Toby and co. are torturing and tormenting a mostly innocent man because they don’t like him very much.

photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

By the time Malvolio is trapped in a glass cage, held in a straight jacket, the audience is left to reconcile the great fun they’ve been having with McAnuff and Roth’s musical sojourns and Ouimette’s brilliant sense of irony with the reality of Malvolio’s mistreatment. In a risky move with excellent payoff, Rooney plays Malvolio’s ending with the grit of a Titus character vowing his revenge, because Malvolio doesn’t know he’s in Shakespeare’s beloved comedy. For him and to him, it’s always been The Tragedy of Malvolio; or what you will.

This production is simply fantastic. It’s accessible and fun for easily bored Shakespeare cynics and refreshingly different for those who’ve seen the oft-produced Twelfth Night perhaps a few too many times. But for the real text lovers looking for greater meaning even in the comedies, Rooney is there with the most poignant arc of the entire season.

Twelfth Night plays at the Festival Theatre in Stratford, ON until October 28th.

In Stratford: The Little Years

2011-10-06T13:25:00.000-04:00

photo by Andrew Eccles

by Kelly Bedard

Ranking: #2
My first tears of the 2011 Stratford Festival Season came in the Studio Theatre one afternoon as I took in a play about which I knew nothing.

John Mighton’s original work The Little Years was the surprise delight of the season, a new play I loved so much that it usurped some of my favourite Shakespeares to take the silver medal spot in this year’s rankings.

The clever, touching and funny script spans decades and contains a massive scope within its personal story of one woman’s isolation. Julie Fox’s sparse set was somehow expansive in its simplicity and, as filled with Kimberly Purtell’s clever, geometric lighting design and Thomas Ryder Payne’s genius windy soundscape, it created a phenomenal sense of space. Even in less epic moments the superb lighting and sound filled in the gaps the small production needed such as populating a crowded school dance with only two actors on the stage. The blackout-set changes were quick enough to not annoy me and the use of the hospital orderly and a moving man were helpful in establishing place in the ever-moving action.

photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

With only one annoying spot, the cast was generally fantastic. Irene Poole was riveting in the central role with Bethany Jillard as her adorkable younger self. Poole, playing a genius social cripple mourning her lost potential, did a phenomenal job guiding the audience down Kate’s rabbit hole of progressively more robotic social dissociation. As her character aged she shrank back from society, rebelling against it for limiting her. “I’m sick of living in other people’s mouths” she shouted, hitting on the reality that our narrative is our identity; Kate’s inability to change the story about her is what kept her from changing who she could be. Jillard, meanwhile, was a study in character definition as the contrasting bright young women of the piece. As young Kate she was all awkward enthusiasm, unable to find an outlet, as Tanya she played adaptable and socially adept if just as brilliant as her hermitic aunt- a sad suggestion of who Kate could have been.
As the productions’s only man, Evan Buliung deftly walked the line between likable and sleazy with that sneaky undertone of “maybe don’t trust me too much” amidst his leading man charm. Yanna McIntosh’s stylized tendency of asking questions in the form of statements is still getting on my nerves but I suppose my complaining about McIntosh might be getting monotonous for you readers so I’ll stop for the season.

I love plays about physics. Maths and sciences as filtered through the brains of artists are endlessly fascinating to this wholly right-brained critic, and this one makes particularly great use of the metaphorical value of some of physics' more baffling realities. The paradoxical nature of time fascinates young Kate as it does the audience and sends her on her obsessive path further and further away from reality as she strives to understand it. It was a mesmerizing journey to take alongside her.

In Stratford: Titus Andronicus

2011-10-06T12:22:00.001-04:00

photo by Andrew Eccles

by Kelly Bedard

Ranking: #3
A lot of people consider Shakespeare’s early revenge tragedy trashy, vulgar, somehow incomplete and most certainly inferior (to the bard’s more “sophisticated” later works like Hamlet). But some of the smartest directors I’ve ever met are convinced there’s a certain darkly comic genius to it. That seems to be the trick with the grotesquely violent Roman drama- don’t be afraid of the absurdity but don’t mock the suffering either.

At The Stratford Festival this year director Dark Tresnjak made use of those very principals to create an innovative and stirring production of Titus Andronicus that proves why it belongs in the great revenge canon right alongside Hamlet.

photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

The cast, for the most part, proved exceptional. Led by John Vickery’s slightly unhinged Titus, the company fired on all cylinders. Dion Johnstone’s dangerously intelligent and imposing performance as a desperately paternal Aaron was perfectly countered by Brendan Murray and Bruce Godfree as his impish, suggestible and disgustingly vulgar pawns in villainy Chiron and Demetrius. Claire Lautier’s beauty queen Tamora left something to be desired but Amanda Lisman was the best Lavinia I’ve ever seen with a refreshingly strong take that saw the play’s most tragic victim getting deservedly pissed off instead of just beaten down. As in Richard III, however, the late Peter Donaldson’s absence was sorely felt as David Ferry’s Marcus was merely passable.

But it was the direction that really took centre stage as Tresnjak also took on the role of set designer. His interpretation was stark. Or rather, it was upsettingly clean. While the dark humour inherent in Shakespeare’s rather shocking script was played with tongue-in-cheek verve (servant abuse got a big laugh while the tragedy-stricken Titus took to hyena-like peels when he ran out of tears), the violent atrocities were played to full gruesome and bloody effect. All evidence was then cleanly swept away, mementos joining the gleaming white set as art piece reminders of how remote we can make recent tragedy if we choose to. Lavinia entered, one scene after appearing bloodied and ravaged, in a long white gown and headscarf with neatly bandaged stumps where her hands once were, as though she’d been sterilized and been made once more acceptable to be seen and processed by the court. The world of Titus Andronicus was startlingly quick to clean up then avenge its tragedies- with no time to mourn, the characters had no hope of healing.

Tresnjak’s daring ending reminded me almost of the controversial end of The Sopranos, a series not unlike Titus in tone. Creator David Chase, astounded by how viewers had been so quick to accept atrocity after atrocity without ever abandoning Tony, cut the series short, refusing to be the enabler of our voyeuristic proxy violence. In Tresnjak’s production, Lucius (Paul Fauteux) began his closing speech tentatively, then, unwilling to participate in the cycle of tragedy any longer, handed the crown to the audience and departed mid-thought, leaving the audience, the characters and the world completely without closure. Shakespeare’s ending attempts to wrap the story up in a tight little bow, but with the morally questionable Lucius in power, the villainous Aaron still breathing and his son in the hands of unloving non-parents, a foreboding sense of unease exists within the world that most productions fail to acknowledge. With Lucius’ abdication, Tresnjak points to that sense of hopelessness and suggests that the only way out is… blackout.

In Stratford: Hosanna

2011-10-06T07:24:00.002-04:00

photo by Andrew Eccles

by Kelly Bedard

Ranking: #4
After I read late Stratford artistic director Richard Monette’s beautiful memoir This Rough Magic, I couldn’t wait to buy a copy of the play that made him famous. But when I finally got to read great Canadian playwright Michel Tremblay’s groundbreaking 2-man play Hosanna, I was surprised by how much I didn’t like it. I thought on stage it would be campy, possibly even shallow. What I didn’t realize was that Hosanna is one of those plays that simply doesn’t belong on paper. It needs a beating heart, and that’s what Gareth Potter gave it this season at The Stratford Festival.

photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

It takes an actor as relatable and likable as Potter to play the trickily prickly title role in the Montreal-based story of a second rate drag queen and her ageing biker boyfriend. Hosanna suffers from the cinematic “it” girl paradox of bitchiness for the sake of fitting in leading to heartbreakingly ironic lines like “I didn’t realize everyone hated me so much”. Such a woman (who also happens to be self-deprecating, proud, condescending and wishy-washy) is a next-to-impossible heroine to invest in. But Potter found her humanity rooted somewhere deep beneath her Cleopatra headdress in the reality of Claude Lemieux.

Potter played Hosanna with such wonderfully small character detail that he captured her as a whole person without being afraid of her larger affectations. His voice took on a pitch ever so slightly higher than his own, layered with just a hint of Quebecois accent with perfect French pronunciations on locations and names. His slight figure surprisingly well suited to Hosanna’s slinky uniform of bra, panties and black pumps, Potter mastered the little things with a practiced womanly ease from the way he crossed his legs to his expert high heeled-gate. Through his tender moments of silent sobs to the hollerings of a spoiled diva to his stark-naked exposure in the play’s gut-wrenching final moments, Potter’s performance as Hosanna was, for lack of a better word and for heaven’s sake please forgive the pun, ballsy. It does help that coming into the potentially irritating play I had a deep fondness for Potter as an actor, but it’s performances like this one- full of nuance, courage and a determination to have compassion for his character- that make me remember why that love was there in the first place.

Oliver Becker had some nice moments too in the much less flashy role of tough-guy Cuirette, but he needed to give a bit more in order for me to accept some of his less lovable moves (like going along with the cruel joke on Hosanna or leaving her for Sandra’s party).

Designer Michael Gianfrancesco (assisted greatly by head of properties Dona Hrabluk and her team) created a set that allowed the audience to step directly into Hosanna’s world the moment we entered the intimate Studio Theatre. It was stuffy, cluttered and claustrophobic with a thickness lingering in the air and the smell of Hosanna’s vile perfume unavoidable. It was dead on in its unpleasantness but somehow captured the feeling that for a woman like Hosanna it could feel like home, right down to the flashing pharmacy sign that drives Cuirette up the wall.

Weyni Mengesha’s direction was simple but appropriate for the small, character-driven piece, pulling vibrant performances out of both of her actors and finding a way to create a touching and wonderful production out of a script that could easily have produced something else entirely.