March 2014 - Page 2 of 3 - Capital Critics' Circle / Le cercle des critiques de la capitale

Frankenstein at Algonquin Theatre: Technical virtuosity outshines the performances

By Alvina Ruprecht | March 20, 2014

Photo: Andrew Alexander Early on in this Algonquin production of playwright Aldo Nolan’s version of Frankenstein, first performed in 1974 in collaboration with director Walter Learning, director Zach Counsil, shows us the Creature lying on the floor, bathed in David Magladry’s powerful chiaroscuro lighting effects. Played by Evan Gilmore, the creature trembles, he slowly tries to raise his body, he collapses, tries to stand up, his legs give way as he tries again, ultimately drawing himself up in the semi-darkness, showing us he can limp, then walk. This scene sent me back to the opening moments of the recent National Theatre Live production that we saw via satellite in Ottawa about two years ago. Counsil apparently added this silent development of the creature which was necessary and very effective. It created an appropriate transition between the moment Victor Frankenstein’s creation comes to life and the following scenes where he is running away because people, terrified of this repulsive looking individual are hunting him down to kill him.

…

Read More Read More

Algonquin’s Frankenstein brings off some powerful visuals.

By Jamie Portman | March 20, 2014

Photo credit: Andrew Alexander. He’s a grotesque, man-made creature on a rampage of anger and violence — and ultimately murder. But you also sense that he has a soul — of sorts. So you can’t deny his anguish of spirit, his suffering, his feelings of desolation and abandonment as he wanders through a hostile terrain in a poignant search for his maker.

That terrain is as much metaphysical and spiritual as it is horrifying, and this is one of the strengths of Frankenstein: The Man Who Became God, the play that the Algonquin College theatre program has bravely decided to mount.

This is not the Frankenstein of actor Boris Karloff and director James Whale, although their 80-year-old movies continue to have the greatest impact on the popular imagination. This stage piece by Alden Nowlan and Walter Learning is far truer to the purpose of Mary Shelley, the author of the original book, but beyond that, you find it carries its own special resonance.

…

Read More Read More

Mary Walsh Dances with Rage: slash and burn comedy the GCTC – Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre.

By Patrick Langston | March 20, 2014

Photo Barbara Gray.

OTTAWA — Her sword is just plastic, but Marg Delahunty, aka the Princess Warrior, has a tongue sharp enough to separate a rhino and its hide without even trying.

Marg, as all fans of slash-and-burn Canadian comedy know, is the alter ego of Newfoundland comedian Mary Walsh. Resplendent in her glittering, red Princess Warrior outfit, the one we’ve all admired as we’ve watched her ambush public figures from Mayor Rob Ford to former prime minister Jean Chrétien on CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Marg is front and centre in Walsh’s one-woman show Dancing with Rage.

The show, which seesaws between hilariously pointed moments and arid stretches and ultimately doesn’t hold together particularly well, opens with another Walsh character: the purse-lipped, purse-clasping Miss Eulalie. Tut-tutting about topical issues — bridges and sinkholes in Ottawa, the recent appointment of Joe Oliver, “the minister responsible for the destruction of the environment,” as replacement for the departed minister of finance Jim Flaherty — she totters down the aisle and onto the stage.

Walsh soon sheds that character along with Miss Eulalie’s bulky coat and rummage-sale hat to stand before us in black underwear. She bemoans the state of contemporary feminism as well as her own aging body (she’s 61) — or at least the state of a society that makes a clothes-shopping expedition for an aging woman, whose body now bulges in unforeseen ways and places, a voyage to hell. “It leaks out like some fleshy Exxon Valdez,” she says, gripping some of that fleshy stuff in a way that’s simultaneously self-deprecating, endearing and smartly subversive…….Read more

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Theatre+review+Princess+warrior+sharp+tongue+needed+edit/9647381/story.html

THE NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE UNVEILS SPECTACULAR 2014-15 DANCE SEASON

By Capital Critics Circle | March 19, 2014

Photo: Vollmond, Cie Pina Bausch

March 18, 2014 – OTTAWA (Canada) – The National Arts Centre today unveiled details of its spectacular 2014-15 Dance season that celebrates artistic excellence with a dynamic lineup of innovative voices, featuring some of the biggest names from across Canada and around the world. From traditionally sumptuous classical ballet to the most expressive frontiers of contemporary dance, the 2014-15 season includes 30 choreographic voices that represent a vast range of ideas, styles, contexts and cultural influences.

…

Read More Read More

A Whale of a Plot: Samuel D. Hitner’s Show at Boston’s SpeakEasy

By Jane Baldwin | March 18, 2014

Boston’s SpeakEasy Theatre is currently presenting the New England premiere of Samuel D. Hunter’s The Whale, winner of the prestigious 2013 Lucille Lortel Award.

The play revolves around Charlie, a solitary, secluded, cetaceous-like character, set on gorging himself to death. The reasons for his behavior remain unclear, even mysterious, until the play’s end. Charlie’s days are spent mostly sitting on a sprung sofa, enveloped in a huge sweat suit, gasping as he munches away. The slovenly stage and the space beneath are teeming with remnants of food packets.

…

Read More Read More

The Magician’s Nephew: Little Magic in this script

By Iris Winston | March 15, 2014

Photo credit: Claude Haché

American playwright Aurand Harris apparently believes that morals rammed down the throats of young audiences will be best remembered if repeated and rammed a little harder the second and third time. (Harris, author of some 36 plays for children is best known for his Androcles and the Lion.)

His 1955 dramatization/adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew from The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis must have seemed heavy-handed even 60 years ago. In the 21^st century, it is well beyond its best-before date.

Perhaps this is why the performances in the 9^th Hour Theatre Company production creak more than a little with wooden characterizations and unconvincing accents.

…

Read More Read More

Much Ado about Feckin’ Pirates or the Parrots revenge. Improv Fantasy on the high seas

By Alvina Ruprecht | March 14, 2014

Richard Gélinas and Margo MacDonald. Photo: Pascal Huot

In spite of the title this has nothing to do with Shakespeare, and a lot to do with the writers’/actors’ sense of adventure: the world of pirates, the world of Improv and the playful discovery of what appears to be the old pirate language that is both savoury and very demanding. Yes indeed, Margo Macdonald and Richard Gélinas improvise in “pirate” for just over 60 minutes and that is a feat of great virtuosity. The two adventurers are lashed to the upper mast inside the crow’s nest of a huge pirate ship because the captain (a sadistic old chap whom we never see because he is below) wants to punish them for fighting.

…

Read More Read More

Spamalot: A lot to enjoy in this Orpheus Musical Theatre Society production

By Iris Winston | March 13, 2014

Photos found on Tumblr.com Dancing Knights

You will laugh a lot at Spamalot and smile a lot for long after you move out of the Monty Python lens on Camelot.

Orpheus Musical Theatre Society hams it up (a lot) perfectly attuned to playwright/lyricist Eric Idle’s quirky humour and political incorrectness. (The principle is: insult everybody and nobody can be offended.)

Under the skillful direction of Bob Lackey, the baton of musical director Terry Duncan and the bright, witty choreography of Christa Cullain, the musical “lovingly ripped off from the motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail” is a delight from silly opening scene to the final reprise of looking on the bright side of life.

…

Read More Read More

Spamalot: A Musical that glows with silliness, lovingly produced by the immense talent of the Orpheus Company.

By Alvina Ruprecht | March 13, 2014

Photo. Kichissipi Times On the French Ramparts!

IT seems that the talents coming from the Orpheus Musical Theatre Society are particularly well suited to outrageous musical comedy because not since their side splitting production of Mel Brooks’ The Producers , have we seen such a perfectly orchestrated show. Artistic director Bob Lackey, musical director John Terry Duncan and their whole team have done wonders with the show based on Eric Idle’s book and the music by John Du Prez. From the moment Thomas Franzky as the mission-driven King of the Britons appears on stage with his faithful, bumbling Patsy a very sympathetic Rejean Mayer (we can’t help but feel this is a Python twist on Don Quixote and his not always appreciated servant Panza – I’m not chopped liver he snorts which is the first hint of his ethnic background) Spamalot was an absolute delight from beginning to end. Adapted from the Monty Python motion picture “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, the story essentially involves King Arthur going out trying to recruit new knights for his Round table, as he begins his quest for the Holy Grail.

…

Read More Read More

‘Midsummer Night’s Dream : Nap time at the Cutler Majestic

By Jane Baldwin | March 12, 2014

Photo Credit Simone Annand. David Ricardo-Pearce as Oberon.

Reviewed by Jane Baldwin

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, now playing at Boston’s Cutler Majestic is the second show produced by the Bristol Old Vic Theatre Company in collaboration with the South African Handspring Puppet Company. The first, The War Horse, adapted from a children’s novel was a renowned prizewinner dominated by its large and beautifully choreographed puppets.

Shakespeare’s play is directed and choreographed quite differently, conceivably because of the stylistic incongruities. The romantic comedy takes place in three different realms: the world of the rich and powerful, fairyland and its magic, and the laboring class. Like most of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies, it is convoluted, revolving around three seemingly separate but related plots. To further complicate matters, many of the roles are double cast so as to accentuate similarities rather than variants. Theseus, the Duke of Athens and Oberon, the king of the fairies are both played by David Ricardo-Pearce while Saskia Portway enacts the Duke’s wife-to-be Hippolyta and Titania, the Queen of the fairies.

…

Read More Read More