Alvina Ruprecht

Next to Normal: Indie Women productions triumphs at Centrepoint!!

By Alvina Ruprecht | October 23, 2015

Photo: Mike Heffernan. Skye MacDiarmid, Derek Eyamie, Jeremy Sanders.

Singer-actress Skye MacDiarmid, repeats her amazing portrayal as Diana, a bipolar mother suffering from a combination of affective disorders including depression and PTSD as the result of the early death of her son Gabe. MacDiarmid again takes over the stage this time in the Centrepoint studio, just as she did last year at the Gladstone theatre. Her strong acting skills, her dramatic voice, and her immediate burst of talent carries us off to a realm of theatre that makes the reality of the situation much easier to watch. The script is down to earth, the characters are down to earth, and we find great strength in watching this family drama, as it unfolds around a subject matter that is not easy to watch but that keeps us deeply involved.

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Trisha Brown Dance Company: as fresh and contemporary as ever.

By Alvina Ruprecht | October 9, 2015

Photo: NAC Set and Reset from the Trisha Brown Dance Company

Ottawa audiences were treated to an exclusive Canadian engagement by the Trisha Brown Dance Company, presenting some of choreographer Trisha Brown’s seminal experiments in postmodern dance performance. Trisha Brown began creating work in 1960 and she formed her Dance Company in 1970 so the four short works we saw, ranging over a period of 28 years, from 1983 to 2011, actually represented important moments of most of her creative career. What stood out was the way they all spoke to each other, all echoing elements that appeared in each of the other performances, each one appearing so fresh, and contemporary, without the slightest hint that anything was dated or past its time. This form of dance-performance gives one the impression that her work represents a constant process of intense research as it tries to position itself in relation to that which already exists but that is somehow insufficient and even stifling and has to be overcome.

. Take If You Couldn’t See Me, featuring a single dancer who faces upstage the whole time. Dressed in a flimsy orange dress that glowed in those strong lights, she kept finding positions that foregrounded her arms, her legs, her hips, her shoulders until one suddenly realized that this performance was in the process of changing the spectators gaze. We are watching a body with no face, no eyes, no expression, no emotion and no psychological points of reference. It erases the narrative totally, covers the head in brown hair and deflects our gaze to the back of the body. What dancer has ever had to dance from that perspective before? We watch the creation of a new dancing body, .one that performs from the back using its shoulders, its feet, its heels, its buttocks and the fluttering skirt, …and Robert Rauschenberg’s lighting and costumes helped transform this flittering bit of sparkling orange light into a new moving being… Enchanting!

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The Norman Conquests: A Historic Moment of Back to Back Theatre in Ottawa.

By Alvina Ruprecht | October 2, 2015

Photo: Julie Le Gal : Table Manners with David Whiteley, Margo MacDonald, Steve Martin. (Apartment 613)

Robert Lepage’s (Les Sept Branches de la Rivière Ota) in Quebec city lasted six hours; the Belgian production Rwanda 94, at the Festival TransAmérique in Montreal went beyond 6 hours . These were both in French. In English Canada, such an event is almost unheard of and yet such a production has come to the Gladstone Theatre in Ottawa. Director John P. Kelly, is staging British author Alan Ayckbourn’s trilogy The Norman Conquests, based on a weekend in a middle class household in the British countryside where a family has come together because their aging mother is ill. Each of the 2 hour episodes which continue through the whole weekend, takes place at the same time but in a different room of the house, so the perspectives change and the audience is privy to different reactions and additional information which add depth and detail to this microcosm of British society that unfolds before our eyes. Thus, a great theatrical moment awaits you. Bring a sandwich and a drink and settle in.

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The Barber of Seville : Extraordinary stage business challenges the singers.

By Alvina Ruprecht | September 27, 2015

Photo: Barb Gray. Joshua Hopkiins (Figaro) and Marion Newman(Rosina).

Just as Brian MacDonald transformed Gilbert and Sullivan into light opera, just as Steven Sondheim’s musicals could often be considered light opera, why not do the reverse and transform Rossini’s Opera Buffa into musical theatre where all the spoken parts are sung in any case, and comedy dominates the whole event? This production, which originates in Vancouver is a treat for the eye and is clearly aimed at a general even non-opera going audience that just wants an evening of entertainment in the lush setting of the National Arts Centre. Why not? Opera is not the sole possession of specialists. If Opera Lyra has to seduce the audience by setting Count Almaviva’s attempts to declare his love to Rosina on the set of a 1940’s film of Carmen, (Bizet’s version I imagine) – a sort of mise en abyme musical, why not? It was all supported by conductor Giuseppe Pietraroia’s fine direction that emphasized the heightened comic drama of the artists and produced excellent moments of music. The chorus of extras who changed costumes, who ran around trying to get their hair cut by Figaro, the cheeky foppish barber and stylist of the film crew, sung by Baritone Joshua Hopkins, created an amusing performance. Also film-like with gangster undertones were the two sinister body guards who kept close to Rosina so that her impatient lover Almaviva (Lindoro), could not get near her as Bartolo snorted with anger in the background. Director Dennis Garnhum created numerous stage dramas operating simultaneously and eventually he transformed the whole cast into excellent actors whose timing was impeccable, whose sense of fun worked beautifully. A comedy of near epic proportions!!

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PigeonsAffamés: à la biennale de Zones théâtrales.

By Alvina Ruprecht | September 22, 2015

Photo: Théâtre du Trillium

PigeonsAffamés ..conçu par Anne Marie White, vocabulaire corporel et entrainement physique : Mylène Roi; une production du Théâtre du Trillium.

Dance /théâtre/chanson/mime/choréographie/mouvement/sonorité/lumières qui font tourner la tête et vibrer les pulsations vitales…Curieuse rencontre entre le laisser aller et la discipline parfaite, entre les rythmes d’une jeunesse confuse et effrénée- et la contrainte d’une foule de corps obéissants. l’espace ou Étienne Decroux, Brigitte Haentjens et une boite disco se rencontrent! Que dire de plus??

Présenté à la Biennale Zones théâtrales, à Ottawa. 18 -19 septembre, 2015.

“Donkey Derby” and “You Didn’t Ask To Be Here”. A Mixed Evening at the Avalon Theatre

By Alvina Ruprecht | September 12, 2015

Tess McManus : Donkey Derby. Photo Allan Mackey

Sometimes when one has no expectations at all, an evening can turn out to be a most gratifying event. This is what happened last night at the Avalon Theatre where two monologues are currently on stage. Donkey Derby with Tess McManus is nothing less than a jewel of a performance. The actress transformed herself into a troubled Irish lass, hiding in a barn alone with Percy her donkey, just before the “donkey derby” begins. The young lady has panicked and locked herself in with her dear animal. She has to talk to him (to the audience in fact) through her state of nerves because she is paralysed and unable to face the competition.

Megan Carty. Photo Allan Mackey.

The rest of the 45 minutes explains it all. Closed in that barn alone with her dear donkey she pours out all her fears, her troubling memories, the traumatic moments that marked her for life. A mass of unanswered questions well up and she finds herself, seeking answers to the many disturbing reactions that have always sent electrical charges of emotion racing through her mind, that have challenged her life choices,. The text is beautifully constructed. Little by little the psychic obstacles are unveiled: the deep seated encounters that haunt her bring her back to violent family relations, the tense political situation in Ireland that left its stain on her own relations with the world as the race becomes an image that takes over her life. .. McManus has cleverly woven multiple levels of human relations into the memories and experiences of this girl and they all come pouring out as she stands there in front of her Percy who luckily, never says a word.

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Viol( Schändung) : a magnificently choreographed production of Bothos Strauss’ reworking of Titus Andronicus. A reminder of a great evening of student theatre.

By Alvina Ruprecht | July 13, 2015

Sixteen tableaux performed by a huge cast of students including a chorus that not only speaks but also transforms itself into parts of the set and integrated symbolic forms, reveals the enormous talents of Miriam Cusson who actually choreographs as much as directs this violent ritual of human degradation, pain, cruelty and ambition. The irony emerges through a string of sado masochistic rituals of martyrization, and frenzied physical desire set off by the site of the sacrificial victim – violated, slashed and mutilated. A contemporary playful mise en abyme of a contemporary horror show where the director brings in the voyeuristic faces of the chorus peering out from the back of the set. There is the lust, the exhibitionism, the penitence…some of the most violent human instincts come crashing down on the spectator in this captivating parade of ceremonies that holds our attention every second of the evening. . The thread that runs through the performance is inherited from the Elizabethan (or Jacobean) Vengeance tragedies of Thomas Kyd a contemporary of Shakespeare; however, it owes even more to the ultimate vengeance tragedy Thyeste by the roman playwright Seneca that so intrigued Artaud

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Shadows: Margo Macdonald reviewed at an earlier Fringe in Ottawa

By Alvina Ruprecht | July 13, 2015

Shadows at the Fringe

Shadows at the Ottawa Fringe Written and acted by Margo MacDonald, Shadows is a glimpse into the life of Eva Le Gallienne, the famous British actress producer and director who made her professional life in United States. We see the important periods of her life in rapid flashbacks: her work with her repertory company, her roles in Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland as well as Hamlet and Hedda Gabler, Mainly we have an intimate look at her stormy lesbian relationship with Jo, another actress who was dedicated to Eva but Eva’s own demons get the better of both of them. . Two excellent performances by Sarah Finn as the beautiful Joe and Margo MacDonald as the tortured Eva. The play pinpoints the fact that living as a lesbian, even as a famous actress, was not easy during the first half of the 20th Century.. . MacDonald is captivating and utterly convincing as we watch her live her passion for her work and for Joe and we see her slow degeneration into alcoholism and depression. A plum role for an actress which Ms MacDonald played most beautifully.
Director Diana Fajrajsl created flashsbacks that made the shifts in time very clear, transforming a gas explosion into what looked like a theatrical stage effect so the whole play became a performance within a performance, pinpointing the very nature of Le Gallienne’s life. This is very intelligent and sensitive directing on Fajrajsl’s part. Good set by Lynn Cox and a haunting musical background.
Shadows is the best show Ive seen yet in the Fringe. Be warned. This is not a comedy. Its serious theatre..Plays at the Leonard Beaulne Studio
Alvina Ruprecht Ottawa, June 2010

The Comedy of Errors in the park: wigs, costumes and mayhem steal the show.

By Alvina Ruprecht | July 7, 2015

Photo. Andrew Alexander

Our raging Company of Fools is back for another summer of theatrical mayhem, turning the Bard’s work into the most unexpected of romps in the park. The Comedy of Errors is Shakespeare’s earliest play, according to many historians although the existence of the Folio does not necessarily indicate the original existence of the play itself, since performances were not always recorded in the 16^th Century . Shakespearean scholars tell us that two plots taken very likely from the original Latin version of Plautus’ most popular plays Menaechmi and Amphitruo are at the origin of this romantic tale of separation and reconciliation of Shakespeare’s Greek family.

As well, a 1938 version of the story became a Musical comedy , The Boys from Syracus.. However the Company of Fools, in their wisdom, shows us that in fact, the coloured and madcap visual world of Dr Seuss as well as the story of “Where’s Wally”, are essential sources of their performance.

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The Pirates of Penzance: A campy musical comedy performance at the Springer Theatre that has its fun moments!

By Alvina Ruprecht | June 29, 2015

Photo: Jay Kopinski. Mabel (Alison MacDonald) and Frederic (Adam Charles).

Whatever one does to a Gilbert and Sullivan production, the original witty book and lyrics, the music, the operatic influences, the satire and the perfectly delightful characters /caricatures, all come through in the end. The works of Gilbert and Sullivan are indestructible and that is exactly what I kept thinking through this recent matinee performance in Gananoque as the pirates and the Major General’s daughters lapsed into a wild Charleston to celebrate their collective marriage . This new contemporary version, the first really campy production of G and S I have ever seen, was apparently done to show the Americans, those “Yankee Boozers” on the other side of the river who visit the Playhouse, that we too can do the kind of musical comedy they know best. We too have our own G and S or Gin and Soda style of stage fun.That was what we learned during the prologue to the show which preceded the overture. .

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