Author: Alvina Ruprecht

Alvina Ruprecht is professor emerita from Carleton University. She is currently adjunct professor in the Theatre Department of the University of Ottawa.She has published extensively on francophone theatres in the Caribbean and elsewhere. She was the regular theatre critic for CBC Ottawa for 30 years. She contributes regularly to www.capitalcriticscircle.com, www.scenechanges.com, www.criticalstages.org, theatredublog.unblog.fr and www.madinin-art.net.
Moshkamo- Finding Wolastoq Voice: East-coast voices tell their stories that convey their struggle to survive.

Moshkamo- Finding Wolastoq Voice: East-coast voices tell their stories that convey their struggle to survive.

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Finding Wolastoq Voice. Dancer story teller Aria Evans, Set  Andy Moro.  Photo Justin Tang

 

Mòshkamo: “ Finding  Wolastoq Voice”  reveals  the founding cosmogony of the East Coast peoples.

This  production from Theatre New Brunswick is based on a text by Natalie Sappier  (Sammaqani Cocahq -the Water Spirit),  a multi-disciplinary artist whose work  unfolds on a frontal stage – a space  in the round would have been much preferable –  within the double layers of a Malaseet circle where the young woman enters  the spiritual  world of the Tobique First Nations  to tell us her personal journey to recover her identity. …

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Moshkamo: The Unnatural and Accidental Women : the voices of the disappeared still speak to us in this immersive event.

Moshkamo: The Unnatural and Accidental Women : the voices of the disappeared still speak to us in this immersive event.

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The Unnatural and Accidental Women. Set by Andy Moro, Photo  Barbara Gray

Let’s be clear from the outset. This performance has absolutely nothing to do with Surrealism, nor is it too long. Rituals go on endlessly and repeat themselves non-stop.   Clearly this particular theatre-ritual deals with one of the most disturbing and shameful situations we have ever experienced on our collective territory:  the  murder of women from First Nations, Métis Nation,  Inuit groups.     In spite of the hearings, investigations  and apparent concerns for these lives,  no guilty party has ever been identified or punished.  These murders are treated as unsolvable mysteries,  and the women themselves are relegated to  “accidental” beings who perhaps never even existed!  But they do exist, and still exist, as Marie Clements shows us in this  powerful encounter  between her theatrical conception of their lives, and, director  Muriel Miguel’s choreography, along with a list of extremely talented  collaborators  and the voices of the disappeared who  still inhabit the natural world and are still speaking to us through these artists. …

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The Pianist of Willesden Lane : a triumphant musical journey with a strong contemporary message!!

The Pianist of Willesden Lane : a triumphant musical journey with a strong contemporary message!!

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Mona Golabek, photo Hershey Felder and presenters

The Shoah has a well defined meaning in contemporary history but clearly, choosing to produce such a work dominated by the theme of these child refugees from the victims of Nazism, highlighted by the exceptional musical talent of the woman who creates the event, is a courageous undertaking that emerges as a perfectly relevant topic in today’s reality. Given the forced displacement of multiple populations in many parts of the world, as well as the plight of Latin-American children being separated from their parents in desperate situations of survival south of our Canadian border, we are presently confronted with victims of ultra-nationalistic power-hungry collectivity’s whose short-term memories show us that they have not learned very much from the past. The Pianist of Willesden Lane is an excellent history lesson that should revive the curiosity of younger people. …

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Alegria: the Cirque du Soleil ressurects the show that defined its aesthetic

Alegria: the Cirque du Soleil ressurects the show that defined its aesthetic

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Aerialists  reunite in a most  sensual and beautiful fluttering of bodies between earth and sky    Photos thanks to Cirque du Soleil

Time has passed and even if Alegria does not capture the in depth  artistry  brought about by memory, desire and all that swirls  in a  mind returning to its past inspired by Fellini’s cinema that made Corteo so special (see below******), Alegría, created in 1994,  did define a brand new circus aesthetic that has grown with the company, especially since its work in Las Vegas. …

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The Bonds of Interest: Jacinto Benavente’s renewal of Spanish theatre (1907) ,a significant choice for this new Odyssey beginning.

The Bonds of Interest: Jacinto Benavente’s renewal of Spanish theatre (1907) ,a significant choice for this new Odyssey beginning.

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Bonds of Interest      Photo Barb Gray
Arlequin (Mitchel Rose), Crispin (Ross Mullan), El Capitan (Bruce Spinney)

The  Bonds of Interest is thought to be Jacinto Benavente’s most important play because it bridged the gap between the 19th Century Spanish melodramas, playful French inspired commercial forms of musical theatre, patriotic nationalism  and uncritical visions of Spanish Society by rejecting the bourgeois  festive theatre that hid Spain’s real problems of that period.  (See the Cambridge companion to Modern Spanish Culture) Towards the end of the Century, the war had drained Spain and left its Spanish American colonies,  Cuba and Puerto Rico in ruins.  Benavente’s play operates against a background of this devastation by transforming Spanish traditions of the stage, especially the Siglo de Oro and the Italian partially inspired by commedia classical theatre,  into a viciously critical form of theatre  that made nasty fun of the rich, that exposed the plight of the poor, that taunted the false values of those with money. …

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St Lawrence Shakespeare festival: Cyrano de Bergerac: an excellent English language adaptation saved by the strength of the lead performance.

St Lawrence Shakespeare festival: Cyrano de Bergerac: an excellent English language adaptation saved by the strength of the lead performance.

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Cyrano at the St Lawrence Shakespeare Festival  Photo Helen Mott

Cyrano de Bergerac, the character who really existed in the 17th century,  and  Edmond Rostand’s comédie dramatique, (written in 1897) based on that individual,   seem to be lighting up stages around the world especially  in a new prize-winning play written and directed by  Alexis Michalik (Edmond – 2016). This romantic adaptation  by Michalik  of Rostand’s writing process  which gives  us an intimate glance into the life of the poet and the way Rostand might have composed his own play,  recently received numerous awards in Paris.  Then the  film version (2019) has become an extraordinary hit playing in French language theatres around the world. …

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OLT’s Unnecessary Farce: You Don’t Say!!

OLT’s Unnecessary Farce: You Don’t Say!!

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Unnecessary Farce  Photo, Maria Vartanova

When an on-line  critic mentioned Noises off and Unnecessary Farce in the same sentence I really blew my top !! Especially after seeing this heavy-handed pile of badly acted nonsense at the OLT.  that has nothing to do with Michael Frayn’s wonderful   British farce that pits two performances on two sides of a set  as the actors and characters meet in the most  original rush of stage energy one could ever imagine. I’ve seen  Noises off several times and one extraordinary performance at the Kanata theatre  several years ago  almost made me choke with laughter. Unnecessary Farce was a bit of farce, a bit of vaudeville, a bit of physical comedy, something that suggested a silent film  gone wrong  with a sick Groucho Marx  that gave one the impression they were all trying much too hard. …

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Nell Gwynn: a racy 17th century introduction to the history of British performance in the feminist mode! A delight at the Gladstone theatre

Nell Gwynn: a racy 17th century introduction to the history of British performance in the feminist mode! A delight at the Gladstone theatre

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Photo Andrew Alexander
Nell Gwynn with Bronwyn Steinberg and Phillip Merriman

A British Comedy  by  Jessica Swale which won the Olivier award for best new Comedy in 2016,   is based on individuals who really existed and whose close links with present day official titles of the monarchy, caused a bit of discomfort for some recent  British productions where certain references to certain Dukes had to be changed  “out of politeness” for the royals who came to see the show in London.

Nell Gwynn, the first woman to appear on the British stage in the 17th Century, highlights the rise of women  on the  British  stage,  where Nell Gwynn’s  scandalous relationship with Charles II , who loved theatre, and declared he wanted to see women on the stage, caused many tongues to wag but provided  excellent material for this  tantalizing show,infused  with a real love for performance.   Director Crowder has caught it all. …

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The Omnibus Bill: The Realistic Trap of a Political Play

The Omnibus Bill: The Realistic Trap of a Political Play

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Omnibus Bill PHOTO Counterpoint Theatre . Jacqui du Toit as Maria

An Omnibus bill is a single  bill presented to parliament which includes many issues, often in an attempt to bury the most controversial questions in a whole mass of  proposed legislation  where everything must be approved at the same time.  In  Canada, the  1969   the Omnibus Bill passed by Pierre Trudeau’s government  was the first time Canadians had faced that challenge when  the Liberal Government of Trudeau, attempted to change the face of our country by dealing with important ethical questions as health issues.

The Bill which dealt with a multitude of practices inscribed in the criminal code such as divorce, abortion, homosexuality ,  opened the way to transform the Canadian criminal code which, according to the Minister John Turner was an outdated 19th Century document.   This play  therefore has a serious legal basis and followed through Trudeau’s desire to “keep the  state out of the bedrooms of the nation” …

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Mending Fences: a difficult Norman Foster play produces unexpected emotional depths!

Mending Fences: a difficult Norman Foster play produces unexpected emotional depths!

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Mending Fences   Teal Cochrane and Bob Lackey  Photo Maria Vartanova

Mending Fences is a most beautifully constructed play that appears to concern a  dysfunctional  family relationship dominated by an apparently angry, self centred patriarch who has given rise to a tortured young son and stubborn individuals who  will have to learn how to listen to each other to eventually resolve their situation.  As events unfold, we realize  there are deeply underlying misunderstandings, hurtful encounters, difficult memories and sad events in the past that have given rise to much pain and it is all unravelled magnificently by Norm Foster whose talent for dialogue is astounding!  Such quick wit, such razor-sharp responses and searing one-liners. He makes us laugh when we feel we should not be laughing and that is the secret to this admirable play. Plus, there is Bob Lackey as the  sullen, apparently indifferent Harry who stifles any emotional connection with a verbal jab and an unexpected reaction that shocks and surprises us.  The actor’s  impeccable timing, fast repartee, and complete sullen naturalism produces a performance that is almost stunning and suits to perfection  Foster’s  quick wit,  astounding one-liners, slip of the tongue insults and on going jokes about sex that pepper the  play, sending it into an encounter of unexpected emotional depth. This is a brilliant performance! …

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