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.
Albumen : a living hotblooded art piece

Albumen : a living hotblooded art piece

By |
PhotoMarianne Duval

The Arts Court Theatre is the perfect intimate space for this experimental performance piece, produced as part of the TACTIC’s mainstage series .  The play, written in English by  francophone playwight, Mishka Lavigne, is  a  reflexion on the relationship between   varying artistic gazes and how they apprehend  the  exterior world.

During these discussions  the set becomes an important part of this collective  artistic  vision   as  the visual and material substance of the acting space  envelope the actors.  Thanks to the well thought-out reflection by  director Éric  Perron working with a fairly abstract text almost lacking in any stage directions, the result  of Perron’s work is impressive . He  eeks out all the possible meanings from a  text that could have remained profoundly  hermetic. …

Read More Read More

Love and Human Remains: an excellent staging gives life to a dated play.

Love and Human Remains: an excellent staging gives life to a dated play.

By |
photo Toto Too

The  title of the play (Love and Human Remains) by Brad Fraser written in 1989 and currently running at The Gladstone,  has the advantage of being brief.  However,  the  original title ,   Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love  seems closer to the themes and  content of this work that  helped expand the international  reputation of this exceptional Canadian playwrite.   Thus, one wonders why author Brad Fraser discarded the original title at our present time,  a title that brought his own   book, part gory mystery thriller,   part examination of the underlying violence implicit in the  search for  ones  identity   in a constantly fluctuating urban environment,  closer to  the novel  American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis.

…

Read More Read More

Un-countried: when the regime crumbles and the human mindset changes!!

Un-countried: when the regime crumbles and the human mindset changes!!

By |
photo Un-Countried : Jon Dickey and Michael Hanrehan
Under Development Industry Showcase, Ottawa

Written by Stéphanie Turple, directed by Kevin Orr.  The new lab O  space in the Ottawa ARt Gallery is proving to be a  perfect source of  stage creativity thanks to the transformative possibilities of the area. It is also an excellent site for students and writers in local experimental shows as well as classes for theatre practice at the U of Ottawa. We should see theatre blooming in this city because of these new possibilities..

Kevin Orr is back  with a performance he created  earlier and is now bringing to the Industry Showcase in the Lab O site where video projections, delicate sound possibilities and a highly raked audience space creates small but perfect viewing area for his  two-hander, that holds us spellbound. …

Read More Read More

Le songe d’une nuit d’été : ou le burlesque, le grotesque et l’onirique se font concurrence……

Le songe d’une nuit d’été : ou le burlesque, le grotesque et l’onirique se font concurrence……

By |

Traduction de Michelle Allen,  mise en scène d’Olivier Normand  Photo Stéphane Bourgeois

Imposer une mise en scène dominée par la présence corporelle des acrobates qui font irruption dans un paysage éclairé  de couleurs lumineuses, baigné d’une belle musique mais pris en charge par des  comédiens qui hurlent comme des forcenés (notez surtout Maude Boutin St-Pierre) , marqué  par la vision du cirque.  Voilà l’esthétique d’Olivier Normand à laquelle il faut s’ habituer.  …

Read More Read More

l’Impossible procès : Le devoir d’Histoire en Guadeloupe

l’Impossible procès : Le devoir d’Histoire en Guadeloupe

By |

 

Présentation a l’Artchipel, à Basse-Terre
Photo: Yvor Lapinard

Texte de Guy Lafages,  adaptation et mise en scène de Luc Saint-Eloy

En 1967, un événement presque anodin a eu lieu à Basse Terre, la capitale administrative du Département (D.O.M).   Le romancier Max Jeanne s’est inspiré  de cette rencontre  fortuite entre le propriétaire d’un magasin de chaussures et un cordonnier,  pour fabriquer un roman poético-réaliste (La chasse au Racoon) ponctué d’humour rabelaisien, une symbolisation de ce réel  qui avait inspiré  des réactions  violentes dans la région de Basse-terre et transformé cette confrontation en légende.  Le propriétaire du magasin avait renvoyé son chien  contre le cordonnier assis  devant son établissement et ce geste était l’étincelle qui avait  allumé  la rage  qui s’est étendu à l’ensemble du département.     …

Read More Read More

Minding Frankie : a Canadian premiere of an Irish adaptation goes straight to the heart!

Minding Frankie : a Canadian premiere of an Irish adaptation goes straight to the heart!

By |

 

Photo by Lois Siegal. Vivian Burns and Lawrence Evenchick

The narrative voices of Irish novelist and playwright Maeve Binchy that emerge in  Minding Frankie come through with great intensity and enormous emotion in this stage version of a Canadian premier directed by John P Kelly, now on at the Gladstone theater. I attended a preview which was not yet the official opening of the show but because this was the only possible moment  to see the play and as I have always admired Kelly’s work I was not going to miss it. …

Read More Read More

Ripcord : disturbingly outrageous popular theatre where comedy and tragedy intersect.

Ripcord : disturbingly outrageous popular theatre where comedy and tragedy intersect.

By |
Photo Maria Vartanova
Ripcord with Sharron McGuirl and Jane Morris

 

 

David Lindsay-Abaire in his earlier works, was a  master of television style sit-coms  and Ripcord immediately sets us on this track.    A clear-cut situation with  types who obey the personality  clues that the author sends our way right from the  beginning when  director Riley Stewart’s  lively  music captures our imagination as we picture two women of a certain age dancing gayly to a sprightly Latin American rhythm.   Needless to say,  the music immediately creates an uneasy opposition between   Andréa Vecsei’s beautiful pastel coloured warm looking room in  a seniors’ home where all seems to be snugly comfortable and loveable, and the viscious  tension burning   between the two principles of the show. …

Read More Read More

Cinderella and the Ice Slipper: The fun-filled family Panto lives up to expectations!

Cinderella and the Ice Slipper: The fun-filled family Panto lives up to expectations!

By |

Photo Dominique Gibbons. The Steppe family: L-R.  Shelley Simester, Cara Pantalone, Réjean Dinelle-Mayer.

What a moment!  Glossy Steppe (alias Réjean Dinelle-Mayer as the “Dame”) in her huge curly  purple wig,  one of the two ‘step-sisters’ tormenting Cinderella,  belted out his/her  own ferocious version of We Will Survive’ from Priscilla Queen of the Desert, just as the step -sisters  battle for the favours of the new  Prince  ‘charms’ .   Prince is  seeking  the mysterious owner of that glass slipper while  both ugly sisters choke in their drool of desperation.  Emotions run very high  because they  both want to get their hands on the handsome  business man  played by the very charming Panto newcomer  Andy Allen- McCarthy (who insists he is not a prince)  whereas the sweet and talented little Cinderella (Emilie O’Brien)  is already tucked away in the kitchen  cleaning  pots and washing the floors of the family restaurant, warbling about her  dreams with  her buddy Buttons (Brady Van Vaerenbergh).  It’s at that moment that Dinelle-Mayer reveals his true nature as a great voice of Orpheus musical theatre and for a few minutes steals the show.!!!! And such a show it was!!!

Emilie O’Brien as Cinderella.  Photo  Dominique Gibbons

 

Ph

 

…

Read More Read More

It’s a Wonderful Life: the Radio Show. From the Screen to the Stage, an Exciting Journey.

It’s a Wonderful Life: the Radio Show. From the Screen to the Stage, an Exciting Journey.

By |
poster, courtesy of the gladstone, Plosive theatre 2018

Perhaps you havent’t seen Frank Capra’s film with Jimmy Stewart in the rôle of George Bailey,! It appears regularly on Turner classic movies (TCM) these days, and provides an excellent background to this modern morality tale of raw capitalism where goodness and self sacrifice face off against greed, ruthlessness and pure evil in the town of Bedford Falls. Nevertheless, one might wonder how a film consisting of emotionally powerful images and good camera work could possibly be turned into a moving and amusing evening as an on stage radio drama based on the creative use of sound. But that is exactly what it was! …

Read More Read More

Le Cid à la Nouvelle scène: la résurgence d’un monde archaïqueue.

Le Cid à la Nouvelle scène: la résurgence d’un monde archaïqueue.

By |
Le Cid         Photo Hugo B. Lefort  

Les expériences de Théâtre-rituel réalisées en Europe, aux États-unis et en Grande Bretagne dans les années 1960-70 ont mené la création scénique très loin. Rappelons Marat Sade de Peter Brook , le Prince Constant de, Jerzy Grotowski, les expériences du Living Théâtre (Julian Beck) , et Richard Schechner. Le travail en laboratoire et le  processus de création elle-même dans le sillage des expériences psychophysiologiques des anthropologues ont permis de véritables transformations du corps humain alors que les conventions du théâtre explosaient. Ce joyeux chaos a éliminé les frontières entre toutes les pratiques artistiques que nous avions prises pour acquis.

…

Read More Read More