Capital Critics Circle, Author at Capital Critics' Circle / Le cercle des critiques de la capitale

Capital Critics Circle announces annual theatre awards

By Capital Critics Circle | November 14, 2017

Vigilante, Photo by David Cooper, Best professional production

The Capital Critics Circle today announced the winners of the nineteenth annual theatre awards for plays presented in English in the National Capital Region during the 2016-2017 season. The winners are:

Best professional production: Vigilante written, composed and directed by Jonathan Christenson, Catalyst Theatre, in association with the NAC.

Best production community: Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz, directed by Geoff Gruson, Ottawa Little Theatre

Best director professional: Esther Jun for her direction of The Last Wife …

Read More Read More

Voices From the Front: A Tender, Moving and Passionate Tribute

By Capital Critics Circle | November 10, 2017

photo courtesy of Plosive Theatre

The annual radio show at the Gladstone theatre returned to Ottawa this week. This year we were told that the radio play would be somewhat different and it was. The timing of the production coincides with the week of Remembrance Day and commemorates the centennial of the battles of Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele. Much of what is liked about this production is still there. Set designer Ivo Valentik has the familiar pieces of the radio station CGLD all there, decorated with adornments of the era tucked into the corners: A vintage cigar box and a soldier’s helmet inform us that this is war time. …

Read More Read More

The Elephant Girls – Celebrating 100 Performances

By Capital Critics Circle | November 7, 2017

The Elephant Girls turns 100!

Come see The Elephant Girls and help us celebrate 100 performances of this multi-award winning show. One Night Only!

The Elephant Girls premiered at the Ottawa Fringe Festival in 2015 where it broke box office records, won rave reviews, and all the top awards. The show has been touring in Canada and overseas ever since. Now as Margo MacDonald reaches an amazing one hundred performances, we look forward to presenting The Elephant Girls in its hometown to celebrate. Come see the show, then stay for drinks and a Q&A session with creator/performer Margo MacDonald and director Mary Ellis.

“Without doubt, they were the most notorious girl gang Britain’s ever seen.”
(Brian McDonald, Gangs of London) …

Read More Read More

Student Review: You Are Happy? at the Great Canadian Theatre Company

By Capital Critics Circle | November 7, 2017

Are You Happy — You Are Happy
Photo : Andrew Alexander

Reviewed by Kellie MacDonald in the theatre criticism class of Patrick Langston

Rope, razor blades, a bottle of pills — they’re not your typical punchlines, but this isn’t your typical comedy, either. Originally written in French by Rébecca Déraspe and translated in English by Leanna Brodie, You Are Happy leaves you with a sinking feeling in your gut that, as perfect as things seem, we, individually and collectively, are hurtling towards ruin. This absurd
dark comedy, directed by CBC alumnus Adrienne Wong, opens the Great Canadian Theatre Company’s 2017-2018 season.

…

Read More Read More

Student Review: Educating Rita at the Ottawa Little Theatre – A feminist play about growing from the inside out

By Capital Critics Circle | November 7, 2017

Reviewed by Eden Patterson in the Critcism class of P. Langston

A hairdresser walks, not into a bar, but into a university office. It’s the 80’s in Northern England. Rita (26), the hairdresser, is disappointed with her life. She longs for an education but feels the net of society’s expectations drowning her into a sea of an unhappy marriage and into the deep depths of ignorance. Frank, an old, pessimistic, student-loathing alcoholic professor finds the quick-witted and relentless Rita in his office. Over the course of many weeks, Frank guides Rita on her path to higher education and towards a final exam. However, as it is put in the show, “if you wanna change, you gotta do it from the inside.”
…

Read More Read More

PLAYWRIGHT MARCUS YOUSSEF WINS 2017 SIMINOVITCH PRIZE IN THEATRE

By Capital Critics Circle | November 7, 2017

Prize awarded Monday, November 6 at the National Arts Centre

November 6, 2017 – OTTAWA (Canada) – Playwright Marcus Youssef has been named the 2017 recipient of the Siminovitch Prize, Canada’s most prestigious prize in Theatre. This year marks the 17^th year of the Prize, which was celebrated at a ceremony today in the Fourth Stage of the National Arts Centre, hosted by Paul Sun-Hyung Lee and Anne-Marie Cadieux. The award of $100,000 is the largest theatre prize in Canada. Mr. Youssef will receive $75,000 and Christine Quintana, whom he has chosen as his protégée, will receive $25,000.

Mr Youssef was one of four talented playwrights on this year’s shortlist, which also included Evelyne de la Chenelière, Hannah Moscovitch, and Donna-Michelle St. Bernard. …

Read More Read More

Ordinary Days :Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary

By Capital Critics Circle | November 7, 2017

Ordinary Days, Photo Andrew Alexander — Photo Andrew Alexander

Some times we think our lives are pretty ordinary. Maybe they are but this insightful play reminds us that is no reason not to celebrate them. Ordinary Days playing at the GCTC focuses on 4 people in New York, but it captures the spirit of everyone that feels alone or trapped while surrounded by people. It is minimalist theatre at its best. It needs so little to create atmosphere: some stairs to create levels a few benches, chairs and you have a set. Add some light applied in just the correct way and any landscape you need is created to move a story along. In Ordinary Days at the GCTC, Seth Gerry’s set and lighting design embody this principle of creating simple perfect landscapes out of almost nothing at all. …

Read More Read More

Student review: Bent is an evocative production that finds it feet towards the end

By Capital Critics Circle | November 3, 2017

Reviewed October 18 by Natasha Lomonossoff

TotoToo Theatre’s production of Bent at the Gladstone was a laudable effort, despite a few inconsistencies that detracted from its overall impact. Director Josh Kemp’s take on Martin Sherman’s historically significant play was most successful in establishing the dark events and atmosphere that foreground it: that is, the persecution of gays in Nazi Germany. Bringing this lesser known evil to light, the play focuses on an openly gay Berliner named Max who, along with his partner Rudy, are forced to flee the city after two Nazi guards come to their apartment with an arrest warrant for a companion they picked up at a club just the previous night. The pair embark on a fruitless journey all throughout the country to escape, as they are eventually caught and placed on a train heading towards Dachau. Unimaginable brutality and suffering only follows from there. …

Read More Read More

Student review: Opening night performance of Bent

By Capital Critics Circle | November 3, 2017

Reviewed by Carly Jevcak

What starts off as a booze and drug filled night turns into hell for Max as he brings home a man wanted by the Nazis, which upends his life. The opening performance of Bent by TotoToo Theatre at the Gladstone Theatre was a harrowing experience, but that says more about the content rather than the production. After being caught by the Gestapo in 1934 Berlin for being a gay man, Max is sent to the Dachau concentration camp where the only ray of sunshine is his developing secret relationship with fellow prisoner, Horst. The men try their hardest to survive under the most trying of conditions and find ways to subvert the prying eyes of the guards.

…

Read More Read More

Student review: Bent at the Gladstone.

By Capital Critics Circle | November 3, 2017

Reviewed by Claire McCracken

Bent is a show with many warnings. The list in the program goes on and on: extreme violence, murder, rape; this is all too real for a play set in Nazi Germany. ToToToo Theatre, the only company in Ottawa that exclusively performs LGBTQ theatre, brings this Tony-award nominated play to life as best as they can. Dealing with difficult subject matter is a challenge, and director Josh Kemp deals with it in a way that avoided melodrama and told the story quite well. …

Read More Read More