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

Weak play cradles some good performances

By Iris Winston | February 4, 2016

Three strong performances and an attractive set do not make up for a weak play weighed down with exposition.

Leslie Sands’ 1983 “psychological mystery” Cat’s Cradle is slow moving mainly because the lengthy back story is the key to the small amount of action that occurs on stage.

Set in the residents’ lounge of an English country inn, it is the eve of local resident Sarah Fulton’s wedding. A shadow hangs over the happy occasion when Detective Inspector Jack Frost appears, determined to clear up his last unsolved case before he retires: the kidnapping/murder of Sarah’s baby brother 12 years earlier. The second part of the mystery is why the family and friends of the victim are so hostile to Frost and so determined to preserve the secrets behind the crime.

At first, Cat’s Cradle (the title is a reference to a child’s game of creating changing three-dimensional thread patterns) seems carefully constructed to explain each character’s behaviour. But there are some inconsistencies, particularly in the bride’s reactions. It is also hard to accept that almost everyone can be bought off. …

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Hosanna: a powerful and touching production from TotoToo theatre

By Iris Winston | January 24, 2016

Photo. Maria Vartanova

When Hosanna by Michel Tremblay first appeared in French in 1973, it was often considered a metaphor for Quebec’s search for identity during the Quiet Revolution. Today, some 43 years after its explosive debut, it is more likely to be viewed as the gay equivalent of the rocky relationship between George and Martha (played by Elizabeth Taylor) in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

The play has a similar intensity and similar expressions of cruelty and, ultimately, of an enduring love that transcends the bitterness and squalor of daily life. Hosanna offers a more hopeful ending, but both plays deal with stripping away pretence and the layers of falsehood to come to a core of truth.

In the TotoToo Theatre production of Hosanna, directed by Jim McNabb, Barry Daley, in the title role, and John Collins as his biker/stud partner capture every emotion and connection in their fine and well-contrasted performances.

Daley, as the flamboyant, grotesquely made-up drag queen in his intentionally tawdry Cleopatra gear, and Collins, more subtle and withdrawn, in leather jacket, boots and jeans, are a terrific team — as they were in a previous TotoToo production, Confessions of a Mad Drag Queen.

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Production and performance light Matchstick’s fire at the GCTC.

By Iris Winston | January 23, 2016

Photo: Electric Umbrella Images

The first incarnation of this fairytale with a difference was primarily a love story that turned into a depiction of wife abuse. The picture of the initially charming and caring suitor becoming the controller and removing his victim from familiar territory, friends and family to gain greater control by isolating her was clear.

That was the version of Matchstick presented at the Ottawa Fringe in 2013. The current expanded version shifts focus from being the fictionalized story of “the life of the wife of one of the most hated men in the world” to become steadily darker and far more direct about its historical context.

Matchstick begins as a rustic fairy story about a young girl living in “an undesirable country.” Cast out by her father and courted by assorted suitors, she is swept off her feet by a charmer from the “land of freedom and opportunity.”

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The Murder Room: Murderously Funny Spoof

By Iris Winston | January 13, 2016

Photo Maria Vartanova

Director Geoff Gruson is dead-on in keeping The Murder Room in top gear. If audiences are given time to think as they watch playwright Jack Sharkey’s send-up of the murder mystery genre unfold, they might focus on the many discrepancies and holes in the zany plot.

But, with Gruson at the helm of the Ottawa Little Theatre production of the quirky 1977 comedy, laughter and just the right level of melodrama are the order of the day.

As Mavis, the gold-digging villain of the piece, Irish O’Brien is appropriately flamboyant, faithless and fast-talking as she tries to murder her husband, Edgar, (a suave Michael McSheffrey) with the honeymoon less than a day old. McSheffrey handles his contrasting double role as the young and slightly bumbling police constable equally well. (The connection is explained, sort of….)

As the long-time housekeeper, Lottie, Kelly Fuoco is effective and funny as she emphasizes her loyalty to Edgar and his daughter, Susan, and her suspicion of Mavis, while Maryse Fernandes, as Susan, must focus on being the dimmest of Barbie types. Yet, despite her empty-headedness, she has attracted the attention of a young American millionaire (played with a strong Southern accent by Phillip David Merriman) and the pair arrives on the scene newly engaged. Rounding off the cast is Michael McCarville as the police inspector with a hidden agenda, charged with investigating Edgar’s sudden disappearance.

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The Underpants: Sternheim vs Steve Martin?

By Iris Winston | January 9, 2016

The plot (if that’s not too strong a word) of The Underpants revolves around the embarrassment of a repressed wife losing her underwear in a public place while watching the King’s parade.

Sadly, the primary embarrassment of the Theatre Kraken version of the German comedy is the poor quality of the production and some unfortunate directorial choices.

The play, as adapted from Carl Sternheim’s 1910 farce Die Hose, by actor/comedian Steve Martin, is more scatological and sophomoric in its humour than the social commentary on the German bourgeoisie of the period that seems to have been Sternheim’s intent.

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The Wizard of Oz: Emphasis is on the spectacle and technological wizardry

By Iris Winston | January 2, 2016

Photo: Keith Pattison

Like the Tin Man, this version of The Wizard of Oz has a hollow ring because its heart is missing.

The emphasis is on the spectacle and technological wizardry. Such moments as the video of the tornado that transports the heroine, Dorothy, from Kansas to the other side of the rainbow into the fairytale Land of Oz may be breathtaking for some. The broom belonging to the Wicked Witch of the West that breathes fire, dragon-style, or the image of the menacing Wizard that is more over-the-top than Dr. Who may raise a gasp of admiration once. Just once.

But the key aspect of the production should be in caring about the characters, rather than simply viewing their passage through Oz from Munchkinland, through the scary forest and the Wicked Witch’s territory to the Wizard’s castle and back again to awaken in Kansas.

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Winnie-the-Pooh: The Radio Show: strong performances by the voice actors.

By Iris Winston | December 13, 2015

Photo: William Beddoe. Lawrence Wall as the narrator.

From the 1920s through the 1940s and beyond, families regularly clustered around floor radios — the main source of electronic entertainment in pre-television days — to hear their favourite dramas. Their imaginations took flight, as the characters they heard (and saw in their minds’ eyes) transported them to new worlds.

One of the earliest of those places was the 100 Acre Wood — first presented by the BBC in a Christmas Day broadcast in 1925. The Wood was the home of Winnie the Pooh, the chief character in A.A. Milne’s classic children’s stories. (The inspiration for Pooh was the teddy bear that belonged to Christopher Robin, the author’s son, and several of the other animals who appear in the tales lived in Christopher’s toy box with the bear.)

Following its tradition of seasonal radio shows, Plosive Productions moves its version of stories of Winnie-the-Pooh and friends, adapted by David Whiteley, to North America. Eeyore the gloomy donkey, for example, is given a Southern drawl, apparently to make him sound even gloomier.

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Anne and Gilbert: A slick, attractive production and a worthy sequel to the 1965 musical Anne of Green Gables.

By Iris Winston | December 7, 2015

Photos by Barbara Gray

Now a decade after its creation, Anne and Gilbert The Musical is firmly established as not only a worthy sequel to the much loved 1965 musical Anne of Green Gables, but also as a Canadian theatre standard.

Based on Lucy Maud Montgomery’s second and third novels about the feisty red-haired orphan, Anne and Gilbert follows her adventures at Redmond (a.k.a. Dalhousie University). She makes a new friend, the wealthy Philippa, finds a new beau in Roy and continues to deny that she loves Gilbert Blythe — when everyone else knows otherwise.

Knowing how the story will end is of no importance. Anne and Gilbert is primarily a celebration of a way of life in a small island village in the early 20^th century. (Little wonder that P.E.I. tourism has set up a booth, complete with assorted Anne souvenirs, in the NAC lobby. A catchy number such as You’re Island Through and Through tempts you to take a trip to the island.)

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Suzart’s “The Music Man” spreads a glow of excitement.

By Iris Winston | December 6, 2015

Sign for the production.

The Suzart slogan of “If you can dream it, you can do it” is a partial explanation of the reason that the company is successful in mounting ambitious, large-cast musicals that aim to entertain whole families on stage and off.

In the case of Meredith Willson’s 1957 musical The Music Man, director Kraig Paul Proulx, supported by musical director Mark Allen, the always resourceful set designer Elaine McCausland and costume designer Ingrid Hunt, brings a delightful warmth to the story of con man Harold Hill.

Hill’s goal of cheating the townsfolk is tripped up by romance, while he promotes the “think system” to develop a band. Strange to tell, after a summer of dreaming it, the band members find they can do it.

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Angel Square: A place that never loses its innocence, charm and puckish humour

By Iris Winston | December 5, 2015

Photo: Barb Gray

Crossing Angel Square in Lowertown Ottawa may have been risky in the 1940s, but, as recalled by Brian Doyle in his 1984 novel and adapted for the stage by Janet Irwin, it was also a place of warm friendships and special connections.

As adapted and directed by Irwin, this delightful dramatization, depicting the daily life of Tommy a.k.a. The Shadow, his friends, enemies and assorted adults, is anchored by solving the mystery of who attacked his best friend’s father. Honest in its descriptions of rampant racism and extreme poverty, Angel Square never loses its innocence, charm and puckish humour.

Enhanced by Jock Munro’s fine visuals, the set not only evokes a radio of the era but also serves as the focal point for projections of Ottawa landmarks and silhouettes in action.

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