Author: Iris Winston

A writer, editor, reporter and theatre reviewer for more than 40 years, Iris Winston has won national and provincial awards for her fiction, non-fiction and reviews. A retired federal public servant, she has seven books in print and writes regularly for local, regional, national and international newspapers and magazines, including Variety and the Ottawa Citizen. Iris lives in Almonte.
Fine ensemble work gives Miss Shakespeare its punch

Fine ensemble work gives Miss Shakespeare its punch

 

Photo Andrew Alexander Miss Shakespeare

Book and lyrics by Tracey Power

Music co-written with Steve Charles

Three Sisters Theatre Company

Directed by Bronwyn Steinberg

It is more than 350 years since women were forbidden to perform on English stages. The ban was finally lifted after the Restoration in 1660 when King Charles II issued a patent announcing:

forasmuch as many plays formerly acted do conteine severall prophane, obscene and scurrilous passages, and the women’s parts therein have been acted by men in the habit of women, at which some have taken offense…we doe likewise permit and give leave that all the women’s parts to be acted in either of the said two companies may be performed by women…

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Kanata Theatre balances comedy and serious intent in first-class production

Kanata Theatre balances comedy and serious intent in first-class production

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

By Christopher Durang

Kanata Theatre

Directed by Jim Holmes

Take a helping of Chekhovian despair to spice the lives of three discontented siblings named after characters from the 19th-century playwright’s works. Stir in a blender and deliver a modern domestic drama with absurdist leanings.

This may not sound like the ideal starting point for a satirical comedy/serious assessment of the purpose of life, but in the hands of Christopher Durang — the incisive and controversial author of such dramas as Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All to You — his 2012 Tony award-winning Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is both funny and thought-provoking.

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Cry Baby guarantees laughter

Cry Baby guarantees laughter

 

Cry Baby Photo Maria Vartanova. Alivann Rozon as Dance Captain, Emma Woodside as Allison,  Steph Goodwin as Hatchet Face, and Abbey Flockton as Pepper.

 Cry-Baby

Book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan

Music by David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger

Based on the 1990 John Waters movie

A Theatre Kraken  production directed by  Don Fex

The opening scene features a character being wheeled around in an iron lung expressing his regret that he didn’t have his polio shot, while the ensemble prepares for theirs, in a bouncy number called The Anti-Polio Picnic.

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Up to Low via memory lane

Up to Low via memory lane

Photo: David Hou   UP to Low at the NAC

Up to Low By Brian Doyle. Adapted for the stage and directed by Janet Irwin. An NAC English Theatre production

Up to Low is a journey in several senses. As well as a tale about traveling to a place at a certain time, it is a rite of passage in growing up and, most of all, a trip through memory.

Therefore, the dramatization of Brian Doyle’s novel for young adults is bound to have the greatest appeal for local residents who share some of the memories of the time and place described in and around Low, Quebec, circa 1950.

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Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Jersey Lily : From stodgy to frothy in two acts

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Jersey Lily : From stodgy to frothy in two acts

Photo Maria Vartanova, Sherlock Holmes nd the Case of the Jersey Lily at the OLT

 

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Jersey Lily by Katie Forgette   Directed by Val Bogan. An OLT production

It is not surprising that some of the dialogue in Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Jersey Lily sounds familiar. Playwright Katie Forgette’s tongue-in-cheek look at Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective frequently borrows snippets from plays by William Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde as the mystery unfolds. These excerpts and such in-jokes as the working and final titles of Wilde’s most famous play provide some of the script’s most amusing moments.

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Snake Oil: A thought provoking show best suited for a small stage

Snake Oil: A thought provoking show best suited for a small stage

Photo: Sophie Croteau

Snake Oil
By Jayson McDonald
Black Sheep Theatre
Directed by Dave Dawson

Snake oil began as a traditional Chinese medicine, particularly effective in easing joint pain. Brought to North America by Chinese railroad workers in the 19th century, it was made from the fat of the Chinese water snake — a species not found in the West.

Seeing the medicine at work, western profiteers began manufacturing much less effective, completely fraudulent or placebo versions of a bottled wonder drug and selling it as a cure-all. Sales depended on just how convincing any oily, traveling promoter could make his marvellous medication sound.

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Gracie at the GCTC is a terrific theatrical experience.

Gracie at the GCTC is a terrific theatrical experience.

Gracie, Erica Anderson. Photo: Alexandrew Alexander

 

Gracie By Joan Macleod, directed by Eric Coates

A GCTC Production

Gracie is like many eight-year-olds. She loves the doll her new best friend has given her. She really, really wants a bike. She is sad to be moving to a new home in a strange country but is comforted by having her family around her.

From here, her life is very different from that of other children around the same age.

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Foster on aging: amusing but often tasteless

Foster on aging: amusing but often tasteless

 

Poster from the Production in Port Hope.

 Jones and Barry in the Home by Norm Foster;  a 3P Productions, Directed by Derek Ritschel

As we age, we have two choices: to make the most of the golden years or to admit defeat, viewing the time we have left as a dark tunnel leading to oblivion.

In Norm Foster’s 2015 play — number 55 from Canada’s most prolific playwright — Jonas and Barry, who meet at Gateway Gardens seniors’ residence, represent the two viewpoints.

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Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy of … shouting about hate is not always the most effective way to bring about change.

Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy of … shouting about hate is not always the most effective way to bring about change.

Tristan D. Lalla, photo Urban Ink

Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy of …By Omari Newton, directed by Diane Roberts. NAC English Theatre, a  Boldskool production with Holding space productions.

The anger and the rhythm that are the underpinning of Sal Capone are clear and compelling. But almost constant shouting and the poor enunciation of most of the cast — frequently overwhelmed by the crashing soundscape — blur detail and nuance.

The hip-hop musical by Omari Newton, updated from the 2013 original, was inspired by the police shooting of a Montreal teen, Freddy Villanueva, and the riots that followed his death.

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Blink: Fine characterization in a play that does not satisfy

Blink: Fine characterization in a play that does not satisfy

Photo: Wayne Waddington
Blink Gabriella Gadsby and David Whiteley

 

Blink by Phil Porter

Plosive Productions

Directed by Teri Loretto-Valentik 

Two people can fall in love in the blink of an eye — and they can lose the connection just as quickly. Perhaps being screened from emotion (literally and figuratively) by keeping the relationship once removed is safer.

It certainly seems so for Jonah and Sophie, the two socially isolated loners in Phil Porter’s Blink, who tell their stories directly to the audience rather than to each other.

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