Author: Jamie Portman

Jamie Portman has distinguished himself as one of the finest theatre critics in the country. He is presently a free lance critic , periodically writing reviews for theatre in Canada and in England for the Capitalcriticscircle and Postmedia-News (formerly CanWest). Jamie makes his home in Kanata.
Theatre Kraken’s Cry-Baby triumphs over its material

Theatre Kraken’s Cry-Baby triumphs over its material

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

If you  you lower your defences, Theatre Kraken’s production of Cry-Baby is capable of providing you with an uproariously enjoyable time at the Gladstone Theatre.

This is less due to the material — an uneven stage musical derived from John Waters’s 1950’s  movie starring Johnny Depp —  than to the spirited ensemble work of a 19-member cast and the sturdy contribution of a six-piece band under Chris  Lucas.

Only the most dedicated sourpuss would be able to resist the trashy pleasures afforded by this cheeky reworking of one of the most durable themes in dramatic literature — the one where the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks falls for the good girl from a distinctly tony neighbourhood. In this instance we’re have1950s Baltimore and the breakdown in class taboos that occurs when swaggering,  misunderstood delinquent Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker encounters quintessential good girl Allison Vernon-Williams. Don’t, however, expect this story to unfold within a normal dramatic framework. …

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Sal Capone at the NAC suffers from communication problems

Sal Capone at the NAC suffers from communication problems

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Omari Newton: Slam poet, Award winning writer, Photo: https://www.digitalhumanlibrary.org/4031-2/

Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy of …By Omari Newton

Directed by Diane Roberts. NAC English Theatre— a  Boldskool production with Holding space productions

It’s only reasonable that anyone with a genuine social conscience might be driven to embrace the idea of a stage piece driven by the truth that black lives do — really do — matter.

But it might be stretching matters somewhat to assert that the current offering in the NAC Studio — Sal Capone: The Lamentable tragedy of —  is really injecting any fresh insights into the conversation. On the other hand, it’s rather difficult to know for certain.

What this production of Montreal playwright Omari Newton’s 2013 drama does provide are moments of bold theatricality and a rhythmic insistence that can easily become seductive. And there is no doubt that it is fuelled by anger — anger arising from the real-life 2008 shooting of an unarmed black teenager by the Montreal police. …

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Blink: an unblinking look at the pitfalls of electronic romance

Blink: an unblinking look at the pitfalls of electronic romance

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Photo: Wayne Waddington. Blink Gabriella Gadsby and David Whiteley

 

 

Blink by Phil Porter,  A Plosive production  Directed by Teri Loretto-Valentik

Back in another era, dramatist Harold Pinter used to contend that his often enigmatic plays were really about the breakdown of communications between human beings.

But that was well before the dawning of a new electronic age, before the advent of smartphones and digital cameras, Twitter and Facebook.

A play like Phil Porter’s Blink wouldn’t have been conceivable a couple of decades ago. Its vision of the way people choose to communicate would have seemed the stuff of science fiction. Yet the piece now on view in an excellent production at the Gladstone is scarcely a celebration of the social media and the way in which it brings people closer together. As it reaches its gentle close, it reveals a sad and rueful twist in its tail. …

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The NAC comes up trumps with carried away

The NAC comes up trumps with carried away

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Photo: David Hou

 

carried away on the crest of a wave By David Yee, Directed by Kim Collier. An NAC English Theatre Production to April 1

Again and again, the stage of the NAC Theatre takes on an eerie beauty — one that is often not quite of this world yet stays anchored to a heartbreaking reality.

That reality is the 2004 earthquake and tsunami that killed a quarter of a million people in the area of the Indian ocean. A key thread running through David Yee’s compelling play — “carried away on the crest of a wave” —  suggests not just aftershocks around the world but an existential crisis that occurred in the lives of those left behind to mourn the loss of those they cared about. It’s also about a loss of faith — in one key episode , a matter-of-fact Muslim engineer demolishes a Roman Catholic priest’s fervent belief that it was an act of God that saved his basilica and congregation from destruction. Mythology also surfaces:  is it really pure fantasy to suggest, as one character does, that Planet Earth sits on the back of a turtle? …

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Phoenix drops the ball with Stage Kiss

Phoenix drops the ball with Stage Kiss

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Stage Kiss, poster from Phoenix Players

Stage Kiss by Sarah Ruhl, Phoenix Players, Directed by André Dimitrijevic and Rachel Worton, Gladstone Theatre

If Sarah Ruhl’s occasionally funny comedy, Stage Kiss, is to work in performance, it needs more than the decidedly inexpert treatment meted out to it by Ottawa’s Phoenix Players.

To be sure, there’s at least potential in Ruhl’s quirky reworking of the play-with-a-play convention. A new stage piece is in rehearsal and two former lovers who haven’t seen each other for 20 years have been cast in the lead roles. Kissing on stage reignites their passion — or does it, really? Perhaps it’s mere illusion, like the play and production that have triggered it. Who knows? …

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Ottawa Little Theatre’s Streetcar yields some outstanding moments

Ottawa Little Theatre’s Streetcar yields some outstanding moments

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Streetcar Named Desire Photo, Maria Vartanova
Stanley (Dan DeMarbre)  and Blanche (Laura Hall)

 

 

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Directed by Sarah Hearn. OLTplays to April 7

In some ways, A Streetcar Named Desire is more of a minefield than it was when playwright Tennessee Williams unveiled it to the world 71 years ago.

Back then it jolted audiences wth its sexual candour and revelation of unsettling undercurrents in the way human beings treat each other. But today, we may be uncomfortably conscious that the play also seems to be telling us to be more accepting of the relationship between Stanley Kowalski and pregnant wife Stella — a relationship prone to outbursts of domestic violence. …

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A Night in November: Pierre Brault’s current Gladstone show is not to be missed!

A Night in November: Pierre Brault’s current Gladstone show is not to be missed!

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A Night in November
Photo: from the Ottawa Citizen

We’re drawn into a culture in which a Protestant welfare clerk named Kenneth Norman McCallister chortles with glee when he secures a coveted membership in a Belfast golf club ahead of his boss — a Roman Catholic named Jerry who probably would never be allowed to join anyway.

It’s a culture in which Kenneth takes pleasure in humiliating those claimants who come to his counter and prove to be of the wrong religion. And even though he’s bored and resentful of a stifling home life, he shares the religious bigotry of his house-proud wife and their friends …

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Toto Too examines the politics of the Aids crisis

Toto Too examines the politics of the Aids crisis

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The Normal Heart
Photo: Maria Vartanova

The Normal Heart by  Larry Kramer, a Toto Too Production. Directed by Jim McNabb and Shaun Toohey

Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart is a play fuelled by anger.

Anger at the political, medical and media establishment of the day for its reluctance to accept the reality of a mounting AIDS epidemic.

Back in 1985, Kramer made enemies on all sides with a play that is an only slightly fictionalized account of his real-life efforts in New York City to awaken the prevailing culture — including a gay, closeted mayor —  to the reality of the frightening plague enveloping it. And because it takes no prisoners in its indictment, it remains perhaps the most unsettling play to emerge from the AIDS era

Kramer’s dramatic alter ego in the play is an outspoken crusader named Ned Weeks — and Shaun Toohey’s performance in this role supplies ample reason to take in TotoToo Theatre’s sometimes uneven revival of a seminal late 20th Century stage classic. …

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Dead Accounts: this dark at times jarring comedy moves swiftly under Geoff Gruson’s direction

Dead Accounts: this dark at times jarring comedy moves swiftly under Geoff Gruson’s direction

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Dead Accounts. Photo. Maria Vartanova

Dead Accounts by Theresa Gruson, An Ottawa Little Theatre production directed by Geoff Gruson

If someone were to comb through the annals of theatre in search of truly irritating characters, Theresa Rebeck’s play, Dead Accounts, would provide a prize specimen.

The name of the guy is Jack and in Ottawa Little Theatre’s current production he’s been brought to manic, over-the-top life by cast member Phillip Merriman. …

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Kanata Theatre comes up trumps with Sleuth

Kanata Theatre comes up trumps with Sleuth

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Sleuth, Poster of the Kanata Theatre production.

 

By Anthony Shaffer, a Kanata Theatre production,   directed by Beverley Brooks

There’s more than one reason for seeing Kanata Theatre’s revival of Sleuth.

The first is Dale MacEachern’s robust performance as the scheming Andrew Wyke, a flamboyant crime novelist with a deadly penchant for game playing.

The second is provided by Jarrod Chambers as the hapless victim of this gamesmanship, a guy named Milo Tindle who’s been messing about with Andrew’s wife and ends up being drawn into an infernal web as a result. …

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