Born in Bosnia and Herzegovina to a political journalist father and arts critic mother (Rajka Stevanovska) , Maja has been immersed in the performing arts since she could barely walk and learned very early on to look upon works with a critical eye. She has a Master's degree in communication and currently works for the government in her field, as well as writing theater reviews on the side.
Lucy Prebble has taken on a lot in her play Enron, about the energy giant whose name has become synonymous with systematic, paneed out corporate fraud. The play tries to cover the rise of the corporation, the characters involved in it, as well as the impact its demise had on the workers. There are raptors representing the shadow companies Enron used to unload its losses onto and there are musical numbers. Add to this bobble-head president stand-ins and you have a meandering mess of elements that fail to come together in a script that not only takes too much, but doesn’t know what it actually wants to say about its chosen theme. Director Ron Jenkins creates a slick production with some interesting elements, but he was ultimately fighting a losing battle with material that lacked substance. …
Half Life isn’t a play that provides easy answers. Indeed, it’s a play that distinctly provides very few answers to the large, often philosophical questions it poses. On the surface, it’s the tale of a burgeoning love between two nursing home residents. Scratch below the surface, though and you realize that writer John Mighton has created a work that transcends its immediate topic to deal with larger themes. It’s a play about ageing and the way our society treats its older members; it’s about memory and the bittersweet process of remembering and forgetting; and it’s about the way our own psyches and events impact our treatment of those around us. It’s a multi-layered play that requires an understanding of and empathy for not only its themes, but the human spirit. Director Jim McNabb shows he has both in his wonderfully sensitive, thoughtful adaptation for the Ottawa Little Theatre.
Half Life opens with two middle-aged divorcees meeting in the waiting room of a nursing home. Donald (played by Bryan Morris), a scientist specializing in neural research, is there to visit his frail mother, Clara (Marjory Bryce) a ritual he performs almost every day. Anna (Linda Webster) is there to sign in her father, Patrick (Dan Baran), who has of late become depressive and is an increasing danger to himself. When Clara and Patrick meet, the two are drawn to each other and both seem to remember a brief, but meaningful affair between them during the Second World War. The two become increasingly close and fall deliciously, madly in love. However, Patrick, worried about his increasingly frail mother and still reeling from the recent death of his father, is full of trepidation and refuses to consent to their marriage, which has a great effect on both involved parties. …
Ins Choi’s play, Kim’s Convenience, centres on a day in the life of a Korean-Canadian family who owns a small convenience store in a downtown Toronto neighbourhood poised on the brink of gentrification. The play is, not surprisingly, filled with inside jokes and there are even parts of the script performed in Korean. One would expect, then, that the show would work best for a smaller, very specific audience. Yet, the exact opposite has happened. Choi has managed to create a story that is so universal in its specificity in that it captures a part of everyone’s story, even if they don’t happen to be a first or second generation Korean immigrant. Critiquing theatre in Canada, I end up thinking a lot about what it means to create art that is particularly Canadian. The beauty and appeal of Kim’s Convenience is that it manages to capture the essence of Canadian identity, with all its diversity and constant flux, in a small convenience store in downtown Toronto.
We walk in on Appa’s efforts to convince Janet to take over the family business in the absence of his son, Jung (played by the playwright), who ran away from home as a teenager and ended up getting into trouble with drugs and the police. Taking over Kim’s Convenience is the last thing on Janet’s mind, who would much rather concentrate on her budding photography career.
The play’s core really is Appa, the patriarch of the family and a first generaion immigrant, played brilliantly by Paul Sun-Hyung Lee. Stalwart and, at times, endearingly and hilariously intolerant, Appa has a vast knowledge of Korean history, is proficient in martial arts, and, while he sees nothing wrong with gay or black people, he doesn’t hesitate to inform his daughter Janet (a fun and fiery Grace Lynn Kung) that a gay couple won’t steal, though lesbians and black men wearing jean jackets will. It’s a credit to Lee’s acting ability that it is so easy to follow the storyline despite his character’s sometimes hard-to-understand English. Andre Sills, who played a variety of customers and Janet’s love interest, is also brilliant and seamlessly changes from character to character, and from accent to accent. …
Norm Foster’s play, Ethan Claymore, is the heartwarming story of Ethan, a young recluse widower living in a small Canadian farming community who, with the help of a doggedly determined, meddlesome neighbour and the ghost of his recently-deceased brother, finds a meaning to life and love just in time for the holiday season. Foster’s earnestly honest writing crafts a story with depth and feeling and keeps it away from the realm of cheesy or gimmicky. The play, under John P. Kelly’s direction for the Gladstone, is simple, sweet, and without pretense. The director manages to infuse the production with the charm and warmth found in small communities and that is central to the play. The atmosphere is sometimes thrown off by the uneven acting and some of the casting choices didn’t make all that much sense. However, other than that, this is a great, feel-good holiday piece that can be enjoyed by the entire family.
Ethan Claymore (played by Tim Oberholzer), an artist at heart who moved to the community years ago to live “the simple life” has been mourning his dead wife for five years. He secludes himself and buries his head and heart into his failing egg farming business. That is, until determined, curmudgeonly neighbour Douglas (Paul Rainville) takes matters into his own hands by setting Ethan up with the new schoolteacher, Teresa (Sarah Finn). Add to this a surprise visit form his very recently deceased brother, Martin (David Drisch) to resolve deep-seated family resentment, and we see Ethan slowly open himself up to the possibilities of life and love.
John P. Kelly manages to get the pacing of the show just right. It flows along and keeps the audience’s attention throughout. There’s also a sweetness and lack of pretention to it that makes the story and characters all that much more relatedly human. The set is functional and homey and the cast uses the stage well. Particularly good were moments when Martin’s ghost, only seen by Ethan, is in the room with others. The almost a dance-like preciseness of moments mimic the pace of the play. …
When seeing Shakespeare’s works performed, we just as often go for the spectacle as for the language and poetry. We’re used to seeing multiple costume and set changes and the idea of taking away this display, especially one as seminal as Hamlet, is a great risk and can easily end up leaving the audience disconcerted and bored. Yet, this is precisely the risk actor Raoul Bhaneja and director Robert Ross Parker take in their minimalist take on the play. Bhaneja takes on the gargantuan task of performing all 17 characters in this one man show. It is a testament to both his and Parker’s skill that the production is so fresh and captivating. It is sometimes hard to differentiate the different characters, especially for those not as familiar with the play. However, this happens rarely and, overall, Bhaneja does a wonderful job transforming from one character to the next.
Bhaneja, dressed in all black on a black, empty stage, walks toward the audience, whistling and recreating the cold, blustery opening scene of the famous play. From that moment, it’s easy to get swept up in the action. Each character shines through and the production is choreographed down to the smallest detail, all to great effect. Bhaneja’s performance is mesmerizing and his delivery is fast-paced and modern, all without losing any of Shakespeare’s poetry or linguistic nuance. The team has also very wisely decided to use accents sparingly, which is refreshing and allows the audience to focus on the meaning versus just the delivery. …
Michael Healey’s “Proud” has been loudly publicized. Tarragon Theatre refused to put it on, allegedly fearing that it might bring a libel suit from Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is the main character. With this kind of background, one would expect the play, a political satire about current political events and figures, to pack quite a sharp punch. However, Healey decides to take another approach. While the play is full of funny moments, it actually presents a very balanced view of the Prime Minister. Sure, he can be shrewdly calculating and socially awkward, but he’s also shown in moments of compassion and excitement. All this paints a very honest picture of a passionate man with clear goals.
Alex Cross and His Rise to Fame is a story rife with conspiracy theories, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yet, for all this, it fails to come off as edgy or sexy. Playwright and director Franco DeCrescentis gives us the story of Richard Dick (Kenny Streule), a talentless, pathetic boy who wants to be a rich and famous superstar. The devil, seeing a chance for gain, approaches him and, soon enough, he is transformed into Alex Cross, an ultra-famous front for the devil’s intentions, which revolve around controlling the world through the Illumanti and entertainment industry. That the story isn’t very original can be forgiven – it’s an interesting concept and one that has potential. Unfortunately, the play never quite lives up to its potential. It’s too long and the acting is too uneven to make a cohesive show- it bounces from a well put-together performance to something reminiscent of a high school play.
At some parts, Third Person feels a bit like what I imagine sitting down with Descartes and arguing over the nature of self-determination would be. And I mean that in the best way possible. Brandon Wicke’s play has us situated somewhere with George (Kevin Ray), Byron (Nic Turcotte), and their tent. We never find out where they are or what they’re doing there. They are constantly tormented by a “third person,” an undefined other who writes them messages and seems to know their deepest fears and exactly how they’re going to react in response to everything it throws at them. At first, the effect seems to be most profound on Byron, the seemingly weaker one of the duo, but it soon become evident that it is actually George, who at first seems like the caretaker, that is effected the most. The third person torments him with questions of his own autonomy – how can he have any control over his actions if this other always knows exactly what actions he’s going to take? It’s a classic battle between Determinism and Indeterminism and it’s by no means the only play of its kind. Yet, the production still manages to feel fresh and bring something profound to the table. The idea of the proverbial writing on the wall is a good one, especially since Wicke decides to add in elements of humour and playfulness.
Single Black Female (SBF for short) is a two woman show that takes on the lives of two African-American middle class women, a professor and a lawyer, trying to find love in the modern world. The play touches on race, class, as well as gender issues, all wrapped in a highly entertaining show. The piece wonderfully exploits the tension and camaraderie between the two women (Letitia Brookes and Gara Nlandu). Brookes is the softer-spoken friend with a tendency to over-intellectualize things, while Nlandu is more loud and unafraid to tell it like it is. The women operate on two distinct, but complementary fields. Nlandu would benefit from taking her energy down a notch – sometimes her “acting” gets in the way of her character and can take away from the message. When you really feel a connection with her character is when she does relax and strip down her character. Having said that, she also has some of the funniest moments of the show.
Akexandria Haber and Ned Cox’s production of Cross My Heart is sweet and heartfelt. Jim Watson (a man’s man Brett Watson) is trying to sell Amor-All, a love drug, to the pharmaceutical industry. Unfortunately, Maggie Steward (a wonderfully vulnerable and sensual Paula Costain) keeps getting in his way, whether peskily reminding him that they don’t have the final approvals from Health Canada or that the results of their trials weren’t stellar. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to their wakeful selves, the two continually meet in their dreams and spend time together talking about poetry and the love that is so obviously found between them. Little by little, and after much back and forth and bickering, they come to see each other for who they really are and fall in love. The show isn’t groundbreaking – it won’t reveal and great truths and it relies pretty heavily on classic romantic comedy tropes. But these tropes are done with heart and the show never claims to be anything else. It’s an old-fashioned story that works really well set in the present age. You can’t help but root for the seemingly mismatched pair as they fumble through their companionship with something always simmering just below the surface. Watson and Costain bring lots of understated energy and passion to their roles, making their relationship, and the story, believable. The writing is strong, with some genuinely funny and endearing moments. All in all, it’s definitely worth checking out this simple love story which will have you leaving the theatre content and with an extra skip to your step.
