Category: Theatre in Canada

Acting Legend Martha Henry Triumphs as Prospero at Stratford

Acting Legend Martha Henry Triumphs as Prospero at Stratford

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The Tempest. Stratford Festival, Photo David Hou, Marthy Henry as Prospero.

 

STRATFORD — We find ourselves immediately plunged into the opening shipwreck scene: sails flapping and breaking, winds shrieking through the darkness, frantic crew members shouting at each other — and, as always in productions of The Tempest, their words are pretty much unintelligible.

But Shakespeare’s lines don’t matter that much at this point, so we can simply sit back and enjoy the Stratford Festival’s formidable resources being put to work. Unfettered theatricality holds no fears for director Antoni Cimolino, and here he has some sterling collaborators — set and costume designer Bretta Gerecke, lighting wizard Michael Walton and sound designer Thomas Ryder Payne. …

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the Cirque du Soleil redefines its space and becomes contemporary theatre!

the Cirque du Soleil redefines its space and becomes contemporary theatre!

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Corteo. Photo courtesy of the Cirque du Soleil.

 

Le Cirque du Soleil is back in Ottawa, this time with a show called Corteo already seen by 8 million people,  this time not in a tent but remounted in the huge arena of the Canadian Tire Centre a space which entirely changes the typical circus format, one of the trademarks of the Cirque.

The arena with sweeping richly decorated curtains and dazzling chandeliers (not all theatrical illusions of course) that slice the arena in half and create a two sided proscenium arch with audience sitting on both sides, is  transformed into several extraordinary landmarks of European performance. …

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Chekhov surfaces in the Okanagan in a sterling Shaw Festival premiere

Chekhov surfaces in the Okanagan in a sterling Shaw Festival premiere

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The Orchard, Photo Emily Cooper..

 

 

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ont. —  Sarena Parmar’s new play, The Orchard, deserves to be met on its own quietly compelling terms.

We’re back in the 1970s, in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. And we’re plunged into the very real crisis confronting a Punjabi-Sikh family on the verge of losing their home. Correction: not just their home but also their orchard — and its loss will not 0nly be a material one but an assault on this family’s very identity. …

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Stratford’s new play about the Bronte sisters disappoints, salvaged only by the performances

Stratford’s new play about the Bronte sisters disappoints, salvaged only by the performances

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Photo: Hilary Gauld Camilleri
From left: Andrea Rankin as Anne Brontë, Beryl Bain as Charlotte Brontë and Jessica B. Hill as Emily Brontë in Brontë: The World Without. Photography by Hilary Gauld Camilleri.

 

Stratford. — It’s only fair to emphasize that the Stratford Festival’s world premiere of Bronte: The World Without is at least partially salvaged by three sterling performances.

So kudos are in order for the collective effort of Beryl Bain, Jessica B. Hill and Andrea Rankin in trying to draw us into the 19th Century world of the three Bronte sisters — Charlotte, Emily and Anne. …

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The Shaw Festival misfires with The Baroness and the Pig

The Shaw Festival misfires with The Baroness and the Pig

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The Baroness and the Pig  Photo David Cooper   Yanna McIntosh(left of photo) ,  Julia Course

Niagara-on-the-Lake, On. —   The scene does offer some amusement. A benevolent Baroness has embarked on a key initiative in her Rousseau-inspired mission to prove she can create a useful maidservant out of a gibbering, feral girl who has essentially grown up among pigs.

The Baroness, portrayed with kindly but steely resolve by Yanna McIntosh, an actress whom we always want to watch, is trying to teach Emily the correct etiquette for answering the doorbell and greeting the new arrival with a silver tray on which a visitor’s card must be deposited. …

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O’Flaherty V.C. The Shaw Festival stumbles with its namesake’s satirical take on the First World War

O’Flaherty V.C. The Shaw Festival stumbles with its namesake’s satirical take on the First World War

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Shaw Festival :  O’Flaherty V.C. Photo:  Emily Cooper

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ont. — It’s characteristic of the Shaw Festival’s new artistic regime that this summer’s lunchtime theatre offering begins with cast members being themselves  — by treating the audience to a mini-concert of Irish balladry. One of them strums a guitar, another presides at the piano, and nationalistic numbers like Foggy Dew are sung with appropriate fervor.

There’s also a bit of conversational back and forth with the audience, in deference to current artistic director Tim Carroll’s love for what he calls “two-way theatre” But eventually, the Canadian accents are dropped and the four performers submerge themselves in matters Irish as viewed through the sardonic prism of George Bernard Shaw more than a century ago. …

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Stratford’s To Kill A Mockingbird unveils an intriguing Atticus Finch.

Stratford’s To Kill A Mockingbird unveils an intriguing Atticus Finch.

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To Kill a Mockingbird. Photo David Hou

 

 

STRATFORD, Ont. —   It didn’t seem such a great idea 11 years ago when the Stratford Festival first put To Kill A Mockingbird on stage. Back then,Christopher Sergel’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s beloved 1960 novel seemed serviceable and little more  — and the festival’s 2018 remounting gives no reason for altering that verdict.

The script’s Hallmark Playhouse efficiency scarcely justifies its presence in a playbill that should be driven by higher standards. As with many of the festival’s previous involvements with mediocre stage versions of popular novels, its necessity seems questionable. …

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Stratford triumphs with The Music Man

Stratford triumphs with The Music Man

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Daren A. Herbert (centre) as Harold Hill with members of the company.
Photo Cylla van Tiedemann
The Music Man.

STRATFORD, Ontario — You start having a good feeling about the Stratford Festival’s latest revival of The Music Man from the very beginning.

That‘s because of how brilliantly it brings off that audacious opening scene on a train bound for River City, Iowa, in 1912. It’s a guy setting  — a lot of traveling salesmen here — and they can’t stop talking and attempting bits of one-upmanship with each other. But it’s no normal conversation — no music, just snippets of dialogue snapping back and forth to the jiggling rhythms of the passenger car and reaching an almost fugal complexity. …

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Reviews in from Stratford. Stratford’s Ideal Husband sustained by solid performances

Reviews in from Stratford. Stratford’s Ideal Husband sustained by solid performances

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Sophia Walker (left) as ady Gertrude Chiltern and Bahareh Yaraghi as Mrs. Laura Cheveley in An Ideal Husband. Photography by Emily Cooper.

Perhaps it was novelist Henry James’ own frustrated playwriting ambitions that were jealously at play when he attended a peformance of Oscar Wilde’s  An Ideal Husband more that 120 year ago and delivered an appalled verdict. The ever-fastidious James considered Wilde’s new stage piece “so helpless, so crude, so bad, so clumsy, so feeble, so vulgar” that he couldn’t imagine any audience enjoying it. …

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Foster on aging: amusing but often tasteless

Foster on aging: amusing but often tasteless

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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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