Theatre in Canada Archives - Page 3 of 24 - Capital Critics' Circle / Le cercle des critiques de la capitale

Stratford suspends festival 2020

By Capital Critics Circle | April 28, 2020

Today we came to the heartbreaking conclusion that our spectacular 2020 season cannot go on as planned, and so we have put the entire season on hold while we wait for a signal from government that tells us it will be safe to move forward – for you, and for all of us. In all likelihood, that means we will have to delay any programming until next year. But if, by some miracle, we are able to open our doors sooner, we will let you know. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to share a special fall or holiday show together?

Like yours, our lives have been turned upside down. Our work has stopped, and for a charitable organization like the Stratford Festival, that means we no longer have a source of income. …

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Virtual programme of Odyssey theatre opens in May ..35th anniversary of the ODYSSEY performing season in strathcona park.

By Capital Critics Circle | April 28, 2020

Odyssey Theatre Cancels 35th Season Launches A Virtual Odyssey.

With great regret, Odyssey Theatre has made the difficult decision to cancel our Theatre Under the Stars production this summer, due to the global health crisis. We were looking forward to celebrating our 35^th anniversary performing in Strathcona Park. But the health and safety of our audiences, artists and staff is our number one priority. We hope you understand that this was a difficult but unavoidable choice.

But now for some great news! Our artists are hard at work creating some amazing theatre you can enjoy from the safety and comfort of your home. See Odyssey like never before with A Virtual Odyssey – a rich online theatrical series of podcasts, readings, webinars and workshops that offers something for everyone. …

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Odyssey theatre cancels Theatre Under the Stars and brings creative magic to the virtual stage!!!

By Capital Critics Circle | April 28, 2020

Bonds of Interest Photo Barb Gray
Arlequin (Mitchel Rose), Crispin (Ross Mullan), El Capitan (Bruce Spinney)

OTTAWA –Odyssey Theatre has made the difficult decision to cancel this summer’s Theatre Under the Stars production in Strathcona Park due to the global health crisis. Rather than going dark, Odyssey will launch A Virtual Odyssey–an innovative digital theatre series to captivateaudiences with creative and interactive online programsfor families, youth, adults and artists.“While we are disappointed not to presentour 35thseason, the safety of our audiences and artists comes first. But I am thrilled to launch an excitingonline theatre series that will bring Odyssey into the homes of our patrons,and reach new audiencesacross Canada. People can help support our artists while enjoyingOdyssey in a whole new way.” says Artistic Director Laurie Steven.

Bringing Professional Theatre Directly Into Your Home Steven, an award-winning director and playwright,along witha talented team of actors, designers and playwrights, are creatingentertaining online programs that will offer something for everyone.Anew podcast seriesis sure to enchant audiences. Odyssey’s Wondrous Talesis an 8-episode podcast where tricksters and sages, villains and heroines will transport you to far away mythic worlds. Writers and actors will perform new Canadian versions of diverse folktales from around the world. …

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Thoughts on the pandemic, confinement and the theatre community in Ottawa and the region

By Alvina Ruprecht | April 28, 2020

Corioolanus

You must have noticed that there have been no reviews lately. This of course reflects the situation in Ottawa which shows us that there are no live performances happening in the city because of confinement. However, many artsits and many theatre groups are working on virtual performances, and video tapes that reflect past performances that are being brought back to local audiences. Stratford is showing last seasons performances on a regular basis, the Gladstone has presented Pierre Brault and is no doubt preparing other on line events. Much behond Ottawa you can find performances coming in from Russia (Moscow), France, Germany and a lot of countries where professional theatres are still trying to show as much as they can from their facebooks or their own sites. Take the time to google all the theatres in the world including theatres in Canada of course and you will no doubt come across some exciting events that are often free but not always. It is important that the artists involved make a bit of money to continue their work. …

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The Assembly – NAC: In Search of a Middle Ground

By Aisling Murphy | March 2, 2020

No longer is there a “safe place” on the Canadian political spectrum; to be moderate is to be a mere bystander to fascism and anarchy, while to cling to either ideological extreme is to engage in bigotry or naïveté. Trump’s America leaves no room for a middle ground, nor does it open adequate space for level-headed debate; Trudeau’s Canada, according to Porte Parole’s unnerving verbatim play, The Assembly – Montreal, isn’t far behind. Gone, seemingly, are the days of the Canadian theatrical identity – sentimentality for its own sake, polite facades spackled over mid-left political leanings.

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Peggy’s Song: a sincere exploration of grief which asks important questions.

By Natasha Lomonossoff | January 26, 2020

Peggy’s Song, the final production of Theatre Kingston’s 2019-20 season, provides a light-hearted respite from the serious dramas shown in the fall (the socially conscious–driven Welcome to my Underworld and Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days). To be sure, there is a serious story undergirding this play by long-time writer Jim Garrard, directed by Jacob James, making it fitting with the theme of this year’s season. Yet seemed to be a less ceremonious and more relaxed event at the same time, compared to the two previous productions. I suspect that this has to do with the play’s equal blend of comedy with tragedy, which resulted many laughs being periodically elicited from the audience. …

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Cold refreshing Identity: Take de Milk, Nah?A Bold and Necessary Success at the National arts centre

By Aisling Murphy | January 20, 2020

photo Andrew Alexander

The National Arts Centre’s website calls Jivesh Parasram’s Take d Milk, Nah? a “highly-hyphenated story about the search for identity.” This is certainly the case: Parasram’s burst onto the national scene is a not-quite identity play, an Indo-Caribbean-Hindu-Canadian hour-and-a-half of reconciling experience and impact, and a nearly-incredible solo show. Take d Milk, Nah?, in its insistence on the in-between, is a landmark piece of theatre for the NAC – if not for dramaturgical finesse, then for unmistakable, commendable certainty in itself and in its own importance. …

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Well-executed Waitress hampered by poor sound

By Patrick Langston | January 13, 2020

riginally posted by Patrick Langston on Arts File. Jan 1 2020

How do you maim a perfectly good musical? Run the show through an abysmally tuned sound system in the NAC’s Southam Hall, one that, on opening night, cranked the volume but frequently made performers sound like they were singing into soup cans, distorting voices so badly that, except for a couple of quieter numbers, lyrics were incomprehensible.

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A Case for Hadestown.

By Aisling Murphy | January 6, 2020

To escape the mundanity of our own everyday.

To revel in the ephemerality of storytelling.

To imagine, to empathize, to learn, to transmit.

The reasons we still attend, enjoy, and review theatre are remarkably similar to the those for which we recycle Greek myths, even in a 2020 beyond what our predecessors could have conceptualized. We can attribute this cycle to the comfort of habit, or perhaps, more grandly, to an ideological belief in intergenerational storytelling, regardless of the tellers’ own bittersweet understanding of fate. We, for the most part, know how the myths end: Icarus loses to his pride, Achilles to his brawn, Orpheus to his crippling self-doubt. We also know that a curtain designates onstage space as sacred, that imminent dramatic action is the sensationalized product of artistic collaboration, that seemingly-alive lights have a consciousness somewhere in a small booth in the ether of a given auditorium.

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Robin Hood: the Ottawa Christmas Panto has matured into a much more substantial performance without sacrificing any of the fun!!!

By Alvina Ruprecht | January 1, 2020

An unexpected pleasure this year. The panto seems to be geared for adults as much as for young ones with nasty jabs at Doug Ford, at Brexit, at Ottawa’s problematic light rail and much more to titillate the adults .There was also an extremely naughty Nanny Annie, the ‘dame’ played by the irreplaceable Constant Bernard who is supposed to be Maid Marion’s nursemaid while flirting outrageously with certain males in the audience and launching jokes meant for fun-loving adults only!. The Brilliant panto dame, our Ninny Nanny is back in Ottawa now after an absence of 2 years. It is such a pleasure to find her still sporting that great voice which takes over the whole theatre, a stage presence that crushes everyone else and a magic that turns her whacky costume into a chef d’oeuvre of grotesque pop art à la Cirque du Soleil thanks to costume designer Lu-Anne Connell’s magical sense of humour . …

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