Category: Theatre in Ottawa and the region

Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy of… the beginning of a most important dialogue initiated by this striking and moving staging of rage!

Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy of… the beginning of a most important dialogue initiated by this striking and moving staging of rage!

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Sal Capone: The  Lamentable Tragedy of ….Letitia Brookes, Tristan D. Lalla, Kim Villagante. Photo thanks to Urban Ink and the NAC.

This docu-drama or docu-fiction, a form of musical theatre  that ties together reality and fiction  inspired by real life tragedies , concerns  events that took place  in Montreal  (the death of an unarmed Freddy Villanueva in 2008)  and  the shooting of  unarmed Trayvon Martin in Florida  (2013)  which  set off the “Black Lives Matter” movement in the US .  We are immediately drawn back to Shakespeare’s    work The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus (1623) whose ending is inspired by  Seneca’s  “Thyestes” .  The  Roman play  concerns  the horrific torture and death of  children due to the rivalry between the  twin brothers, Atreus and Thyestes .  Atreus, takes vengeance on his brother Thyestes by tricking him  into eating his own sons who have been slaughtered and served up on a plate.   The unimaginable  horror of cannibalism in this situation obviously intrigued Shakespeare who ends his version of Titus Andronicus  in a similar way . …

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Betroffenheit: An emotional spectacle which transforms the power of dance

Betroffenheit: An emotional spectacle which transforms the power of dance

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Betroffenheit   Photo Mike Burton

 Reviewed by Natasha Lomonossoff on Saturday April 7, 2018

Betroffenheit, a creation by renowned Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite and writer Jonathon Young, is at once a powerful visual and emotional spectacle. A well-executed combination of dance and theatre, the production explores the difficult subjects of trauma and addiction through searing and imaginative physical manifestations of one’s inner demons. A co-production between Pite’s (also the director) Kidd Pivot group and Young’s Electric Company Theatre, Betroffenheit has received critical acclaim since it premiered at Panamia in Toronto three years ago. Indeed, it’s a pity that it played at the Babs Asper Theatre in the NAC for only two nights (April 6 and 7 respectively), since this production is easily one of the more unique offerings in the organization’s dance program. …

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Betroffenheit :Corporeal exchange as innovative now as the work of Pina Bausch in the 1970’s

Betroffenheit :Corporeal exchange as innovative now as the work of Pina Bausch in the 1970’s

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Betroffenheit.
PhotoMichael Slobodian

Betroffenheit (consternation, a state of shock, dismay) a coproduction by  Kidd Pivot Company and the Electric Company Theatre. Written by Jonathan Young, Choreographed and Directed by Crystal Pite.

Here Betroffenheit  indicates very quickly,  a state of trauma, set off by a personal crisis that the individual, a lone young man enclosed in a hospital room, has experienced but , cannot get out of his mind. In spite of the presence of a psychiatrist, and of  individuals who seem to want to help him, the grief and the personal tragedy have possessed him deeply and we see how he can never escape their consequences no matter how hard all those around him appear to be helping  him. …

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Original production of Up to Low in June 2015

Original production of Up to Low in June 2015

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Reviewed by on    Theatre in Ottawa and the region   ,

up-to-low-21

Photo. Sarah Hoy

The Arts Court Studio was miraculously transformed by designer Brian Smith, into a semi-country space , part barn, part lakeside cottage country, part bar in a pub somewhere up in the bush of Gatineau, Pontiac County and beyond. The story is narrated by young Tommy (Lewis Wynne-Jones) who takes us from Ottawa, back to his past and all the memories of his parents, and the Irish immigrant community that existed in the early 1950s.
…

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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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Blink: A Star is born on the Ottawa Stage

Blink: A Star is born on the Ottawa Stage

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Blink, Plosive Theatre, Sophie: Gabriella Gadsby      Photo: Wayne Cuddington

 

Blink  by Phil Porter, a Plosive Theatre production

After performances in the UK, New York, all through Europe in multiple languages and even right here in Montreal, Blink by Phil Porter is presently in Ottawa in its English Canadian premier which is quite a feat for this Plosive theatre production playing at the Gladstone.  Blink  concerns  human relations as they develop through  virtual reality in our current society where  we can no longer escape  I -phones,  smart phones, tablets, texting and all forms of mediated communication that have taken over interpersonal exchange.  Paradoxically  however,  this show, which introduces us to a brilliant new actress  who has been studying and performing in UK,  leaves us  with a resounding sense of the “real-reality”  of the stage  because she incarnates her character’s physical and emotional presence so thoroughly …

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Blink: Fine characterization in a play that does not satisfy

Blink: Fine characterization in a play that does not satisfy

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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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Carried away on the crest of a wave

Carried away on the crest of a wave

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Carried away on the crest of a wave

By David Yee, directed by Kim Collier, NAC English Theatre production, to April 1

Reviewed Saturday by Lynn Saxberg, the “Ottawa Citizen

Carried away on the crest of a wave, David Yee’s ambitious play about the after-effects of the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, is a boundary-pushing piece of Canadian theatre that dispenses with tradition.

Instead of telling one heroic story about the natural disaster that claimed more than 200,000 lives, it tells nine stories, each featuring decidedly non-heroic characters in different parts of the world.

As staged by the National Arts Centre’s English theatre department, the new version of the play consists of a series of nine vignettes, evidently one less than its Tarragon Theatre debut in Toronto three years ago. Although tightened up, it still has a running time of two-and-a-half hours, including intermission, and there’s a lot to pack in.

Each vignette features unrelated characters in different settings, their locations and dates indicated on a helpful timeline that runs across the front of the stage……

see   http://ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/local-arts/theatre-review-carried-away-on-the-crest-of-a-wave

 

 

Arsenic and Old Lace:A highly entertaining evening at Kanata Theatre

Arsenic and Old Lace:A highly entertaining evening at Kanata Theatre

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Arsenic and Old Lace Photo Wendy Wagner

 

 

Arsenic and Old Lace By Joseph Kesselring; Kanata Theatre
Directed by Jim Clarke

Judging from the packed houses and the enthusiastic audience response, the Kanata Theatre production of Joseph Kesselring’s dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace has been unaffected by another local company (Ottawa Little Theatre) mounting the show earlier in the same season. …

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The Illusionists amazes, entertains and dazzles

The Illusionists amazes, entertains and dazzles

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The Illusionists, Broadway Across Canada

The show bursts onto the stage with lights flashing, smoke, mirrors and a large video screen proclaiming that the spectacle of The Illusionists is beginning.

Las Vegas style entertainment, particularly when emcee/comedian/magician Jeff Hobson is on stage, the aim is to dazzle as well as to entertain. Outfitted in Liberace-type costumes, he uses somewhat off-colour humour to maintain the show’s momentum. But he certainly contributes a fair amount of sparkle. …

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