Category: Theatre in Ottawa and the region

Oléanna au Gladstone Theatre. Un rituel d’autodestruction mutuelle.

Oléanna au Gladstone Theatre. Un rituel d’autodestruction mutuelle.

Créée en 1992  cette œuvre, de l’auteur  américain David Mamet,  a donné  naissance à un événement scénique d’une grande importance qui, malgré son ambivalence irritante  semble annoncer bien avant son temps, les conflits inspirés du mouvement ‘balance ton porc’  en Europe, (#Metoo en Amérique).    On pourrait même parler  d’une œuvre visionnaire qui prévoyait  la rage, la fascination, la haine et la soif de vengeance, qui devaient détruire des réputations  masculines  quelques années plus tard,  en conférant aux femmes le pouvoir de se libérer  par la moindre dénonciation même si elle n’était pas toujours fondée.

La figure du producteur américain Harvey Weinstein, celui qui a  exploité honteusement des  femmes dans le milieu cinématographique  américain devient  l’arrière-plan de La pièce   Oleanna.  Il fut incarné dans la presse française  un certain DSK qui  avait aussi  horrifié les lecteurs féminins ( 2013) lorsque les révélations outrageuses  sur son comportement ont paru dans la presse française et américaine. On a alors compris l’étendu du phénomène dans le monde entier  même si la prise de position de Mamet est difficile à suivre parce Mamet mèt en valeur l’ambiguïté des situations entre   interlocuteurs  masculins et féminins,

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Trace at the GCTC: play effictively traces impact of identity and family through time.

Trace at the GCTC: play effictively traces impact of identity and family through time.

Jeff Ho wrote and stars in trace. “We are women who do what must be done.”So says the cigarette-puffing, mahjong-addicted great-grandmother in Jeff Ho’s one-man play trace, now at the NAC.  The fallout of doing what you must do, especially in fraught circumstances, is the subject of Ho’s taut, chamber piece about three generations of women in his family.

The nimble Ho plays his sharp-tongued great-grandmother, his icy grandmother and his hard-assed mother on a bare of any set except two pianos, which face each other. A scattering of items – lit cigarettes which appear in the great-grandmother’s fingers seemingly from nowhere, a few ashtrays, some sheet music, the clothes on the performer’s back – are the only props.

From this spare assembly of materials and a rich if occasionally confusing script, Ho fashions a textured world in which acute survival instincts, emotional defensiveness and a particularly tough form of love allow the three women to single-handedly raise their families as they struggle for a better life.

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Oleanna, a visionary play that is clearly still relevant today.

Oleanna, a visionary play that is clearly still relevant today.

 

photo Alexandra Isabelle.   Oleanna with  Madeleine  Jullian and Guy Buller

David Mamet’s exceptional  talent as a playwright, as a creator of film scenarios and producer of films, is fueled by a deep-seated anger against corruption in the US, inspired and even fascinated by  all manner of falsehood such as we saw in the Hollywood drama Speed the plow– at the Gladstone Theatre in 2011 starring  John Muggleton, directed by Teri Loretto. http://capitalcriticscircle.com/?s=speed+the+plow+gladstone.  First produced in 1988 with Madonna playing the single feminine role, that play lost none of its bite   to put it mildly –  its  male capitalist energy, and the power of its dialogue that shot back and forth as though the actors were riddling each other with machine gun spray. 

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The Savannah Sipping Society: Lighthearted production of a fun play

The Savannah Sipping Society: Lighthearted production of a fun play

Photo courtesy of: Linden House Theatre Company

Savannah Sipping Society is a story about four lonely women who, in the midst of their personal life crises discover the value of friendship, by mere chance. Although the theme might sound stereotypical, and its TV sitcom style offers no novelty, the play is hilariously funny and entertaining – just the thing for the end of a tiring week.

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Oleanna’s take on sexual harassment holds up well

Oleanna’s take on sexual harassment holds up well

A scene from Oleanna with Madeleine Julian as Carol and Guy Buller as John. Photo: Erika Scrivens

Oleanna, David Mamet’s then-startling play about sexual harassment and power dynamics, debuted in 1992. So much has happened since then — including, here in Ottawa, allegations of harassment against a city councillor and a former federal senator — that one books a ticket for the current SevenThirty production of Mamet’s play at The Gladstone wondering if the show is going to hold up.

It does. In spades.

The production, directed by John P. Kelly, does get off to a sluggish start as we watch a pedantic professor of education named John (Guy Buller) and Carol, a vulnerable student played by Madeleine Julian, circle around Carol’s inability to understand what her professor is going on about in class.

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Oleanna: Seventhirty Productions excellent take on flawed script

Oleanna: Seventhirty Productions excellent take on flawed script

Image: Seventhirty Productions

David Mamet’s play Oleanna is about the power struggle between a university professor and one of his female students who accuses him of sexual harassment. It came out around the time of Anita Hill’s testimony against U.S. Supreme Court Nominee Clarence Thomas and the themes still ring true. The early 90s had Anita Hill and the 2010s have the #MeToo movement, proving these problems are, unfortunately, still very relevant. Today, there is a push to hold those in power to task for their predatory behaviour, and political correctness is at the forefront of discussion. It is no surprise that a play centring around power and submission and who has the right to occupy what position, is fiercely relevant and needed today. I’m just not sure Oleanna is or should be that play.

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Old Stock: a Refugee Love Story, an Exploration of Resilience.

Old Stock: a Refugee Love Story, an Exploration of Resilience.

 

 

Photo: Stoo Metz Photography. Old Stock with Ben Caplan

By Kennedy Fiorella, a student in the theatre criticism class of Yana Meerzon

Lived experiences provide a foundation for the creation of theatre which is deeply personal, and far-reaching, allowing all types of audiences some ability to connect with what is onstage. In Hannah Moscovitch’s Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story, she carefully examines her own family’s history of immigration while creating an inclusive story of fear, acceptance, and hope. Through intricate weaving of emotionally harrowing scenes and energetic, enchanting musical performances, Old Stockdelivers an evening of captivating exploration that encapsulates the resilience of the settler experience in Canada while shedding light on the horrors of the past.

Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story, is more then meets the title. Based on the true story of Moscovitch’s paternal great-grandparents, the play centers on Jewish-Romanian immigrants, Chaya(Mary Fay Coady), who travels with her family, and Chaim(Eric Da Costa), who travels alone, as they each flee their native Romania to escape the pogroms and meet in Halifax in 1908. They meet again once settled in Montreal, where  Chaim proposes that they pursue a happy life together, a difficult task, due to each of them holding onto traumatic memories and snapshots of their former homeland.

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GCTC’s Bang Bang a fast-paced, funny satire

GCTC’s Bang Bang a fast-paced, funny satire

You think you have a handle on the messy business of appropriation? Then you haven’t seen Kat Sandler’s quick-witted Bang Bang, now at the Great Canadian Theatre Company in a solid homegrown production.

Consider this: Sandler, a white playwright with a taste for nuance, has written a play in which an obtuse white playwright with a taste for social justice has written a play inspired by a real-life (well, real-life within Sandler’s play) shooting of a young black man by a black female police officer.

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GCTC: ‘Bang Bang’ a strong metatheatrical start to the GCTC season

GCTC: ‘Bang Bang’ a strong metatheatrical start to the GCTC season

Bang Bang Photo Andrew Alexander

Theatre, by its very nature, breeds more theatre. An interdisciplinary blend of space and of time, theatre-making is unique in its ability to transcend the boundaries of taste that might haunt other artistic disciplines; as such, it is able to tackle more concepts through more stylistic avenues than, say, a song or a painting. Bang Bang by Kat Sandler, presented by the Great Canadian Theatre Company, is singularly self-aware in its exploration of this idea of metatheatre; it anticipates its audience, its discourse, and the contextual parameters to which we as theatregoers have become accustomed, and is quick to defend itself from potential backlash. Bang Bang is a strong start to GCTC’s season in terms of the conversations it starts, and sets a promising standard for future GCTC performances.

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Welcome to my Underworld: collective creation compellingly articulates the need for empathy

Welcome to my Underworld: collective creation compellingly articulates the need for empathy

Dramaturged and directed by native Kingston and award winning  playwright Judith Thompson, the collective creation Welcome to my Underworld consists of nine character pieces based on the performers’ real life experiences. These performers, representing a diversity of abilities and backgrounds, articulate the struggles their characters undergo on account of their identity or state of life. The artistic goal of this production is informed by its affiliation with RARE theatre, an endeavour founded by Thompson, whose mission is to serve “communities that have expressed a need not only to be recognized, but to effect, systemic radical change through the art of theatre.” While one piece was excluded on account of a performer’s illness on the night I went, the show was no less effective in getting this central message across, through the compelling scenes enacted by the rest of the performers. In this regard, Theatre Kingston has chosen a powerful and provocative production to open their 2019-20 season.  

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