Theatre in Ottawa and the region Archives - Page 49 of 92 - Capital Critics' Circle / Le cercle des critiques de la capitale

The Daisy Theatre: Come for the puppets, stay for the saucy social commentary

By Kat Fournier | December 4, 2016

Photo; GCTC affiche.

Knowing that this is a vaudeville style puppet show, and even knowing Ronnie Burkett’s work, there’s no preparing for what you might experience at The Daisy Theatre. Playing at the GCTC until December 18, this show may look like and feel like a delightfully nostalgic puppet show, but there’s no doubt that it will manage to subvert your expectations and leave you on the butt of a zinger or two (likely more). Fueled by Burkett’s wit and armed with a roster of 44 marionettes, there is no saying what exactly might happen on that stage.

The deal is that if we have fun, he’ll have fun. It’s an enticing enough prospect to get everyone to loosen up a little while we wonder what Burkett has in store. The first puppet sets the stage: A beautifully crafted string marionette in a floor-length gown who proceeds to tantalize the audience through a burlesque performance where she sings in a raspy voice while stripping down to her thong.

…

Read More Read More

The Three Musketeers: exciting visuals in this swashbuckling performance of the Dumas novel

By Iris Winston | December 4, 2016

Photo. Maria Vartanova

The Three Musketeers by Ken Ludwig. Adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, an OLT Production

The visuals in the latest Ottawa Little Theatre production are spectacular. The many sword fights in this athletic show are well executed. Even the flow of the set changes is very watchable.

Sadly, the script by Ken Ludwig (best known for his comedy Lend Me a Tenor) is of less interest than the production values. Yes, the play was a hit when it premiered at the Bristol Old Vic in 2006, but that does not lessen the annoying quality of the playwright’s uncertainty about whether to deliver a facetious send-up of the 19^th-century novel or to stay true to Alexandre Dumas’ adventure story — a classic that has appeared in more than 100 languages.

The basic storyline remains, following the journey of country bumpkin D’Artagnan in his quest to serve his king as a musketeer. En route, he faces duels with Athos, Porthos and Aramis — the three musketeers of the title — falls in love with Queen Anne’s favourite lady-in-waiting, Constance, saves the Queen’s honour and incurs the wrath of the powerful Cardinal Richelieu and his lieutenant Rochefort.

…

Read More Read More

The Daisy Theatre : ferocious humour fuels great theatre!!

By Alvina Ruprecht | November 30, 2016

Photo: Alejandro Santiago: Little Woody Lindon and Meyer Lemon.

Ronnie Burkett is back in Ottawa, creating havoc and palpitations as he unleashes his special brand of ferocious humour on our city. This time, our creative genius from Western Canada, has freed himself from a narrative, from a script, from a specific lineup of acts as he puts many of his performance choices in the hands of his favourite audience: menopausal ladies and gay guys!! Yes the audience is offered choices and thus, no one is spared, everyone goes through the Burkett meat grinder this time and one leaves the theatre with one’s head twirling!! Such a show!

This time he has created a theatre within his theatre, The Daisy Theatre proscenium puppet arch is set up in the middle of the stage. It features a sequence of performances by his puppet characters drawn from former shows but that appear on their own, putting on their own individual monologues that reveal their naughty secrets, the underbelly of their obsessions, their troubles and their true selves. They are cleansed of any serious narrative that turned them into characters in a play because now, they are on stage as “themselves”, that is, as manipulated by Burkett who takes advantage of the situation to confront his puppets, and ultimately to put himself in the foreground. His multiple voices, his flowing monologue, his quick and clever shifting from one situation to another as his characters tumble out nonstop is a marvel to watch and hear. He grabs the various puppets all set up backs stage, hangs over the little puppet stage, gives stage directions to the lighting people to the sound director and off he goes with no apparent prompter of any kind because there is no script as he keeps reminding us.

…

Read More Read More

Extremely Short New Play Theatre Festival. A good evening of discovery with some genuine surprises!

By Alvina Ruprecht | November 27, 2016

Photo of cast. Courtesy of John Koensgen and the Extremely Short New Play Theatre Festival

11 short plays presented one after the other , each one lasting a maximum of 10 minutes, selected out of a total of 150 from all over the continent, is a definite sign that this “Short New Play” event is catching on and enticing young writers to submit their work. Judging by what we saw opening night (Saturday Nov. 27) at the Avalon Theatre on Bank St. there are several individuals who can write for the stage and who are not at all hampered by time constraints, in fact it seems to propel their writing on. The difficulty is usually how to finish the piece and make it all tie together, or finish the evening by opening a new door to something even more exciting, distressing or disturbing!

…

Read More Read More

Empire of the Son: An important father-son portrait curiously dilluted by this production

By Alvina Ruprecht | November 26, 2016

Photo. courtesy of the NAC, English Theatre.

The Empire of the Son is a one man show that raises important questions which much contemporary theatre is asking. Questions of memory and migration, of individuals trying to define their identity by discussing their origins, or their parents origins, or the difficulties related to generational conflict, or fitting into a host society that did not always open its doors to these newcomers attempting to rid themselves of the trauma of rejection or violence suffered in the past. Such writers/performers such as Wajdi Mouawad, Mani Souleymanlou are emblematic of this but even more recently during Zones Théâtrales (Ottawa) we saw Sans Pays, by budding playwright Anna Beaupré Moulounda. She is a product of a Québécois mother and a father from the Congo, discussing growing up in Abitibi and what it meant to be an outsider. These cases are all different and they show how migration, generates multiple questions that each individual must confront.

…

Read More Read More

The Extremely Short Play Festival 2016 : At the Avalon watch for it.

By Capital Critics Circle | November 21, 2016

Programme:

War on Thugs by Brad Long
The Cold Blue Flame of Love by Brian K. Stewart
Anniversary by Ronit Rubinstein
The Paperboy Comes Before Dawn by Aaron Adair
B4U Know It by John Levine
Hitchers by Joe Purcell and Kate Danley
The Patient by James Belich
Blind Date by Christine Weems
Please Remain Seated by Gary Choy
Check-In by Ron Frankel
Necktie by John Minigan

THE ESNPF 2016 WILL TAKE PLACE AT THE AVALON STUDIO November 25, 26, 27 and December 2, 3, 4 @8 PM
Tickets $23

The Addams Family: Orpheus Stars Shine Under a Supermoon

By Capital Critics Circle | November 19, 2016

Guest critic Jim Murchison

Photo, courtesy of Orpheus Musical Theatre

The original creator of The Addams Family, Charles Addams could likely not have imagined the long lasting effect he would have on popular culture when he inked his first drawing for the New Yorker in 1938. Countless reincarnations in TV, animation and film have allowed these characters to endure into the 21^st century.

The musical version written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa is a well crafted tale of love discovered, love lost and love regained that has been a favourite theme since civilization first picked up a pen, a quill or a rock and started writing. This isn’t heavy stuff. It is quintessential entertainment, the perfect antidote for the post election blues and although the play is about an eccentric, wealthy American family living in New York there are no other frightening similarities to the first family elect. They’re a little macabre to be sure, but generally loving.

The front curtain for this production is a drop of portraits of the Addams’ framed by cobwebs. When it lifts, it reveals a gnarly old tree stage right stretching its craggy limbs over a dark gated cemetery as if ready to pluck someone up and toss them towards the gorgeous full moon.

…

Read More Read More

The Addams Family: Orpheus Musical Theatre makes the most of a mediocre story.

By Iris Winston | November 19, 2016

Photo, courtesy of Orpheus Musical Theatre

Charles Addams has a lot to answer for. He was the cartoonist who created the one-panel cartoons about the ghoulish Addams Family that appeared in the New Yorker magazine in 1938.

He could not know that his creation would become an American institution. Stories of the family morphed into a television sitcom in the 1960s, followed by a cartoon version in the next decade, two movies in 1991 (starring Anjelica Houston) and 1993 (The Addams Family Values) and even a video game and a very popular pinball machine later in the decade. Finally, in 2010, Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice (the pair who wrote the script of The Jersey Boys) developed a Broadway musical version with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa.

Does the musical work? As much as any one-gag repeater with a wafer-thin storyline and constant reminders of one-panel cartoons can. Does Orpheus Musical Theatre Society make the most of a mediocre product? Unquestionably.

…

Read More Read More

Straight Jacket Winter: Une poétique de chaos de grande envergure!!

By Alvina Ruprecht | November 19, 2016

Photo. Renaud Philippe

L’esprit de Réjean Ducharme (l’Hiver de Force, prix du gouverneur général) plane sur ce spectacle. Un couple, emblématique de la contreculture des années 1960-70, en proie à une profonde solitude et un malaise existentiel, se déplace à travers le pays. Ensemble, ces jeunes sont à la recherche d’un « paradis perdu », qui donnerait du sens à leur vie quotidienne inhabituelle, un espace qui serait leur « chez eux » dans ce Canada hivernal qui ne semble pas vouloir les accueillir. Ils sont désormais installés à Vancouver, l’autre bout du pays, loin de leur monde montréalais où ils ont du mal à se faire des amis. Toutefois, même lorsqu’ils reviennent voir la famille au Québec, ils ont l’impression que la vie les a dépassés, ils n’y sont plus tout à fait chez eux. Voici que les contestataires des années 1960 deviennent des figures emblématiques de la postmodernité puisqu’ils incarnent le flux constant de l’existence et ils finissent par se retrancher dans leur seul refuge leur petit appartement , où seuls leurs rapports passionnels, leurs pulsions créatrices remplissent l’espace/temps de leur existence.

…

Read More Read More

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee: A joyful production of a less than amusing play!

By Alvina Ruprecht | November 16, 2016

Photo. Courtesy of Indie women productions.

The world has changed since this Tony Award winning show (book by Rachel Sheinkin, music and lyrics by William Finn) was created in 2005 but somehow, in spite of Kodi Cannon’s exciting Broadway style energy and classy choreography, this Spelling Bee grated on my nerves. The Indie Women are noted for some fine productions and we loved their recent fund raising event Next to Normal featuring Skye MacDermid and Wendy Berkelaar’s group that did justice to Rebecca Feldman’s music, giving a highly professional touch to the evening. As is their custom , the Indie Women bring us this show as a fundraiser for the “Do it for Daron” foundation, linked to the Royal Ottawa Hospital and its ongoing research into the devastating effects of mental illness .

This event at the Gladstone features six actors as the young constestants all driven to win the spelling contest for many different reasons, all of which are played out in flashbacks and choreographed moments of excellent theatre as the troubled backgrounds of each of the contestants are intertwined with the funny improvisations produced by each of the four randomly selected guests who are added to the chorus of spellers. These guests are thrust on stage as the outside spellers who do their best to hold their own spontaneously, while the scripted spellers have to take on a character and explain their choices.

…

Read More Read More