Theatre in Ottawa and the region Archives - Page 57 of 92 - Capital Critics' Circle / Le cercle des critiques de la capitale

Pool (no Water): Mark Ravenhill et Pamela Feghali cernent l’horreur du monde artistique!

By Alvina Ruprecht | April 6, 2016

Photo: Marianne Duval

Pamela Feghali (MFA-mise en scène ) et son équipe de production nous font découvrir le monde théâtral tourmenté du britannique Mark Ravenhill qui, avec Sarah Kane, avait déjà attiré le regard de Thomas Ostermeier, le directeur du Schaubuhne à Berlin. Maintenant , nous voilà plongés au cœur d’un des auteurs contemporains des plus provocateurs. Dans un premier temps, quatre comédiens se promènent sur une piste légèrement en pente qui évoque à la fois un bateau de croisière et une piste de mode où les acteurs s’exhibent à la manière des mannequins bohémiens. Nous pensons immédiatement à la scénographie conçue par Margaret Coderre-William à l’occasion de Princess Ivona (Gombrowicz) qu’Ekaterina Shestakova avait présentée en 2013 sur la même scène, avec une équipe d’étudiants différents. Aujourd’hui, la scénographie de Brian Smith est semblable mais la pièce nous mène dans un sens tout à fait différent. Ravenhill présente une critique farouche du milieu artistique en forme de monologue, proféré par « I », « She », « We » et « Us », les pulsions individuelles et collectives qui animent chacune de ces voix parlantes .

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Concord Floral: a youthful ritual of psychic proportions. Spellbinding!!

By Alvina Ruprecht | April 2, 2016

Photo: Courtesy Suburban Beast and NAC’ Ottawa.

Concord Floral was inspired by an existing greenhouse in Vaughan (in the Toronto area ) that was demolished in 2012 but the rotting space somewhere in a mysterious field that emerges from Tanahill’s imagination becomes the site of an encounter among ten young people and their deep-seated obsessions. The actors for this production were all chosen from the Ottawa area. …

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Concord Floral presents a disturbing suburban dystopia

By Patrick Langston | April 1, 2016

Production shot from the toronto production of Jordan Tannahill’s “Concord Floral “

Those of us long past our teenage years can only breathe a sigh of gratitude to aging after seeing Jordan Tannahill’s disquieting Concord Floral.

Dislocation, loneliness, confusion: these we remember about our younger selves. And while Tannahill and this gripping production depict those horrors of growing up with precision and sensitivity, the show also layers in a creeping sense of dread about contemporary teen life, a feeling that “something in the air has shifted” as one character puts it, that may seem foreign to the adolescent experience of many older audience members. …

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"Will Somers: Keeping Your Head. The Most Challenging Performance Yet.

By Alvina Ruprecht | March 28, 2016

Photo: McGihon /Postmedia Pierre Brault.

The title of this extraordinarily dense and multiple-voiced monologue reveals the macabre sense of humour underlying Pierre Brault’s text. Brault incarnates the Jester at the court of Henry VIII who by some miracle managed to keep his head during the whole reign of the monstrous monarch. “I make him laugh” replied Somers when asked how he survived all those years.

In fact, his saucy, subversive, sense of fun and which allowed him to trespass boundaries no one else could, transforms this character into a fascinating stage persona who spent his whole life performing and manoeuvering within the complex politics of the English court. Brault transforms his character into a slippery narrator with quick witted double entendres and word plays, winks and jokes that go zipping by and almost evaporate if you don’t pay close attention. He is also the conscious performer commenting both on the acting process and the role of the audience .

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“Ca ira (1) Fin de Louis”, une bombe politico-historique au Centre des Arts.

By Alvina Ruprecht | March 22, 2016

Photo. Elizabeth Carecchio

Ça ira (1), Fin de Louis est une « fiction politique » allant de 1787 (la crise financière en France) jusqu’à 1789, la prise de la Bastille. (Programme du Centre national des arts, Ottawa, hiver, 2016, p.5).

La pièce 1789 de Mnouchkine, qui a transformé le soulèvement populaire de mai ‘68 en métaphore historique nous revient à l’esprit mais si la conception scénique du Théâtre du Soleil s’inspire des documents de l’époque et situe le public au milieu de l’action comme le fait Pommerat, les ressemblances s’arrêtent là.

Pour le spectateur canadien, Ça ira (1), fin de Louis, qui dure quatre heures et demie, est avant tout une expérience physique et intellectuelle dont nous sortons vidés par cette succession rapide de débats, de bousculades, de confrontations violentes entre des idées-choque, et références politico- historiques qui mettent en jeu l’avenir de la France. Surtout, nous sommes plongés dans un « monde parallèle » où le passé et le présent se fondent, comme le titre nous fait basculer entre Edith Piaf et la Terreur. Les costumes et le décor dépouillé évoquent le présent alors que le déroulement des événements nous renvoie à la crise financière du XVIIIe siècle, la confrontation entre les classes sociales et la multiplicité d’opinions qui mettent en relief la prise de conscience du peuple lors du passage du Tiers état à l’Assemblée nationale. Nous nous croyons entendre des débats des comités du quartier face à l’attitude récalcitrante de la noblesse et du clergé alors que soudain, grâce aux phrases qui sonnent plus contemporaines, nous voilà en pleine Assemblée nationale de la France actuelle ou même dans la Chambre des Communes du Canada où les députés hurlent, se contredisent, s’interrompent, applaudissent , insultent leurs collègues, s’interpellent malgré le désarroi du président de la chambre qui a du mal à contrôler la discussion.

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TACTICS – Perfect Pie: A treat for theatre goers

By Rajka Stefanovska | March 12, 2016

Marie, a newcomer to the village, has epilepsy, which makes her different from everybody else. Village children do not understand her problem, so she is an object of ridicule and utmost disrespect. The only friend who accepts her and always stays by her side is Patsy. After a high school dance one night, Marie disappears. After 16 years, they reunite. On her way to Montreal, Marie, now a celebrity who goes under the name Francesca, stops at her friend’s home in the village of their childhood. Talking about those days, they take the audience to an extraordinarily painful journey involving life filled with sickness, poverty, rejection, abuse and rape.

The narrative develops at a perfectly natural pace, gradually adding dramatic elements and building the story about the people on stage and their imperfect world. Every new scene draws the audience deeper into a darkness of ignorance and cruelty that affect the lives of the protagonists. Told in a simple but powerful way, the story has an aura of truth and the power to get emotions boiling over injustices committed in the name of stupidity and prejudice. It knowingly rips apart sensitive issues and slowly analyzes them by adding a building block with each sentence. This beautiful story will not leave anybody indifferent. More likely, after seeing it, you will go to sleep thinking about it, wake up still angry and go through your day with heavy emotions. …

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Tuesdays with Morrie at The Gladstone is Emotional, Poignant

By Maja Stefanovska | March 11, 2016

Director John P. Kelly has built something of a reputation for himself in Ottawa as a master of comedy. His take on a more serious production, Tuesdays with Morrie is thought-provoking, engaging and emotional. Cast and crew come together for a rich production that does credit to the heart warming, true story.

Originally written as a memoir by Detroit sports journalist Mitch Albom, Albom later adapted the play for the stage with co-playwright Jeffrey Hatcher. In it, he narrates his reconnection with Morrie Schwartz, his college sociology professor and friend. They lose touch after Albom graduates and goes on to become an extremely successful sports journalist. He spends his life running from one sports event to another, one deadline to the next. That is, until he sees his old professor as a guest on Nightline. The now 78-year-old has Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS) and Albion goes to see him to pay his respects. The two start talking and, little by little, that visit turns into 14 consecutive Tuesdays of sitting and talking with Morrie.

Director Kelly captures the essence of the beautifully simple text down to every last detail. Under his hand, a play that ostensibly talks about death brims with life, joy, and laughter. From the first moment Mitch introduces Morrie on the minimalist stage, the audience feels an instant connection with him. A sense of warmth permeates the entire production, as Kelly lets the sentimentality of the subject speak for itself, but never lets it become overwhelming or cheesy. David Magladry’s simple, but symbolic set and lighting compliment Kelly’s direction, as he helps set the atmosphere perfectly. …

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Tuesdays with Morrie: JP Kelly’s finely-tuned production is respectful of both characters and the human condition

By Patrick Langston | March 11, 2016

A quick glance at the storyline might suggest that Mitch Albom and Jeffrey Hatcher’s Tuesdays with Morrie is cornier than Kansas in mid-July: Young man strikes up friendship with a professor; young man lets the friendship slide when he ventures out into the big world; no-longer-young man, now a career-obsessed sports journalist, reunites with terminally ill professor and learns life-altering lessons.

That the play is based on Albom’s own story – first released as a memoir of the same name and then as a television movie starring Jack Lemmon and Hank Azaria before finally coming to the stage in 2002 – may do little to change cynical first impressions.

But to reduce the play and its current, finely tuned production at The Gladstone to a saccharine-sounding summary would be doing both a serious disservice.

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Tuesdays with Morrie: a strong reading of a work that helps us understand Lou Gehrig’s disease.

By Alvina Ruprecht | March 10, 2016

Photo. Barry Caplan

Director John P. Kelly’s experiment with stage effects brings about a new relationship between Morrie and the theatre. The play is based on the memoir Tuesdays with Morrie by the newspaper columnist, radio host, television commentator and sports journalist Mitch Albom who lives and works in Detroit. He and Jeffrey Hatcher adapted Albom’s book into a hit play of the same title, which opened off-Broadway in 2002 and has since been performed in regional theatres across Canada and the USA. It was performed in French at the Théâtre de l’Ile (Gatineau) several years ago with Gilles Provost as Morrie and more recently it became a highly praised performance at the 1000 Islands Playhouse last summer in Gananoque.

The important thing is that this show is not based on a work of fiction. It is a true experience of memory, adapted into a play which takes us on a journey through the final months in the life of Morrie Schwartz, a sociology professor at Brandeis University whom Mitch Albom knew and admired when he studied at that institution. Schwartz knew Angela Davis, Jerry Rubin and all the important protesters during the 1960s neo-romantic revolution. Morrie also introduced Albom to the anti-psychiatry movement of the 1960s epitomized by R.D. Laing’s book The Divided Self which questioned all the principles of modern psychiatry and the notion of madness based on the traditional views of the family. Schwarz was a product of that period, the thinking that is no longer in vogue these days which is why the teachings and aphorisms of the dying sociologist seem so amazingly open and revolutionary and have given rise to such successful discussion on the stage.

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Orpheus Shines With A Chorus Line

By Jamie Portman | March 8, 2016

Photo. Alexander Vlad for Alan Dean

In a theatre community where claims to professionalism are sometimes suspect, Orpheus stands out like shining beacon. It wears its community-theatre label proudly and without pretension. And it often puts to shame some of the tacky touring productions that have lumbered across Canada (and into the NAC) in recent years.
All of which is a preamble to declaring that this organization’s new production of A Chorus Line is another worthy achievement. It remains true to the sensibility of the legendary Broadway original, which was conceived by its first director, the late Michael Bennett, as a bittersweet valentine to the kids in the chorus line, the ones we tend
to take for granted when we watch a stage musical, but who supply the essential support system for any successful show.

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