Theatre in Ottawa and the region Archives - Page 66 of 92 - Capital Critics' Circle / Le cercle des critiques de la capitale

Richard III de Brigitte Haentjens. : Une créature archaïque qui émerge des bas-fonds de l’humanité.

By Alvina Ruprecht | April 27, 2015

Photos du Théâtre du nouveau monde.

Brigitte Haentjens, l’actuelle directrice artistique du Théâtre français au Centre national des Arts à Ottawa, produit, depuis fort longtemps, une esthétique de la souffrance en puisant dans des consciences troublées. Depuis 1999, elle accompagne l’immigrant de Koltès (la Nuit juste avant les forêts) attaché à la voie ferrée hurlant son désespoir et sa solitude. Elle offre la scène à Malina, personnage d’Ingeborg Bachmann, hanté par le cauchemar d’un père, ancien Nazi, qui chercherait à exterminer sa fille dans la chambre à gaz. Elle suit la descente vers la mort de la poétesse Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar), hantée par l’image d’un père qui alimente son impulsion suicidaire, sans oublier le calvaire d’Ian (Blasted de Sarah Kane) au moment de la guerre en Yougoslavie.

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The Double: from Dostoevsky to Adam Paolozza…!!

By Alvina Ruprecht | April 24, 2015

Photo from the Tarragon Theatre.

A great mastery of physical theatre sets Bad News Days Productions apart. Done as a play within a play in various times zones but originating in the present, it resembles a cabaret performance where three very talented young men perfectly trained in the art of mime, circus techniques, mimicry, tell the story of a Mr. Golyadkin, a simple office clerk who lives by himself, who has strange, troubled dreams , who is stressed by the behaviour of his office colleagues who appear to make fun of him; There is also the behaviour of his fiancé who breaks off their wedding. Is he really fleeing from himself? Is he so totally alone, abandoned by all humanity?. Perhaps, but Golyadkin continues on bravely. He eventually comes in contact with his pesky double –his shadow on the wall, or is it the other narrator playing the acoustic bass who appears to be feeding him his lines? This double taunts the older fellow, he disappears and reappears, he interferes with his office relations, and he shows up the older Golyadkin until the poor man can’t take it anymore. It all takes place under the stress of the terrible Kafka-like bureaucracy in Saint Petersburg in Russia. A medical doctor comes into the picture (no psychiatry at that

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Rocky Horror Show: The Cult Musical Comes to Ottawa

By Alvina Ruprecht | April 5, 2015

Photo Allan Mackey. Centre stage Tim Oberholzer as Frank’n Furter..

When Tim Oberholzer leaves Ottawa later this year, we will have lost one of our most versatile actors. No one but Tim could play Dr. Frank’n Furter, the snarling, emoting, transvestite glamrock vampire , the ultimate genderbender body that moves like a sinewy snake, that sings like David Bowie and draws the eye towards his/her person in spite of the overwhelming crowd of girating sexy creatures with flashy wigs, stripped down costumes and timeless lyrics. The music of Richard O’Brien is of course one of the backbones of this show. .

Very skilfully directed by Stewart Matthews who made it all look painless and so utterly high class in spite of the limited material means which were at times rather obvious, the show bounced along at a fabulous pace, carried by the voices and excellent acting by the main characters:

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The Hairy Ape:

By Alvina Ruprecht | April 4, 2015

Photo: Glen McIntosh. Louis Lemire and Donnie Laflamme.

Eugene O’Neil’s The Hairy Ape, written in 1921, appears extremely modern with its discussion, in Act II, about labour unions, the exploitation of the working class and the suppression of left wing discourses foretelling the Joseph McCarthy era even though the play appeared long before that communist scare decimated the artistic community in the USA. It even foretells the highly stylized visual techniques Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, created later in 1927, where the exhausted workers are transformed into automats as they stoke the engines of the Commercial liner in the first scenes of the play. Constructivist stage structures meet an expressionist atmosphere as the setting reflects the frustration, the anger and even the rage of the men toiling in the bowels of that huge commercial liner.

Director Lisa Zanyk has choreographed moments of the play that take us back to those episodes of silent film the dirty working body is fore grounded against the gentile dainty creatures of the upper classes who mimes as much as she talks, when she comes to see those men as “filthy beasts”. Thus Yank, the principal protagonist in this dramatic comedy, sinks deeper and deeper into his raging depths, coming close to his primitive origins as he feels more and more alienated from New York Society and those whom he assumes are making fun of him.

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Take Me Back to Jefferson: Theatre Smith-Gilmour puts on a highly enjoyably production

By Maja Stefanovska | April 2, 2015

William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying is a complex work of fiction. Part tragi-comedy, part scathing critique of American society, and a large part philosophy, the story is told in 59 chapters through no less than 15 characters, mostly through internal monologue. I consider myself a fairly open-minded person, but if you were to tell me that you wanted to stage this as a play told through mostly physical actions, I would likely send you to the nearest doctor. Therefore, it was with trepidation that I sat to watch Theatre Smith-Gilmour’s adaptation, Take Me Back to Jefferson. Luckily for me, I was in for a very pleasant surprise. While not flawless, the production grapples masterfully with the source material and shows an understanding of its own medium and strength that could enrich the story that is rare to see.

As the play begins, Addie Bunden (Michele Smith) lays dying in her bedroom on the family farm in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. Her carpenter son, Cash (Dan Watson), nosily building her coffin in the near vicinity. When she dies, the entire family – daughter Dewy Dell (Nina Gilmour); sons Cash, Darl (Julian de Zotti), and Jewel (Ben Muir); and husband Anse (Dean Gilmour) – set out in the family wagon to honour her death wish, to be buried in her home town of Jefferson. The family is confronted with almost every piece of bad luck possible on the nine-day journey, but they persevere, some out of a duty to their mother, but most for their own, not so considerate reasons. …

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Kanata’s The Lion in Winter: A Waste of Time?

By Jamie Portman | April 1, 2015

Photo: Wendy Wagner.

It’s astonishing that James Goldman’s The Lion In Winter continues to be revived. It may have seemed trendy and innovative half a century ago, but this fanciful attempt to use the turbulent 12^th Century household of England’s Henry ll as some kind of metaphor for a 20^th Century dysfunctional American family now seems trite and unfulfilling.

Director Jim Holmes has delivered many outstanding productions for Kanata Theatre over the years, but his affection for this play seems misplaced. His production does move smoothly, supplying some balance between character and situation and seeking a solid dramatic heft for the material’s climactic moments. But there’s only so much that even a good director can do with a script that suffers from an apparent mood disorder and revels in its own anachronisms — be they the resolutely modern colloquialisms or the presence of a Christmas tree in Henry’s French castle.

Goldman, younger brother of novelist and screenwriter William Goldman, no doubt took delight in all the snappy one-liners which he concocted — for example, the king’s estranged wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine mischievously observing that she and Henry shattered all the commandments during their first erotic encounter — but much of it seems pretty sophomoric now. The Monty Python crowd and the creators of BlackAdder also sought to glean laughs from bringing a 20^th Century sensibility to historical events — but their subversive humour cut deeper and their social and political parallels were more successfully realized.

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La Charge de l’orignal épormyable: blood curdling production of this Claude Gauvreau play on the U. of Ottawa stage.

By Alvina Ruprecht | March 26, 2015

Photo. Marianne Duval.

A blood curdling all feminine production of La Charge de l’Orignal Épormyable, under the direction of Guy Beausoleil, plays this week at the U.of Otttawa . This is a rare chance to see a work by Claude Gauvreau, poet and playwright, who was one of the people who signed the Quebec Manifesto Refus Global in 1948 and set Quebec culture on a new trajectory.

This plays gives us an excellent glimpse of the poet, his tortured conscience, his vision of artistic production and his heightened idea of the poet who emerges as a god, a super presence that can save the world. We see, among other things how his dialogue, becomes a verbal form of “Automatismse”, essentially a reference to the visual art experiments of the period. , Gauvrau wrote partially in “ langue exploréenne”. Portions of his text represent “non figurative” language composed of extra-linguistice elements (sound, rhythm, accents, ) that corresponded (in spoken language) to the Automatist experiments in non-figuratuve painting in the 1950s where the sexual impulse was considered central to artistic creation. Most of those who signed the Manifesto Refus Global were removed from their jobs and became pariahs of society because it appeared that most of the artistic establishment in postwar Quebec was not yet ready to accept a form of “Modernité” that was inherited from the new European art Movements.

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THe Best Brothers : Two Shining Performances at the GCTC

By Jamie Portman | March 18, 2015

Photo: Barb Gray

There’s no denying the pleasure of Andy Massingham’s performance in The Best Brothers, the latest offering from GCTC. His portrayal of Kyle, a twitchy gay realtor coping with the aftermath of his mother’s death, isn’t merely rich in comic detail: it also seeks to anchor it to psychological truth. And if this fine actor doesn’t entirely succeed, blame it on the ambushes inherent in Daniel MacIvor’s problematic play.

It would be easy for audience members to settle back and simply enjoy Massingham’s contribution to the evening as a “performance.” His Kyle is a jumble of emotions — anxious, impulsive, street-smart, capable of saying and doing outrageous things. We suspect that something hilariously awful will occur during the deceased’s funeral, and Kyle (or, rather, Massingham) doesn’t let us down. But even as he turns the moment of eulogy into chaos, Massingham also manages to remind us of Kyle’s essential kindness of heart — and his vulnerability.

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Tough: George Walker’s battle of the sexes becomes electrifying theatre

By Alvina Ruprecht | March 14, 2015

George Walker’s Tough, presented by the students of the Algonquin College Theatre Arts programme was an impressive evening that allowed three talented young people, under the excellent direction of Mary Ellis, to bring extremely sensitive performances to the stage! Originally produced in Vancouver but written in 1992, Tough involves Tina and her 19 year old boyfriend Bobby, who are in the middle of an energetic confrontation in a playground littered with garbage. The set emphasizes the confusion and material difficulties of these individuals. Tina is accompanied by her tough talking and aggressive girlfriend Jill and together, both women verbally assault Bobby, always controlling their tempers so they won’t go completely overboard and “kill” him. They bully the young man, accuse him of being a coward, a wimp and a cheat, while Bobby, appearing to be in fragile health, tries to defend himself. As we quickly learn , he did have a moment of indiscretion with another girl at a party that set off the fight but the discussion takes on a new urgency when we learn that Tina is pregnant and she is hoping Bobby will react in a kinder more responsible way.

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Young Frankenstein Gets Class Treatment — Undeservedly

By Jamie Portman | March 10, 2015

Photo: Valley Wind Productions

The problem with the Orpheus Musical Theatre Society’s current winter offering, Young Frankenstein, is that it’s not worth doing.

Devotees of Mel Brooks’ patented brand of low-grade comedy may still want to embrace it, given that it’s a musical version of one of his most popular movies and honours the Brooks tradition of luxuriating in its own bad taste. And let’s face it, there are some on this planet who continue to hail Mel Brooks as some kind of comic genius. It’s also true that his freewheeling lack of inhibition can sometimes disarm an audience as efficiently as a dose of salts: for an example, one need go no further than his first real screen success, the western spoof, Blazing Saddles, and the notorious baked-bean sequence around the campfire and the ensuing discharge — in stereophonic sound no less — of collective cowboy flatulence.

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