Theatre in Ottawa and the region Archives - Page 80 of 92 - Capital Critics' Circle / Le cercle des critiques de la capitale

The Farm Show: A Student production at the OTS that passes with flying colours

By Jamie Portman | April 25, 2013

Photo. Andrew Alexander

Minutes after the lights go down in the Ottawa Theatre School’s small studio theatre, a cow is milked on stage. Well, not literally, But our disbelief is put on hold as an enterprising bunch of graduate students assemble themselves into the essential shapes of the cow and its milker while also providing some appropriate moos as part of the background noise.

Given that seconds, before some of these same students have twisted themselves into the shapes of clucking chickens, you’re already getting solid evidence that anything is possible on a bare playing area whose occupants include nine impressively versatile young performers and a few simple props.

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The Taming of the Shrew: Clearly, Bear & Co is still seeking a theatrical style

By Alvina Ruprecht | April 23, 2013

Photo: Andrew Alexander

The evening begins with a long note in the programme by director Eleanor Crowder explaining her directorial choices. “He (Shakespeare) is running pure Commedia gags here, the staple of a company used to touring market places and dodging rotten apples”. That is not a good sign. First of all a European style frontal theatre is not a normally raucus commedia setting and no one could possibly reproduce that so why bring it up.? In any case, the show speaks for itself so if the director felt the need to explain, that means she feared we wouldn’t get it.

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The Edward Curtis Project: A text that flounders but a ritual event that brings to life a phantasmagoria of magical stage effects

By Alvina Ruprecht | April 6, 2013

Kevin Loring as The Chief. Photo: Andrew Alexandre

The Algonquin Elder Annie Smith St- Georges from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation, blessed the audience, thanked the creator for respecting all creatures on the earth and for letting us enjoy the gift of art from her culture. At her side was Professor Claudette Commanda also from Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation, a professor at the University of Ottawa, daughter of the late Chief William Commanda, whom Peter Hinton had often invited to initiate his launchings of the NAC English theatre seasons. With such prestigious representatives from the Native community, inviting us into this theatrical ceremony at the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre, a special aura floated about us as the mist seeped out from the stage announcing the arrival of the ancestors and the spirits, called up by the performance. Around the sides of the stage, the works of photojournalist Rita Leistner linked with the photographs of Edward Curtis, enhanced by Tim Matheson’s projection design and John Webbers magnificent lighting, created effects that ressembled the phantasmagoria of a deep seated dream.

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The Changing Room: A highly charged performance of sexual identities and human fragility

By Alvina Ruprecht | April 4, 2013

Photo: Courtesy of : Productions Nous sommes ici.

A highly charged meeting of Drag Queen burlesque cabaret, stand-up comedy, telereality show, docudrama, verbatim theatre, improv, audience participatory theatre, and an extremely perceptive reflection on sexual identity, makes The Changing Room a most surprising and exciting take on popular theatre that digs much deeper than one would have expected.

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Deathtrap: A production that remains entertaining despite assorted weak moments

By Iris Winston | March 21, 2013

Diana Franz. Photo: Maria Vartanova

Deathtrap has a powerful ending. The problem is that it dribbles on for one scene too many after that.

Ira Levin’s 1978 comedy/thriller was a hit that ran for four years on Broadway, a further hit as a movie starring Michael Caine, and it continues to be an effective send-up of the whodunit genre, with its many twists and layers.

A play about a playwright trying to overcome a writer’s block and write a hit thriller, the audience is set up to believe he is ready to kill for an idea. Just then, the perfect commercially viable play, written by one of his students, falls into his lap.

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Deathtrap: A return to the ‘80s that doesn’t quite make it

By Alvina Ruprecht | March 20, 2013

Lawrence Evenchick as Sidney Bruhl Photo: Maria Vartanova

http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2013/03/20/deathtrap-at-the-ottawa-little-theatre-a-return-to-the-1980s-that-doesnt-quite-make-it/

Ira Levin’s well known and very clever thriller about an older playright, a younger playwright and play that is in the process of writing itself during the performance, has become a great classic of repertory theatre. Deathtrap has been performed many times in Ottawa, in both languages, since it appeared on Broadway and as a film. Now, it is back at the Ottawa Little Theatre representing the hit from the seventh decade of the OLT since it first appeared on the OLT stage in 1983, directed then by Susan Taylor. Lets quote the Ottawa Citizen review from that period: “ ..to work properly (the play) must have perfect timing (and be ) a fast-paced, well executed production.”

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Absurd Person Singular: A rewarding response to the play by that canny ringmaster John P. Kelly.

By Jamie Portman | March 14, 2013

Photo: David Pasho

In many ways, this is a sterling 40th anniversary production of one of Sir Alan Ayckbourn’s best and funniest plays. Despite one regrettable error in judgment, it’s rewarding to see the way in which that canny ringmaster, director John P. Kelly, responds to the demands posed by Absurd Person Singular. In chronicling the fortunes and misfortunes of three painfully disparate couples over three consecutive Christmases, Kelly certainly delivers on the comedy, but never at the expense of the inner darkness and desolation which tinges Ayckbourn’s portrait of a society and class system in convulsion.

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The Drowsy Chaperone : this cleverly contrived Canadian musical is a two-headed beast.

By Patrick Langston | March 9, 2013

Photo: Alan Dean

The Drowsy Chaperone, with its story about the trials, tribulations and ultimate triumph of young love, its song lyrics that are at times ridiculous but acutely aware of their own silliness, and its big, bright dance numbers, the show is at once a smart example of musical theatre and a good-natured jab at the genre.
That can be a tricky balance for a production to maintain, but Orpheus does it with panache and good humour.
Andrea Black, a strong singer and frisky performer, plays Janet Van De Graaff, an applause-loving actor and one-half of the show’s main love story.

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Innocence Lost. A play about Steven Truscott : an opportunity missed

By Iris Winston | March 6, 2013

Photo: Allen McInnis

Playwright Beverly Cooper.

NAC English Theatre/Centaur Theatre, Montreal co-production

Two lives were destroyed when 12-year-old Lynne Harper was raped and murdered in Clinton in 1959. Numerous others were tainted. Life would never be the same for anyone even peripherally involved in the railroading of 14-year-old Steven Truscott and the miscarriage of justice that initially sentenced him to hang for the crime.

The dramatic potential of the sad story and the fact that the guilty verdict was not overturned until 2007 (almost 50 years after the event and without the killer being found) is clear.

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Innocence Lost: When Truth is More Interesting Than Fiction

By Alvina Ruprecht | March 6, 2013

Photo:Erik Berg

The tragic story of Steven Truscott which played out in 1959, in the tiny town of Clinton Ontario, created all sorts of great theatrical expectations, especially with the media hype that accompanied the arrival of the play. Yes, it is a horrific story of a travesty of injustice! Yes, it involved the destruction of two young lives: the twelve year old girl whose murder was the most heartbreaking event, and the accused fourteen year old boy sentenced to be hanged but who had his sentence commuted to life in prison, before he was released in 2007. This is a true story that will haunt the annals of Canadian history forever.

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