Theatre in Ottawa and the region Archives - Page 81 of 92 - Capital Critics' Circle / Le cercle des critiques de la capitale

Innocence Lost: Theatre of High Calibre.

By Patrick Langston | March 2, 2013

Photo: Barbara Gray.

NAC English Theatre/Centaur Theatre Company (Montreal) co-production

For the Ottawa Citizen.

Innocence has to yield, eventually, to experience. Innocence violated is a whole other matter.

In the case of Steven Truscott, the 14-year-old sentenced to hang in 1959 after being wrongfully accused of raping and murdering 12-year-old Lynne Harper near Clinton, Ont., innocence was violated on so many levels it’s almost beyond comprehension.

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La Perte de l’innocence (Innocence lost): L’histoire de Steven Truscott

By Alvina Ruprecht | March 1, 2013

Photo: Barb Gray. Trevor Barrette (Steven Turcott), Pippa Leslie (Lynn Harper) . (The critic attended the preview)

C’est l’histoire tragique de Steven Truscott, en 1959, à Clinton , une petite ville du sud -ouest de l’Ontario. Le jeune homme de quatorze ans avait été condamné à la peine capitale pour le meurtre brutal d’ une amie de douze ans, Lynne Harper et cette parodie de justice avait laissé une blessure profonde sur toute la région. La Cour d’appel de l’Ontario a fini par acquitter Truscott en 2007. Aujourd’hui, âgé de 66 ans, obligée de vivre une partie de sa vie sous un nom d’emprunt, il n’e cesse de clamer son innocence.

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God of Carnage: the stylish destruction of the middle class

By Alvina Ruprecht | February 15, 2013

Yasmina Reza, whose works have been translated and performed all over the world, is one of the most prolific playwrights in present-day France. And yet, her plays are easily accessible to any audience because they deal with people we recognize. Essentially about middle class individuals who lead boring everyday lives, her plays unmask the rituals of a class-conscious society with a stylish ferocity that is “terribly” entertaining.

This Third Wall Theatre production represents a new beginning for the Company after a year of absence from the Ottawa scene and this witty and intelligent play, even though it might pose some problems for a Canadian audience, is a good choice for their new season.

Director Ross Manson’s reading of Reza`s nasty little social satire respects all Hampton’s French references translated from the original Parisian setting, quite unlike the American adaptations that set the play in New York. These changes might have made the production more palpable for an American audience but I’m sure such changes would remove the satirical essence of this nasty play. …

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Rabbit Hole : Kanata theatre at its best.

By Jamie Portman | February 14, 2013

David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Rabbit Hole, offers a carefully-textured examination of how individuals, in their various ways, deal with grief and loss. It’s tricky material, a drama in which a moment of silence can be as powerful as a cascade of words and in which locked-in sorrow can be more palpable than an unfettered outpouring of emotion.

There is a cathartic process underway as bereaved parents Becca and Howie attempt to resume living following the accidental death of their four-year-old son. But as the play gently but firmly makes clear, their journey out of darkness is not an easy one — indeed, as is so frequent in such situations, their own relationship is in jeopardy.

It’s a measure of Brooke Keneford’s thoughtful, measured production for Kanata Theatre that the play’s final memorable moments do not slide into an easy, comfortable glibness. They are touching, but they don’t evoke closure: what they offer is hope and a continuation of the healing process.

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The Public Servant and Skin: two comments on the Undercurrents Festival

By Laurie Fyffe | February 8, 2013

The Public Servant

GCTC’s Undercurrents festival of new works kicked off Tuesday night with a glimpse into what’s simmering under the surface in Ottawa’s theatre community. The news is good. First, every laterally re-situated, hastily bought out, or abruptly terminated servant of the public take note – Ottawa’s recent and ongoing gutting of those who toil in service of the passive Canadian public is now a very personal and highly political play, The Public Servant. Theatre is a subversive art form. No where more so, than when a group of smart, talented and extremely forthright women venture into the fray of tattered emotions and downgraded expectations of policy gone wrong – and make the audience laugh, while leaving the theatre fully cognizant of the joke.

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Bat Boy The Musical: Gladstone Production Enhances the Material

By Jamie Portman | January 25, 2013

The cult status of some shows can often be mystifying. Take the 1997 off-Broadway musical Batboy which has romped onto the Gladstone Theatre stage in a spirited production far more worthy than the material itself.

With its unapologetic excess of camp, its determination to send up the conventions of both the horror movie and the Broadway musical, its cheeky disregard of the need for psychological plausibility or characters which go beyond the stereotype, Batboy (which was inspired by a spoof news item in the satiric publication, Weekly World News) may strike purists as a mess. However, rather like the Rocky Horror Picture Show, it’s a mess that insists we like it — but to serve that purpose, you need ensemble playing which goes beyond the call of duty. We get that thanks to director Dave Dawson, obviously an adroit ringmaster when it comes to this sort of thing. Even so, what we’re left with is the tritely familiar story of the loner kid who wants to belong; that the musical is also seeking to send up this cliché plot merely adds to the thematic confusion, given that despite the show’s anarchic disposition, we actually feel sorry for the title character. …

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Black Sheep gets its teeth into a batty show

By Iris Winston | January 25, 2013

The Weekly World News has a lot to answer for. In June 1992, then editor Dick Kulpa published a purportedly true story about a half-human, half-bat living in a cave in West Virginia. The supermarket tabloid is now defunct, but the mythical creature lives on in the cult musical created by writers Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming five years later.

The genetically challenged premise aside, the bizarre story line requires maximum suspension of disbelief, particularly after taking a left turn on its way to a ridiculous ending.

Yes, I know it’s intended as a send-up of vampire tales, westerns and such big musicals as The Lion King with a tip of the hat and a wink to My Fair Lady and smaller shows such as Greater Tuna, but the Batboy story is still too nonsensical for my taste. …

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Bat Boy The Musical: A spirited and occasionally poignant production at the Gladstone Theatre.

By Patrick Langston | January 17, 2013

photo David Pasho Zach Counsel in the title role

Reviewed for the Ottawa Ciizen

OTTAWA — It’s an unlikely plot: A half-bat, half-boy emerges from a cave and tries to make a life for himself in a redneck West Virginia town. But then again, logic and musicals don’t necessarily keep company.

Under Black Sheep Theatre director Dave Dawson, the ensemble delivers a funny, occasionally poignant and spirited production of this nihilistic cult favourite written by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming with music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe. The writers based the musical on an early 1990s story in the satiric Weekly World News.
Zachary Counsil plays Bat Boy. Equipped with a pair of overgrown eye teeth and Mr. Spock-like ears, he’s full-voiced on the musical numbers (that’s not true of all the cast) and textured when depicting the pain of being unusual in a world where being unusual is to be feared and hated.
And Bat Boy is feared and hated. The folks of Hope Falls – now there’s an ambiguous name for a town – are horrified when Bat Boy first appears. It’s a classic case of “otherness,” although Bat Boy, taken in by the kindly if frigid Meredith Parker (Rebekah Shirey), wife of the local veterinarian, soon acquires language and manners in excellent My Fair Lady fashion. The big Act One number Show You a Thing or Two is a tip of the tongue-in-cheek hat to that hit musical, with Bat Boy exclaiming, in a paraphrase of Professor Henry Higgins, “I think I’ve got it!”………….

All My Sons: A solid take on Miller’s award-winning play.

By Patrick Langston | January 11, 2013

  
Photo:Maria Vartanova

If you're looking for a lift from the post-Christmas blues, Arthur Miller's
All My Sons is not your ticket.
 
However, if you're looking for a truthful, emotionally harrowing play about
families, responsibility and just how adept we humans are at deceiving
ourselves about ourselves, OLT's production of Miller's 1947 play is what
you want.

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November: One of the season’s best productions!

By Jamie Portman | December 2, 2012

Director John P.Kelly. Photo: David Pasho

Anyone who cares about about good theatre should keep an eye on what’s happening at the Gladstone, a venue with a growing track record for eclectic, adventurous programming and generally high production values. Unfortunately, it tends to be overshadowed by the more prominent presences of the National Arts Centre and GCTC — and this could be dangerous to the Gladstone’s long-term financial health. It’s a place that merits our support.
> All of which is a preamble to saying that this Gladstone Avenue venue is currently housing SevenThirty Productions’ outrageously funny take on David Mamet’s scathing political satire, November, and that it deserves to be playing to sell-out houses. It’s highlighted by Todd Duckworth’s hilarious performance as the dim-witted president of the United States — and if this bumbling narcissist reminds you of George W. Bush, it’s not likely that either Duckworth or director John P. Kelly will quarrel with you.
> Mamet’s play unashamedly embraces cartoonry and blunt-edged caricature in the course of his zany account of one chaotic day in an Oval Office neatly re-imagined for the Gladstone stage by set designer David Magladry. It’s a day which sees the foul-mouthed and self-absorbed President Charles Smith working himself into a lather over the probability of being ousted from office by the electorate. He’s further obsessed over the probability of not having the money to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors by setting up a presidential library in his name. Smith revealingly keeps mispronouncing this institution of his dreams, referring to it as his “libary” — and that’s scarcely surprising given that this whining cretin doesn’t appear to have ever read a book in his life.

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