Theatre in Ottawa and the region Archives - Page 87 of 92 - Capital Critics' Circle / Le cercle des critiques de la capitale

NAC English Theatre’s fulfilling production of David French’s play Salt Water Moon about reunited sweethearts in Newfoundland.

By Patrick Langston | October 24, 2011

Ottawa Ctizen, October 24, 2011

Jacob Mercer and Mary Snow, when first we meet them in the NAC English Theatre’s fulfilling production of David French’s romantic comedy Salt-Water Moon, look small, almost lost on what seems an enormous set.

Not only do they look small, they sound that way too, their voices audible but initially distant, as though battling the vastness of the sea that laps at the shores of Coley’s Point, the Newfoundland outport where they’ve been raised and where the play takes place.

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Ira Levin’s punchy Melodrama, Dr Cook’s Garden, stands the test of time.

By Iris Winston | October 20, 2011

A different take on the apparent perfection of another of his dramas, The Stepford Wives, playwright Ira Levin exposes the weed killer Dr. Cook uses in his garden, the village where he has been the sole physician for more than 30 years.

In Greenfield, the sun seems to shine all the time. Here, only the undeserving and imperfect die young. The rest are nurtured into a peaceful old age by the caring Dr. Cook — the man who has been a second father to Jim Templeton.

But, when Jim returns to celebrate his graduation from medical school, he discovers a problem in Greenfield that could have dire consequences.

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Goya marks its tenth anniversary with a retrospective of its own musicals stirs up good memories.

By Iris Winston | October 14, 2011

In A Tribute to the Canadian Musical, GOYA marked its tenth anniversary with a retrospective of the musicals it has presented over the last decade.

The tribute by Gord Carruth links excerpts from nine shows, interspersed with comments from behind-the-scenes GOYA members.

As with many shows in review format, Tribute has its highs and lows. In the highs department, the segment from Joey by Gord Carruth, GOYA’s first production, works particularly well. Among the most compelling individual numbers are Sharron McGuirl’s sensitive rendition of When he was my beau from Anne & Gilbert by Jeff Hochhauser, Bob Johnston and Nancy White, and Lesley Osborn’s powerful version of Coattails from Menopositive by J.J. McColl.

Jim Baldwin is very funny as the cocky pirate captain from The Princess & the Pirate by Gord Carruth and Jennifer Fontaine and Andrew Galligan are effective both in assorted roles and as the show’s anchors.

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Speed the plow : a high-powered performance by Teri Loretto-Valentik and her team.

By Alvina Ruprecht | October 10, 2011

David Mamet’s play, first produced in 1988 with Madonna playing the single feminine role, has lost none of its bite, its irreverence – to put it mildly – its male capitalist energy, and the power of its dialogue that shoots back and forth as though the actors were riddling each other with machine gun spray. Director Teri Loretto-Valentik has captured the high powered rhythm of Mamet’s intense exchanges.

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Speed the Plow : the cast produces a probing performance of this corrosive demolition jon on the pretensions of industry movers and shakers.

By Jamie Portman | October 10, 2011

Hollywood power brokers can be so entrenched in their own self-regarding culture that they often have a skewed awareness, not only of the world outside but of what they themselves are really like.

So the set designed by Ivo Valentik for this new Ottawa production of Speed The Plow, David Mamet’s corrosive demolition job on the pretensions of industry movers and shakers, seems entirely appropriate to the occasion. It is, in its own way, a thing of bizarre beauty — a marvel of rampaging black and white lines dislocated by odd angles, distorted doorways and a cunningly raked floor — which keeps wreaking havoc with perspective.

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West Moon Street an early Oscar Wilde that already shows us his classic comedy of manners

By Iris Winston | September 21, 2011

Basing a play on a little known story by a famous writer sounds like a good idea. But when the story itself is not one of that author’s best (that may be the reason that it is so obscure) the adapter is likely to face credibility issues with the script.

The short story in question is Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime. In it, Oscar Wilde mocks frauds and confidence tricksters in the “fate” industry (palm readers, telepathists, spiritualists) and takes a tongue-in-cheek look at a gentleman’s approach to doing his duty. Wilde follows the pattern perfected in his classic comedy of manners, The Importance of Being Earnest, written four years later in 1895, making much of the insignificant and minimizing the value of important matters. The approach is just does not as effective in Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime.

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Into The Woods: A Stellar Production By The Orpheus Musical Theatre Society

By Iris Winston | September 20, 2011

“Living happily ever after” was never Stephen Sondheim’s favoured style. So when he latched onto some of the fairy tales of the brothers Grimm and he and book writer James Lapine headed into the woods in 1986, it was almost certain that the resulting musical would be closer to the W.W. Jacobs story of The Monkey’s Paw (a classic illustration that we should be careful what we wish for) than to riding off into a sunset filled with joy.

It is also worth remembering the theory that fairy tales are frequently seen as a projection of children’s fears and that many of the Grimm classics are horror stories filled with violence and evil. (The early editions of the 19^th-century stories were criticized as being unsuitable for children.)

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Frères d’hiver de Michel Ouellette: un paysage “symboliste” émerge d’un monde hivernal dans cette mise en scène remarquable de Joel Beddows,

By Alvina Ruprecht | September 16, 2011

Deux cercles concentriques; au milieu, une forme ovale baignée de lumière douce et froide qui semble vibrer comme une couche de liquide instable, une illusion bien sûr, évoquée par des éclairages bleuâtres et glacés, un paysage d’hiver symboliste. Un jeune homme s’est laissé enfoncer jusqu’au fond de l’eau glacée et le voilà, cadavre gelé étendu sur une table en inox. Nous ne le voyons pas. C’est Pierre, son frère, qui nous en parle. Enfin, un jeu de lumières bleues, jaunes, rouges tissent des liens entre ces images et le paysage hivernal éclairé par la lumière du soleil matinal, jusqu’à ce que cette boule de braise suspendue dans le ciel, nous aveugle.

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The 39 Steps. An Auspicious Beginning for the New Gladstone.

By Alvina Ruprecht | September 9, 2011

Richard Gélinas and Zach Council. photo: Alan Dean

The New Gladstone “larger than life” Theatre opened this week as a great buzz of excitement ran through that beautiful foyer. It captured the special feel of the official launching of the whole Ottawa theatre season which meant that everybody who was anybody had to be there to see The 39 Steps by Patrick Barlow, directed by John P. Kelly and produced by SevenThirty productions.

The trajectory of this play is unusual. It began as a mystery spy novel in 1915 written by Scottish novelist John Buchan, also just as well-known as Lord Tweedsmuir who became the Governor General of Canada in 1935, and who created the Governor General’s literary awards before his death in 1940. The 39 Steps was adapted to the screen by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935, the first of a series of screen adaptations that were various imitations of Hitchcock’s original. Then in 2005, a new form of imitation was born.

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dirty rotten Scoundrels laughs mostly at itself.

By Alvina Ruprecht | July 12, 2011

Relying heavily on equal parts of chutzpah and polish, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is funny, irreverent, ironic, occasionally coarse and frequently politically incorrect. It mocks stereotypes, borrows style and content from other musicals as required, periodically breaks through the fourth wall and, most of all, laughs at itself.

In other words, this cheeky, lighthearted entertainment — adapted from the 1988 movie starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin — is a great deal of fun. …

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