Evening the odds is at the core of Wait Until Dark. Although the thriller by Frederick Knott creaks a little after 51 years, the central theme continues to hold its own.

The protagonist, Susy, is learning to cope after an accident that blinded her. When a psychopathic killer, aided by two con men, terrorize her in their search for a drug-stuffed doll, she seeks to outwit them by making their world as dark as hers.

For anyone who has not seen the twist in the exciting climax, either on stage or in the 1967 movie starring Audrey Hepburn, Wait Until Dark can be a nail-biter. Although the excitement of the unknown is lost the second or third time around, a strong production makes the drama well worth revisiting.

And the Classic Theatre Festival production of Wait Until Dark, directed by Laurel Smith, is certainly that. Most notable for its attention to detail — the occasional noises from the refrigerator, for example — as well as a sensitive characterization from Alison Smyth as the feisty Susy, the tension builds with her realization that her various visitors are not what they seem. …

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God created Adam and Eve, and on the seventh day he sat back and wondered, “But why haven’t they figured out how to procreate yet?” 9^th Hour Theatre Company presents Arthur Miller’s The Creation of the World and Other Business, a story loosely based on the story of Genesis. In this production, director Jonathan Harris sets the story in a clown circus which shifts the story from parable to parody.

The script is far from what one might associate with Miller. Here, Miller does not present his audience with realism, and the story itself does not unfold in a realistic stage-world. Instead, The Creation of the World and Other Business presents an intangible setting (in this case, it is Earth during Creation) where he can examine the nebulous world of morality from a distance. The play presents other-worldly characters struggling with the first-ever moral dilemmas experienced by humankind. God and Lucifer enter many repartees concerning the balance of good and evil, God’s own vanity, and justice. …

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The St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival’s new Artistic Director Rona Waddington has come up with a creative, lively and wonderfully silly production of “Comedy of Errors.”  With clever added music by Musical Director Melissa Morris and lyrics by Shakespeare and Miss Waddington, the play speeds by in a well-paced ninety minutes through all the twin confusion to it’s unlikely happy ending.

The music and Miss Waddington’s sometimes athletic staging take advantage of the multitalented cast.  Aegon, well-played by Richard Sheridan Willis, sings his story of the twins while Colin Lepage and Alice Snaden dance the story in balletic pantomime.  Mr. Willis shows up in Act II as the hilarious conjurer Pinch, who bursts into a rousing gospel number with robed choir back-up complete with tambourines.

Jonathan Purvis’s choreography is very good, especially the acrobatics, as is his fight direction.  The timing on the slapping scene between Luciana, the appealing Shannon Currie and Adriana, played as a Latina fireball by the excellent Rose Napoli, is impeccable.  (I’d like to mention everyone in the terrific cast, but time won’t permit it. …

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Odyssey Theatre’s celebration of its 30^th anniversary is a mixed bag in more ways than one.

Taking Spanish writing and the measures to which we go for love as her themes, artistic director Laurie Steven has chosen three one-act plays, each of which she directs, rather than the usual single, full production. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

The first piece, Saving Melisendra, is Steven’s stage adaptation of a chapter from Miguel de Cervantes’ 17^th century novel Don Quixote. In it, the increasingly mad knight Quixote (William Beddoe) interferes in a puppet show about two lovers, one of whom, Melisendra, has been captured by some dastardly Moors.

The puppets, designed by Kathy McLellan and operated primarily by John Nolan who plays the puppet master Pedro, are clever. There are some funny Punch and Judy-style bits, and melodrama is given the gears. The text touches on ideas of reality and artifice in theatre (“I thought everything taking place here was taking place,” says the deluded Quixote).

But the show overall is flat, lacks commitment and is unfocused. On opening night, which had been twice delayed because of weather, the show also saw the first of several set or costume malfunctions. …

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Arthur Miller’s The Creation of the World and Other Business tanked when it first opened on Broadway in 1972. Its attempts at comedy, as well as an intelligent, complex treatment of the subject matter are all disparaged to this day. The text does seem confused about its identity – does it want to be a comedy or a drama? By attempting to be both, it misses the mark and comes off flat. Luckily, 9th Hour Theatre’s rich, imaginative production presents the best of what the play has to offer. There are a few elements that can be ironed out, but, overall, cast and crew come together and present a highly enjoyable production which digs into the characters and central themes of the text.

The Creation of the World and Other Business is Miller’s take on the Biblical creation of the world. We first get to know Adam, endlessly frolicking in the Garden of Eden, blissful in his sinless ignorance. God wants Adam to procreate, so he creates Eve. Unfortunately, their innocence is such that procreation, or the act required for it, doesn’t even cross the the two humans’ minds. God, in his infinite power and somewhat lacklustre wisdom, doesn’t know how to make this happen, so in comes Lucifer, a shrewdly intelligent archangel and the only one to challenge God’s ideas. He has some ideas of his own, setting events into motion that change the path of humanity forever.  …

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It can be said that The Tempest is the least of his plays that bear a “Shakespearean” style. Not only is the dramatic structure very different from what we usually see in Shakespeare’s plays, but the role of women is marginalized to a subordinate, pretty figure. The only female character that appears in The Tempest is Miranda, Prospero’s dutiful daughter who merely serves to fulfill her father’s revenge over his brother Antonio.

The story is very simple. Prospero, the rightful duke of Milan, and his daughter Miranda have been stranded for 12 years on a remote island after Prospero’s brother Antonio overthrows and exiles him. For those 12 years, Prospero has been preparing his revenge. The play takes place during three hours on the island at the zenith of the action, culminating in forgiveness instead of revenge.

This is the only play by the great bard that follows the dramatic structure of Aristotle’s three classical unities of time, place, and action, and as such is perfectly suited for outdoor staging. Just the thing for Ottawa’s parks in the summertime!

Bear & Co.’s production takes full advantage of the outdoor space and its atmosphere. It also skillfully incorporates all three major themes in the play: magic, yearning for freedom, and love. The effects that invoke the storm are realistic and, in combination with music, make an eerie atmosphere. Well-chosen songs transport the audience to a different time. Add to all this beautiful, fiery and elegant spirit Ariel and magic is born right there before your eyes. Zoe Georgaras is a perfect fit for the role of Ariel. She is a light dancer, excellent actress, alluring, playful, and mischievous. Her ability to express thoughts and mood just with body language and facial expressions is superb. …

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Poster for the Ottawa Little Theatre.

Seeing the aging shock rocker peel off his sleeves of tattoos is the single most effective moment in the Ottawa Little Theatre production of Bedtime Stories.

It is a reminder that Norm Foster comedies can be very funny, even touching at times.

Sadly, this group of six vaguely connected skits set in various bedrooms is worthy of few laughs, rarely touches and leaves one wondering why Foster has so often been called the Canadian Neil Simon.

The opening sequence of the group, written in 2006, is both ridiculous and distasteful: an ambitious radio host has paid a middle-aged couple $5,000 to have sex on air. The conservatively clothed couple is less than the passionate pair he envisioned. Yet, the sounds of their bedtime activities become an irritating recurring theme through the remaining playlets. Other repetitions such as mention of a cab driver, who constantly loses her way, and her foolish sister, an incompetent exotic dancer, are hardly worth a smile, never mind a laugh.

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Jean-Denis Labelle photo.

The heavy breathing that is a key feature of Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with trudging up many flights of stairs to a fifth-floor walk-up apartment in New York. And that minor inconvenience is just one of the many problems with the nest that enchanted the impulsive and newly-wed Corie Bratter. Perhaps, if her lawyer husband had seen the cramped apartment before she rented it, he might have noticed the hole in the skylight, the minute bedroom, the faulty radiator or the excessive rent.

When it premiered on Broadway in 1963, Barefoot in the Park was an instant hit, running for more than 1,500 performances — a record run for a non-musical play. Later a successful movie starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, the comedy — written as a tribute to Simon’s first wife — focuses on the attractions between opposites and the steep learning curve in the early days of any marriage—50 years ago or today.

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Photo Credit: Eighty Eight Entertainment.

Montreal’s Hershey Felder has built an unusual and successful career performing the lives of composers as an actor and musician in his own creations. Previous subjects George Gershwin, Frederick Chopin, Leonard Bernstein, and Franz Liszt were all classical composers, although Gershwin and Bernstein crossed over into musicals. Irving Berlin, who composed more than a thousand songs – many of them standards, but not all published – was celebrated as a tunesmith. Nonetheless, in addition to his single numbers, he wrote scores and lyrics for movies and Broadway. Several of his movies, such as The Jazz Singer, had a significant role in the development of film musicals. Of his seventeen Broadway shows, the seventy year old Annie Get Your Gun is still relevant and widely played.

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Photo. Andrew Alexander

Our raging Company of Fools is back for another summer of theatrical mayhem, turning the Bard’s work into the most unexpected of romps in the park. The Comedy of Errors is Shakespeare’s earliest play, according to many historians although the existence of the Folio does not necessarily indicate the original existence of the play itself, since performances were not always recorded in the 16^th Century . Shakespearean scholars tell us that two plots taken very likely from the original Latin version of Plautus’ most popular plays Menaechmi and Amphitruo are at the origin of this romantic tale of separation and reconciliation of Shakespeare’s Greek family.

As well, a 1938 version of the story became a Musical comedy , The Boys from Syracus.. However the Company of Fools, in their wisdom, shows us that in fact, the coloured and madcap visual world of Dr Seuss as well as the story of “Where’s Wally”, are essential sources of their performance.

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