Leo Szilard is one of those impressive historical figures who you probably have never heard of. That is, unless you are performer Jem Rolls who seems to be a walking encyclopedia dedicated to Szilard. Rolls’ one man show is biographical storytelling and delivers a fantastic amount of information at an impressive pace.

And so, who was Szilard?  A Hungarian, Jewish physicist, and what many might call a genius.  He was a bombastic personality, oftimes loathsome and hidden in the footnotes of the works of more famous scientists,  philosophers and politicians. He inspired the science that led to the first theories of the Atomic Bomb, and then kept the key that would unlock the science to himself to keep it out of the hands of the Nazis in the late 1930’s.

Jem Rolls delivers a truly impressive history with zeal and inflections that call to mind a British Steve Irwin. The performance is more along the lines of performative lecture than theatre. The story is fascinating and immaculately researched, and Rolls inserts humour by reminding us of his performance’s own structure, and his intentions to convince us that Szilard was as much a hero as he was a physicist.

Though Rolls’ passion for the subject matter is palpable, the density of information ended up being a barrier. Ultimately, despite some issues with pacing, the story leaves you wondering why you’ve never heard of Szilard before. If you asked Rolls, I imagine that he would say, “Mission accomplished “.

Three women from three seperate histories–different countries and eras entirely–intersect in Ground Cover Theater’s Displaced. Each has reached a moment where leaving their homes for the greener pastures of Canada has become essential to their survival. And though their stories are independent from one another, here, they have been woven together in a story that portrays the trials faced by lone women who arrive to Canada as refugees.

Mary (Katie Moore) flees the Irish Famine in the 1840s, Sofia (Anna Mazurik) arrives from Germany in the 1940s after her Jewish husband dies in a camp, and Dara (Emma Laishram) must leave Afghanistan to avoid persecution after refusing an arranged marriage. And though their stories are disparate, playwrights Natasha Martina and Sue Mythen use overlayed monologues and corporeal sequences to indicate a shared theme amongst the three women. Each leaves terrible tragedy behind, and struggles in a new life as a persecuted outsider. …

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This year, the St. Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival is celebrating its 25th anniversary by putting the “fringe” in fringefest. Featuring over 100 performances in venues that pepper Montreal’s downtown, the Montreal Fringe Fest is boundary-pushing, multi-disciplinary, multi-lingual, and fearless. With shows running until June 21, the two-hour trip from Ottawa is well worth it.

2056: A Dystopian Black Comedy

In the aftershock of a religious-based war, society has organized itself into hard-gotten peace. In 2056, unilingualism and atheism are more than simply a choice: They are mandated, and there is a harsh penalty for disobedience. Two characters, Knut (Sebastien Rajotte) and Madalyn (Humberly Gonzalez), have been sterilized (both in body and in belief) and forced to cohabitate in a derelict apartment on the outskirts of a contaminated city. Both characters repress their mother-tongues for fear of being found deviant even in their own home. But a small slip and the audience soon finds out just how far the puppet strings go. …

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Photo: Maria Vartanova

“I think it must be a comedy of some kind,” whispered the bewildered playgoer who had been sitting next to me. She was wrong.

But it’s understandable she might make such an observation following the opening-night performance of Ottawa Little Theatre’s deplorable production of Dangerous Corner.

By the second act, this was clearly not an audience gripped by the psychological suspense inherent in J.B. Priestley’s 1932 play. Instead, titters throughout the house reflected a growing uncertainty about how to respond to the shrill and hollow melodramatics being enacted on stage. And when it was finally time for the climactic offstage gun shot, the dramatic currency of Priestley’s neatly constructed piece had been so devalued that this moment had about as much dramatic impact as the fizzle of a damp firecracker.

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Photo. Maria Vartanova

In many respects, J.B. Priestley’s Dangerous Corner, written in 1932, is like the early T-groups that became popular some 40 years later.

The T- or sensitivity-training groups, also known as encounter groups, were intended to encourage self-awareness by exposing emotions and attitudes. Some of the most controversial were effective in laying inner thoughts and feelings bare, but apparently had more trouble in putting those they destroyed back together. This is the warning implicit in Priestley’s psychological thriller. Do we really want to hear every uncomfortable detail of truth? Isn’t it more civilized and safer to retain a social veneer?

To emphasize the point, the opening, in semi-darkness, features the end of a radio play called The Sleeping Dog — which all the listeners would be better to let lie. But, the group, together for an elegant social evening at the home of Robert and Freda Caplan, do not hear the warning. Instead they turn the dangerous corner of total exposure of lies, theft, infidelity and emotional betrayal, sparked by opening a musical cigarette box — a true Pandora’s box in terms of the release of information about the various sins and desires of the cosy group. Only turning the clock back could have avoided the crisis of psychological destruction.

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Photo:  Courtesy GCTC.  Sarah McVie,Amy  Rutherford and Haley McGee

“The Public Servant” written collectively by Jennifer Brewin, Haley McGee, Sarah McVie and Amy Rutherford and directed by Jennifer Brewin, is a comedy that depicts the often frustrating lives of those who work in government. You don’t have to be Canadian to empathize with the frustration of dealing with bureaucracy. Unfortunately the three strong ladies in the cast and first rate direction can’t hide the rather pedestrian script.

Madge, played by Haley McGee, is beginning her first day of work and writing her first memo which of course requires 35 signatures. Her initial challenge is her entertaining struggle to set up a bi-lingual voice-mail message. The always solid Sarah McVie plays both Lois and Janice. She’s the knowledgeable old hand who leads Madge through the office labyrinth to her cubicle, advising all the way. Amy Rutherford plays a number of roles, but primarily that of the protocol-conscious supervisor of the other two.

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Photo: Courtesy GCTC

Originally an hour long play , the result of improvisation and some verbatim work, based on collected interviews, that was presented at the Undercurrent  theatre festival several years ago,has been reworked, stretched into one hour and twenty-five minutes.  The result is a play  lacking in content, a play that repeats the same gimmicky jokes and feels  like a short skit   stretched to the snapping point of nonentity. The set is heavy handed although it does try to reproduce a government office with its moving sections  that limit the movement in the wings.

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Photo. Courtesy of the NAC English Theatre.

The English language version of Needles and Opium, conceived and directed by Robert Lepage, starring Marc Labrèche and Wellesley Robertson III , was both enchanting and disappointing, as Lepage’s work can often be. This was the first time I have seen one of his performances in English and I think the switching of perspectives between three time frames, added  a dimension that dated the content of the play, especially the ironic interplay between English and French as the Americans show they cannot understand French and how that creates trouble for Robert, (Marc Labrèche), the writer who is doing voice overs of a film about Paris for an American Producer. That language irony corresponded to the state of mind of English/French relations 20 years ago, but that no longer has any importance. The language question is no longer creating anger, immigrants of all origins are the focus of current theatre about identity in Quebec (note the work by Mani Soleymanlou that has often come to the NAC). And no one cares who speaks with what accent. That appears in the sequences where the Americans are imposing difficult procedures for voice overs, causing trouble when Robert is working in the film studio . There you see that his dialogue, his content, the corporeal rhythm of the actor sometimes escape Lepage’s gaze and we are reminded that his work is at times “thin” and sometimes lacks substance .

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Photo: Modella Media

Underneath the froth, bubble and joy of Hairspray is a serious intent. While the 2002 musical (adapted from the 1988 movie) delivers its message about inclusion in a lighthearted, rhythmic way, the pain of being an outsider and the cruelty of some of the insiders is clear. This is particularly so in view of recent events in Baltimore, the setting of the award-winning show.

Although Hairspray’s main aim is entertainment, it is also a metaphor about not having to be a Barbie-doll type beauty to ensure success and partly a statement about racism and social conditions in the 1960s U.S.

Hairspray takes place in 1962, the era of big-hair and back-combing fashion and the year before Martin Luther King’s famous I Have a Dream speech called for an end to racial discrimination in the United States and it becoming a place where people would “not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

In the musical, the initial focus is on a fat girl with big hair and big dreams. Tracy Turnblad desperately wants to be one of the teen dancers on her favourite television show. First, she and Little Inez, a black dancer with a similar ambition, have to fight for the chance to audition for spots on the TV show.

The Orpheus Musical Theatre Society production of Hairspray, directed by Judy Follett, with musical direction by Gabriel Leury, starts in top gear with a cleverly designed bedroom scene and the clear-voiced Joyanne Rudiak as Tracy waking to deliver Good Morning Baltimore.

A well-drilled ensemble, with strong choreography from Mary Hills, and extra voices from the pit to add richness give the impression that the large cast is even bigger than it actually is.

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Published on in the Ottawa Citizen on  May 18, 2015

Photo Julie Le Gal

Civilization doesn’t actually collapse in George F. Walker’s exceedingly dark, angry and at times very funny The End of Civilization but it gets a damn rough ride.

Part of Walker’s late-1990s Suburban Motel series of plays, the show (this is its Ottawa premiere) finds a middle class couple, the self-absorbed Henry Cape and his weary wife Lily, holed up in a dreary motel. They’re attempting to save money while Henry, the victim of corporate bloodletting, searches dispiritedly for a new job.

Living in the next room is a practical prostitute named Sandy who befriends Lily. Also on board: two police officers, the uptight Max and his smarmy but likeable partner Donny, whose investigation of a series of murders brings them to the Capes’ motel room. There, the two cops squabble as viciously as do the Capes.

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