Photo. Alan Dean

A single directorial decision can sometimes make or break a show. In the Orpheus Musical Theatre Society’s current production of the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel, the show is close to breaking point because one virginal character is required to open her legs in a totally inappropriate sexual invitation at the conclusion of joyfully singing about how much she is looking forward to marrying her beau. And to make matters worse, the offensive movement is repeated when Mr. Snow is reprised, underlining just how out of tone it is with the character and minimizing the contrast between respectable and disreputable working girls.

…

Read More Read More

Photo. Alan Dean.

Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel is a dark, sometimes complex, and musically rich show. The lonely story about a bad boy who would prefer to do good, the woman who loves him, and the fishing community surrounding them is not an easy one to stage successfully as this unfocused Orpheus production proves.

Artistic director J. Taylor Morris, and by extension the cast, seems to have no clear vision of what he wants. Is this production meant to be a comedy, a tragedy, a tragic-comedy? Judging from audience laughter at inappropriate moments, the crowd was as confused as the people on stage. Other issues?

Little chemistry between the characters, the inevitable result of a production with no focus. Limp choreography, although Dave Rowan, a precise and engaged dancer, is a pleasure to watch as the criminally inclined Jigger Craigin. Kodi Cannon has a fine singing voice and delivers a solid performance as Enoch Snow, a good guy whose only desire is a sprawling, happy family. Unfortunately, many others struggle with their musical parts.
The company works hard, it’s true. But that’s not enough to make this show much more than a disappointing carnival ride.

Photograph by Maria Vartanova

One of the big hits of the 1980s, both on stage and on the silver screen, it is little wonder that Ottawa Little Theatre chose Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias to represent this decade in its 100^th season.

Written in part in memory of the playwright’s sister, who died from complications related to her diabetes, the well-structured drama maintains a fine balance between comedy and tragedy, dipping its toe into melodrama in only one scene.

Steel Magnolias is a fine snapshot of small-town life. It is also a studio portrait of the bond of friendship. An ode to the camaraderie among the six women who are the Steel Magnolias of the title, the setting of Truvy’s home-based beauty salon in small-town Louisiana is a perfect place to share confidences, gossip and support each other through good times and bad.

…

Read More Read More

Photo. Maria  Vartanova

So many things could go wrong with a production of Steel Magnolias, Robert Harling’s comedy/drama about the bond between six southern women in the 1980s.
Drama could slip into melodrama. Bad timing could kill Harling’s wonderfully comic lines. Chemistry between the six characters, who represent three generations of southern women, could be frail or non-existent. The entire show  could be overplayed, the characters becoming mere caricatures and the narrative a blunt instrument of stock situations.
None of that happens in OLT’s memorable production. Instead, director Tom Taylor, his cast and the design/technical crew give us a funny, moving and smartly concise ensemble piece that gazes into the lives of these six women and the culture that surrounds them. It’s a gaze that’s steady but compassionate, theatrical but credible, layered but refreshingly direct.
Steel Magnolias continues until June 15. Don’t miss it.

Photos. Mark Bergin

There’s something to be said for light entertainment, especially when it’s well done and SUDS, the season opener at the 1000 Islands Playhouse is very well done. It’s an enjoyable piece of fluff that draws on 60s nostalgia using 47 hit songs of the period, (I counted), to tie together a totally improbably plot. Set in a laundromat, it concerns young Cindy’s lack of a love life and the attempts by not one, not two, but three guardian angels to help her out.

The script is really just an excuse to tie together the terrific songs. Unlike so many later juke-box musicals, writers Melina Gilb, Steve Gunderson and Bryan Scott got permission to use the cream of the 60s crop. The script, though funny, is kept to a minimum and the concentration is on the almost non-stop music.

…

Read More Read More

Photo. Andrew Alexander

Eddie May’s recent show is exactly the kind of theatre that its patrons would want to see. Based on Parker Brothers board game with a smithering of Murder by Death logic in the mix, it has seven hyper active characters who are all being blackmailed because of their criminal past. Drawn into a closed space by a mysterious person who will only remain a voice, they are manipulated by the voice and the situation and other things, until the identity of the blackmailer (and possible murderer) is discovered! In the meantime, the audience is asked to make suggestions about the blackmailer’s identity as the past of each of our intruders is brought to light. The text, which was written recently involves characters who do work “up on the hill” which made me wonder why they didn’t put in more topical pot shots at the politicians but as they said, they are not being topical. Still, any writer working in such a comic atmosphere could not have resisted the chance, given all the marvellous material at their disposal in the press recently. This makes me feel that writing is not the main focus of this group. They prefer action and that is what we got.

…

Read More Read More

Photo Wendy Wagner

Actor Dale MacEachern deserves a big bouquet for his contribution to Kanata Theatre’s new production of A Flea In Her Ear.

But, no, better make that two bouquets. MacEachern takes on dual roles in the Georges Feydeau farce, and excels in both. We first see him as the somewhat stolid but emotionally distraught Victor Chandebise, an affluent Parisian whose declining libido at home has led wife Raymonde to question his faithfulness. MacEachern etches out this characterization with shrewd psychological observation and comic efficiency, and then shows equal ease in creating the buffoonish Poche, drunken porter at the notorious Frisky Puss Hotel, a shambling oaf who happens to look exactly like Victor.

…

Read More Read More

Photo Andrew Alexander

From left to right: Michelle LeBlanc, Sarah Finn, David Frisch, Robin Toller, Sascha Cole, Dilys Ayafor. In the foreground, David Whitely as Dr. Givings

Sarah Ruhl’s naughty little contemporary comedy takes place in the early 1890s. It is centred on that highly controversial illness called “hysteria” which eventually became a way of defining sexual dysfunction specifically related to women in the sexually repressed Victorian era. The creation of a new-fangled apparatus called the Vibrator , thanks to the discovery of electricity, was thought to offer the most effective cure by massaging those sensitive female parts to the point of causing the “paroxysm” which was supposed to release all the pent -up fluids that were causing the inner strangling of the body. A bit later. Freud’s research linked hysteria to the subconscious and the way the body somatised the symptoms related to repression, such things as headaches, dizziness, paralysis and all sorts of illnesses , according to the doctors, that could be relieved by using the vibrator.

…

Read More Read More

Photo: Angelo Barsetti

Sébastien  Ricard.

French playwright Bernard-Marie Koltès died at the age of 41, but not before leaving a body of dramatic work that cut deeply into contemporary theatre.  Although La Nuit juste avant les forêts is his first play, (1977), it seems even more relevant to us today than it might have when it was created over 30 years ago.

…

Read More Read More