There’s a famous scene in the first act of Cyrano de Bergerac when the play’s long-nosed hero delivers an elegantly witty speech on the virtues of his proboscis. He then subjects an insolent young cadet to a duel in which he punctuates the humiliating cuts and thrusts of his blade with the composition of a ballad.

It should be a defining moment in Rostand’s play — a moment which seduces the audience into embracing not only its spirit of unfettered romanticism and unabashed theatrical excess, but also the tragic-comic figure of the poet Cyrano himself.

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When leaving the theatre after watching Peter Hinton’s rendition of Peter Anderson’s “Creation,” I heard a lady commenting on what she had just seen: ”It’s unbelievable how someone can take a few bits and pieces,” she said “ and make them into a well-rounded story!” This is exactly what Peter Anderson’s play is: fragments of several Old Testament stories from the Bible put together and made into a tale about the creation of the world. Starting from an empty darkness, there was the word, then came light, water, and so on – all the way to humans. God gave life and the chance to live in paradise to everybody and everything.

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When  I first heard that the Gladstone was putting on Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac under a new translation, I immediately got flashes to awkward “modern” dialogue, too much emphasis on slapstick and, worst of all, random, misplaced attempts at song. Talk about not judging something before seeing it. David Whiteley’s version of the classic play manages to be modern and funny without sacrificing the eloquence and poignancy of the original script.

Richard Gélinas’ Cyrano is an audacious, nuanced hero. He will fight (and defeat) a hundred men, as much with his sharp tongue and poetry as with his sword. He is energetic and boisterous with his fellow soldiers, but is plagued by insecurity about his goodly-sized nose. Cyrano falls in love with his cousin Roxane, a strong and passionate woman, portrayed by a somewhat flat Élise Gauthier. Roxane, however, falls in love with Christian, a handsome, but dense young man in Cyrano’s company.

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Ottawa playwright and actor Pierre Brault has, over the past dozen or so years, established himself as a singular and important figure in theatre both in Ottawa and beyond. One-man shows like 5 O’Clock Bells, about jazz guitar legend Lenny Breau, are wonderful pieces. So it feels heretical to say that Blood on the Moon is no longer the startlingly compelling piece it was when, after debuting at the 1999 Ottawa Fringe Festival, it was expanded and mounted at the National Arts Centre, toured extensively and, in 2007, was adapted as a Gemini-winning film for Bravo television.

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Nini Bélanger est metteuse en scène, Pascal Brullemans est auteur dramatique. Dans Beauté, chaleur et mort, le couple – nous apprenons à la fin du spectacle qu’il s’agit bien d’un couple-se retrouve ensemble en scène pour la première fois, dans leur propre spectacle. Ils avaient en effet besoin de créer un événement thérapeutique après la mort de leur bébé.
Professionnels du théâtre, ils ont donc pris la décision de marier la difficulté de raconter la mort d’un enfant,  et une réflexion sur la représentation du réel au théâtre. Résultat :une œuvre hyperréaliste où une intimité minimaliste accompagne  une  réflexion sur le rapport entre  réel et temps scénique… Ils se rendent  alors compte que la durée prolongée  et répétée d’une activité douloureuse en scène, transforme la perception de cet événement en un moment profondément « réel » pour le spectateur.

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This contemporary  adaptation of Three Sisters which fore grounds all the  potentially bitter sweet  humour in Chekhov’s world, brings  together comedy,  pathos and even  near  tragedy  in a  lively production  by the Drama Guild at Ottawa University, directed and adapted by Peter Froehlich.   One of  Chekhov’s most important plays, Three Sisters,  written near the end of his life (first produced in 1901), has not been  shortened, according to the director,  although given the snappy pace of it all and the comic relief laced with drama that carries it along, one has the impression that this version is much shorter than other versions have been.

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Reviewed by Jamie Portman
Kenneth Lonergan’s 1996 play about disaffected, self-absorbed and rudderless young people created quite a stir 15 years ago and ushered its 34-year-old author into a major career. Today, it seems less of a landmark and somewhat redolent of warmed-over Mamet. Yet, it continues to strike a chord within the youth culture, and over the years its pungent naturalistic dialogue, garnished with profane humor and often merciless character analysis, has attracted such outstanding young actors as Matt Damon and Mark Ruffalo.

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Margo MacDonald (Restes)  and Scott Florence (Pommes frites)

The Company of Fools has returned with The Midwinter’s Dream Tale, that Shakespearean parody that fuses Midsummer Night’s Dream into The Winter’s Tale, transforming the fairy tale world of Oberon and Tatiana into a sparkling, frozen and fairly brilliant clown show.  The clowns become the narrative links in that rather nasty story about the, narcissistic and  jealous  Fairy King Oberon, who tries to destroy the   Fairy Queen’s baby because he is not convinced it is his own.  In a jealous rage, he sends the baby off to be drowned. What follows is the frantic flight away from the king, the frantic search for the child, all accompanied by a desire for  vengeance, and  the appearance of a whole parade of strange creatures including love sick fairies, the fluffy abominable snow creature, a silvery very in your face Puck, a hugely pregnant Tatiana, a frozen wonderland of twinkling snowflakes and beasts whose eyes glow in the dark.  A magnificent show for the whole family with jokes that will amuse the younger children, and other jokes that will tickle the funny bones of the adults.  It speaks to everyone.

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The revue Ain’t Misbehavin’, an accolade to Fats Waller, was first produced in1978, thirty-five years after the multi-talented jazz composer, singer, and pianist’s death.  A hit then, his music written in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s still reverberates today.  Many of his songs have become standards, but even Waller’s less familiar tunes were enthusiastically applauded by the audience at the Lyric Stage.

Although not a biography, the character of Fats Waller is front and center.  David Tolwlun’s clever set, which suggests both a theatre and a night club, helps anchor the show and provides a sense of plot. Props consist of a few chairs and a table, which actor Calvin Braxton moves about at various times, solidifying the impression of Fats Waller as the owner of the night spot.

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The memories that remain a lifetime are not always of world-shattering events. They can be of something as simple as having a chocolate soda with a special person or as unpleasant as an encounter with a bullying aunt.

In John Van Druten’s 1944 drama I Remember Mama, based on a fictionalized memoir by Kathryn Forbes, these are just two of the incidents that Katrin recalls. Seen through the mirror of childhood, Katrin Hanson, the eldest daughter, looks back over the years, picking out the moments that defined her mother’s strength and warmth.

The episodic nature of the story line suggests that I Remember Mama could have been more effective as a movie (1948) or a television show (1950s) than as a stage play in 2011.

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