STRATFORD, Ont. — By the time we get to the balcony scene, we know just how well the Stratford Festival’s new production of Romeo And Juliet is working. From the beginning, we’ve sensed that it is firmly on the side of youth — which is exactly as things should be in Shakespeare’s tragedy of star-crossed …
NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ont. — Critic Kenneth Tynan once observed that Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan was the first work to show the beginnings of the playwright’s senility. Tynan reveled in this kind of attention-grabbing judgment. But on this occasion, it could also be seen as a diversionary tactic to quell the discomfort Tynan himself might well be …
Photo: Maria Vartanova Other Desert Cities By Jon Robin Baitz, directed by Geoff Gruson. In case you hadn’t noticed, truth is slippery. Everyone has his or her own version of it, as Donald Trump demonstrates almost daily. Playwright Jon Robin Baitz has made that slipperiness – and the crazy-making process of trying to grab hold …
Her name is Matchstick, and she lives in an undesirable country. But this is her play and so she is free to cast herself as the hero. After all, she is a poor orphan and so she must be destined to rise against all odds. When she meets Alik, a stranger from far away, she …
Photo from National Theatre Live (A Young Vic production). Michael Gould (lawyer) and Mark Strong (Eddie Carbone) Centre stage. Written in 1955, this play has had several rewritings where the ending especially has taken on different forms. This London version corresponds to the final published version where Eddie dies in his wife’s arms. …
An impressive set by Patrice-Ann Forbes immediately arouses our curiosity; it exposes levels of an old house in Berlin with a photo lab, dark room, sleeping areas and a rooftop space where one can watch the world go by. The place is “haunted” by a living negative, a young girl, played by a perky, passionate …
Who are we? What is the purpose of our existence? These are questions many of us constantly ask ourselves. As such, they rank high above others on the priority list, whether they address pressing world issues, catastrophes of any proportion, or the very survival of anything that is not connected to us. That is exactly …
Don José (David Pomeroy), Carmen (Alessandra Volpe) Photo by Wayne Cuddington. Carmen, based on Prosper Merimée’s novella has been slightly altered by the Meilhac and Halévy libretto but the essence of the melodrama remains. Given all the heart tugging material set in those “exotic” surroundings of Andalucia and the mountains of southern Spain, it is …
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 …
Matt Smith and Manon Dumas in Marcel poursuivi par les chiens. The Carleton Tavern is the perfect venue for this intense little drama by Michel Tremblay, which opened this weekend in Ottawa’s west end theatre district! Marcel Pursued by the Hounds was first staged in French in 1992 and this translation by John Van Burek …