community theatre Archives - Page 8 of 12 - Capital Critics' Circle / Le cercle des critiques de la capitale

4000 Miles: Leads rather than script make 4000-mile journey worthwhile

By Iris Winston | September 19, 2015

Book-ended by the deaths of two unseen characters, 4000 Miles by Amy Herzog focuses on the healing wrought for Leo through the sometimes fractious relationship with his grandmother.

Both characters are based on two of the playwright’s relatives — her grandmother and a cousin. Individual scenes in this drama spiced with comic lines are engaging, apart from a barely credible sequence, in which grandson and grandmother get high on marijuana. (Drug-taking and drunk scenes are frequently repulsive or offensive and, except in rare cases, do little or nothing to add to plot or character.)

In this case, the pot-smoking segment underlines that, without strong performances and chemistry between the two leads, 4000 Miles would not be a journey worth undertaking. (It also makes it all the more surprising that Herzog’s episodic 2011 play was an award winner and a Pulitzer Prize finalist.) …

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I’m Not Jewish But My Mother Is!: Trite, repetitive and clichéd production

By Patrick Langston | August 3, 2015

Something to remember: writing, producing, directing and acting in a play mounted in your own theatre is probably not a good idea. Case in point: I’m Not Jewish But My Mother Is! written, produced and so on by Steve Martin on his own stage. Trite, repetitive and clichéd with a predictably gooey centre, the comedy is a prime example of how being overly involved in something blinds you to its faults.

Not that Martin hasn’t shown talent in many things theatrical. As owner of The Gladstone, he’s produced some excellent shows. As a director, he did a bang-up job in 2009 with David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin, Jr.’s howlingly funny The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society’s Production of A Christmas Carol. As an actor, he was first-rate, several years ago, in Stephen Mallatratt’s The Woman in Black at Ottawa Little Theatre, and has since held his own in Glengarry Glen Ross, Noises Off and other shows at The Gladstone.

But in those cases, he was wearing just one or two hats. With I’m Not Jewish …, he’s wearing them all so there’s no place for anyone with a dissenting view of Martin’s writing or staging decisions, no room for someone to suggest richer character development, no one to notice that maybe all that dancing (and Martin, a professional ballroom dancer, is undeniably fleet of foot) is overkill.

The play’s storyline is simple enough: successful bachelor lawyer Christopher Bloomfeld (Martin) has a stereotypical Jewish mother Rose Bloomfeld (Barbara Seabright-Moore) whose mouth pops into gear before her brain is fully engaged; lawyer also has a curvaceous girlfriend Felix (Bekah Fay) who arrives at his apartment while mouthy mother is visiting unannounced; sparks fly – though maybe not in the way you’d expect; heart-to-heart resolves all. …

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Avenue Q is a winner in Every Way.

By Jamie Portman | June 18, 2015

Photo: Courtesy of Allan Mackey.

The cheerful, uninhibited ribaldry of Avenue Q may well jolt some theatregoers. But they’re more likely to be disarmed by this essentially sweet-natured musical satire about life in a run-down apartment building on the wrong side of the tracks.

Ottawa’s Toto Too Theatre’s new production is a triumph — and a notable one. After all, this enterprising local company could have stumbled badly when it decided to tackle this long-running but challenging Broadway hit.

The show’s creators — Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx and Jeff Whitty — have created an infectious combination of witty word-play and toe-tapping music. They have stocked their comic playground with a collection of engaging and generally endearing neighbourhood types. But we’re also getting a mischievous, albeit affectionate, send-up of Sesame Street here, along with some R-rated moments that are clearly not intended for the moppet brigade. That means that puppets — and, more specifically their effective use on stage — are integral to the success of any production of Avenue Q. Without effective puppetry, the material falls flat.

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Avenue Q: A joyous session of collective psychotherapy that works!

By Alvina Ruprecht | June 18, 2015

Photo: Courtesy of Allan Mackey.

Inspired by the TV show Sesame street, the award winning team of Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx and Jeff Whitty has created a witty, satirical and joyous celebration of difference, with music, puppets, singing and dancing, that all fit together under the extremely skilful direction of Michael Gareau. Toto Too’s first rate production of Avenue Q created a wave of excitement and laughter in the theatre that I have not seen in years.

The set by Sally McIntyre, was a closed New York neighbourhood, Avenue Q, made up of individuals who are black and white, yellow and blue, Japanese and Jewish, recent immigrants and less recent immigrants, puppets and humans, young and old, poor and less poor, gay and straight, monsters and non-monsters, the scale of diversity is non ending but the parody lay in the authors’ attempts to unite this community of differences in a great bond of human sympathy by subverting all the stereotypes, ridiculing taboos, saying what people think but don’t dare say, and creating a human landscape of total liberation that is absolutely wondrous. After the show you feel you have just experienced a breakthrough session of collective psychotherapy that has actually worked.

Of course it’s an adult show and in this context it transgresses the biggest taboo of adult life: sex, turning the subject into great explosions of fun, gales of laughter and by dealing with such things in such an open and unembarrassed way. Everything becomes “normalized”. How exotic!

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Avenue Q: Raunchy, subversive and funny as all get-out.

By Patrick Langston | June 18, 2015

Raunchy, subversive, funny as all get-out, Avenue Q by Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx and Jeff Whitty is a gem of contemporary musical theatre, one that takes the iconic children’s television show Sesame Street and turns it on its head with sex, obscenities and the very realistic notions that life frequently sucks, that none of us is really all that special, and that while the dispossessed might band together they will, for the most part, remain dispossessed.

TotoToo takes all this and wraps it into one excellent production. An ensemble piece, the show nails pretty much everything from voices and puppetry to Aileen Szkwarek’s well-oiled choreography and the live musical accompaniment directed by John McGovern . Artistic director Michael Gareau keeps the show moving at the requisite smartly staged clip while inspiring all the performers to have so much fun that the audience is swept along by the same joyous spirit.

Of particular note among performers: the wonderfully expressive Pascal Viens (Rod) who is making his debut in musical theatre, Alianne Rozon whose Kate Monster is a lonely lady to whom we can all relate, and Andrew Galligan as Princeton, a character in search of self-authorship.

The Kailish Mital Theatre’s sound system is lacking, and distortion at the show we attended occasionally made lyrics impossible to understand. It was a small price to pay for a crackerjack show.

Avenue Q : Naughty but nice, this is Sesame Street for adults stripped of political correctness.

By Iris Winston | June 18, 2015

Photo: Allan Mackey/Valley Wind Productions

Gently racy and naughty but nice, Avenue Q is Sesame Street for adults stripped of politically correct sugar coating (thankfully).

The 2003 award-winning musical satire by Robert Lopez, Jeff Mark and Jeff Whitty wafts a skewer over a broad spectrum with such numbers as Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist or What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?

The show is set in a rundown neighbourhood, populated by people and puppets of the Bert and Ernie and Cookie Monster muppet variety. The style and camaraderie of the long-running children’s television show are evident, despite a disclaimer in the program noting that the Jim Henson Company or Sesame Street Workshop are not responsible for the content of Avenue Q.

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That Darn Plot : cleverly constructed and enjoyable play about playwriting

By Iris Winston | May 28, 2015

“Write about what you know.”

Edmonton-based playwright David Belke follows the commonly offered advice to writers and passes it on to his protagonist in his 1998 comedy That Darn Plot.

The playwright-within-the play about writing a play, Mark W. Transom, sleep deprived and half drunk, has one night to deliver a script. If he fails, he will not only betray the trust that his former girlfriend, Jo, placed in him, but will also cause her to lose her job as artistic director of the theatre waiting for the new Transom season opener.

The concept allows Belke to muse on the craft of playwriting and, through Ivy, the rule-driven stage manager, on the minutiae of Equity rules. It also offers the chance to demonstrate another commonly held belief about playwriting: that the characters sometimes take over and change the direction of the plot, periodically even introducing a new character and arguing with the writer. That Darn Plot includes all this in a cleverly constructed — although somewhat repetitive — storyline.

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Young Frankenstein: Silly, smutty script, slick production

By Iris Winston | March 9, 2015

Production trumps content over and over again in the Orpheus Musical Theatre Society production of Young Frankenstein, the crude parody of the horror genre and the 19^th century novel by Mary Shelley.

As quoted in the Orpheus program, Mel Brooks, the primary creator of the script, music and lyrics, says, “Good taste is the enemy of comedy.” His kind of comedy, perhaps, but amusement does not have to be drawn from bathroom humour and gags that take so long to set up that there is time to be bored or disgusted before they are milked dry. Brooks may have demonstrated his talent to amuse more effectively in The Producers — though even here he frequently teetered on the brink of bad taste and periodically toppled over — but Young Frankenstein does not hold a candle to the earlier show. It just makes me long for the wit of Noel Coward over the lumbering attempt at making a monster out of this molehill of silly smut.

However, distasteful as the material is, presumably Orpheus chose to present the 2007 musical in an attempt to attract new audience members. If that was achieved, it should also be noted that there were several walkouts at intermission on opening night. …

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Les Misérables: An energetic show with solid performances

By Iris Winston | February 1, 2015

Les Misérables is a massive undertaking that offers both principals and ensemble members the opportunity to demonstrate their special talents — often one at a time.

Based on the 1862 historical novel by Victor Hugo, the sing-through musical tells the story of ex-convict Jean Valjean — imprisoned for almost two decades for stealing a loaf of bread — tracing his transformation and redemption between 1815 and the June Rebellion in Paris in 1832.

(Hugo based Valjean’s character on the life of Eugène François Vidocq, an ex-convict who became a successful businessman and philanthropist.)

The original French version was first staged in 1980 with the English-language production of Les Misérables appearing in London’s West End three years later to mixed reviews. More than 30 years later, it still plays to full houses and still receives some negative comments because of its melodramatic content and the perfunctory way it deals with certain aspects of the storyline. It is also a show that thrills s as many as it disappoints.

And there is no question that it is a huge challenge for any company. In a fine ensemble production, with first-class musical direction by John McGovern, the ASNY Les Miz, which involves close to 100 performers, musicians and crew demonstrates energy, commitment and some fine performances. …

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Fidler on the Roof: This Production is a Splendid Anniversary gift.

By Iris Winston | November 22, 2014

Orpheus Musical Theatre Society has given Fidler on the Roof a splendid 50^th anniversary gift with its current production.

One of the best loved musicals of all time, Fidler on the Roof by Joseph Stein, with music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick is based on the stories about Tevye the milkman by Sholem Aleichem, first published in 1894. The focus of the stories, the musical and the 1971 movie is on Tevye’s vain attempt to maintain Jewish tradition in a changing world. In addition to dealing with each of his three oldest daughters moving further away from the accepted custom of their father selecting appropriate husbands for them, he and his fellow villagers face expulsion from their home during a pogrom.

As directed by Michael Gareau, the Orpheus production is particularly noteworthy for its clarity, attention to detail and respect for the traditions that are Fiddler’s raison d’être. From the simplicity of the opening and the purity of the sound from Danny Albert’s violin through strong characterizations, fine ensemble work, assorted musical highlights and spectacular visuals, this Fiddler has a magical quality.

While the heaviest responsibility falls on the lead character — and Christopher Mallory brings a fine singing voice and a robust characterization to his Tevye — this production is marked by a number of high quality dramatic and musical performances, as well as by an interesting and suitably spare set design from Cindy Bindhardt and fine lighting effects from David Magladry.

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