Drowning Girls a chilling portrayal of misogyny and murder
Katie Ryerson, Sarah Finn, Jacqui du Toit in The Drowning Girls. Photo: Andrew Alexander
The Virgin Trial speaks clearly across the centuries to our time
Anie Richer and Lydia Riding in a scene from The Virgin Trial. Photo: Andrew Alexander. Posted on Artsfile.ca
The Virgin Trial: a gritty political crime drama.
Kate Hennig’s The Virgin Trial is a must-see gritty political crime drama that upends expectations of innocence and victimhood
The Great Canadian Theatre Company’s production of The Virgin Trial by Canadian playwright Kate Hennig is a stunning gritty political crime drama that centers on a treason scandal in the young Queen Elizabeth I’s life that forces the audience to grapple with ideas of innocence and victimhood in a nuanced way. …
The Virgin Trial: blending of historical fact and modern dress is noteworthy
The Virgin Trial By Kate Hennig. GCTC Directed by Eric Coates
Violence, political and religious intrigue and power seizures were the norm through much of the Tudor era. From peasant to prince, marriages were economic unions focused on increasing land holdings and influence.
Rumours swirled around those in power, those who sought power and those about to be imprisoned in the Tower of London for interrogation and torture. Perhaps they were guilty. Perhaps, they had merely chosen the wrong side at the moment. …
The Virgin Trial. This Virgin was born to rule the stage
Kate Hennig’s The Virgin Trial is a stunner of a play. Hennig’s whip cracking dialogue, laced with tart humour, is delivered with precision by a uniformly excellent cast taking the audience on a perilous journey through the fecund hedge maze of sexual desire and political intrigue. Based on the pre-Queen adolescent life of Elizabeth the First, or Bess, played with vibrating intelligence by Lydia Riding, The Virgin Trial mines history for its known facts, and takes flight;
GCTC: Playwright tracks the Tudors and our fascination with sexual power
By Patrick LangstonSeptember 7, 2018 . first posted on Artsfile.
Lydia Riding and Attila Clemann in a scene from Kate Hennig’s The Virgin Queen. Photo: Andrew Alexander
GCTC brings Hannah Moscovitch’s What A Young Wife Ought to Know to the Stage with Intimate Performance
Reviewed by Kellie MacDonald.
Cold, dirty, ugly, and boring: Hannah Moscovitch’s descriptions of Ottawa in the 1920s do not shy away from the grim realities of factory labour and tenement housing. Sisters Sophie (Liisa Repo-Martell) and Alma (Rebecca Parent) navigate an era of of rapidly changing attitudes towards sexuality, but still find themselves at the mercy of medicine, a patriarchal society, and entrenched class structure. Directed by Christian Barry, Ottawa-born Moscovitch’s What A Young Wife Ought to Know is produced by Halifax-based 2b Theatre Company and presented by the Great Canadian Theatre Company at the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre. …
What a Young Wife Ought to Know is a lesson in clear-eyed compassion
At first sight, the two knitting needles stuck into an inconspicuous basket of wool seem a simple touch of domesticity. They are implements you’d expect any working class mother in the 1920s to wield with some skill and love if she wanted to keep her family decently clothed.