Historical

Frances Koncan has written a bold exploration of white male power, residential schools and oppression, whether formally institutionalized or directly ingrained in our psyche.

As we follow our young heroine through time and space, we visit a residential school where children are stripped of everything from their clothing to their dignity and identity; a white man’s 90s basement where he holds indigenous women hostage; and a post-apocalyptic future where men are nothing more than furniture.

At first the transitions can be hard to follow between the different times and places but if you let go of your...

First off, I'll say I liked the first half of the performance a lot more than the second half. But I liked the first half a lot. A wacky troupe of clowns take on WWII while tripping over one another, deflowering mops, and attempting cannibalism. It was very classic slapstick clown comedy, with trashy hobo-esque clowns clattering into each other, attempting to eat their fallen friends, casually murdering one another and taking obscenely loud squelching steps with wet socks. I loved the choreography and how much they tumbled around the stage like sad kittens in a drier. I also really...

Covering all of Leo Tolstoy’s mythically long-winded novel is no task for mere mortals, but Ryan Gladstone is up to the task. War and Peace is a funny, smart, and heartfelt treatment of one of history’s greatest works of literature.

The story is told in many layers: the plot of the novel itself, often played straight but poked fun at when necessary; the echoes of Tolstoy’s own life, including his depression and his youthful habits of gambling and womanizing; the historical context of the Russian setting; and the context of Tolstoy’s own writing of the novel, including the...

Starstuff: Per Aspera Ad Astra, written and directed by Derek Chan, tells the story of astronaut Thomas Malinsky and his perilous journey to a planet far away in a one-person spaceship.

The story is complex and multilayered. Although the story is philosophical and historical, it is overly repetitive and difficult to follow. It is challenging to determine what play the writer/director was aiming for. It seems like he tries to draw parallels between the birth of a child and space exploration. In spite of the fact that...

LOCO + HERO + JOE tells the story of local (local = LOCO > LOCOOOOOOOL > LOCAAALLLL, see?) hero Joe Fortes.

The production tells the story with three characters. Surprisingly not Loco, Hero, and Joe, as I had surmised. (When I first heard the title I thought the show would be a comedy set in the Old West.) The cast was comprised of a young woman with an interest in history (played by Jina Anika) who took notes while talking to a lady who was a little girl in Joe's time (played by Sue Sparlin) and Joe himself (played...