Toronto: Taking audiences on an engaging yet bizarre journey, The Melancholy Play, produced by project undertow as part of the ongoing SummerWorks Festival, demands that viewers be willing to accept an absurdist, stylized approach. Sarah Ruhl's script offers a tale of deep transformation and its effect on others. With its outlandish, stranger-than-life characters, it must be what a Christopher Durang play is like.
Toronto: Beauty isn’t talent, says Amelia (Maev Beaty) to Margaret (Erin Shields), in Montparnasse an exploration of physical form, creation, perception and still-life and part of this year's SummerWorks Festival.
Toronto: What a fabulous, fun, outrageous idea! Take three extraordinarily talented improv actors and have them perform a long-form improvisation in the style of a certain playwright. Throughout their six shows at the SummerWorks festival, this cast of three who make up Impromptu Splendor will perform in styles as diverse as George F. Walker to Judith Thompson.
Toronto: Red Machine (Part Two), presented as part of this year's SummerWorks Festival, is the second part of an experiment. Seven writers were given the same idea – mysterious writer checks into strange hotel – and asked to explore it from the point-of-view of a particular part of the brain. Part two deals with language (Section Four), light and vision (Section Five) and the pleasure centre (Section Six).
This is the photograph which accompanies the review which is of a show that Allyson saw.
Toronto: XXX Live Nude Girls is a ‘Doll Opera’ by Jennifer Walshe and is part of this year's SummrerWorks Festival. It stars a collection of well used Barbie Dolls and features two vocal performers, a quartet of musicians, two camera operators, and two real-time video projections. It is bound to be one of the most unique if also convoluted shows at this year’s festival.
*endORPHIN*, creatd by the Plastic Orchid Factory and presented by this year's Dancing on the Edge Festival, takes us on a dark, apocalyptic journey into the subconscious of the 21st century. It shows human culture on the cusp of the cyborg era. The title endORPHIN – which ironically joins catastrophe and pleasure – suggests that this is a grim psychic reality where the only happiness is a terror-induced euphoria.
Natalie LeFebvre Gnam from EndORPHIN, a dystopian world
Charm is a rare commodity in the theatre. With entertainment dominated by violence and special effects, it is difficult to engage an audience long enough to have them care about two very ordinary people.
Under the light of the salt water moon are Jacob (Joel Grinke) and Mary (Abby Creek)
Audible by the 605 Collective, presented by Dancing on the Edge, is dance for the purist. Yes, the piece fuses genres—from martial arts to tango to hip hop—but the performers’ sheer physicality fills the stage, uncomplicated by a set, props, or elaborate lighting.
605 crew: Maiko Miyauchi, Lisa Gelley, Josh Martin, Sasha Kozak, Shay Kuebler; photo: Chris Randle
