Tom Stoppard is the master of intellectual acrobatics, and this play was his first attempt to show his emotional side, to describe love; how to find and keep the Real Thing. Although the play *The Real Thing* focuses on love, relationships and fidelity, Stoppard is most passionate when describing his love of writing and his fidelity to words.
Getting real are Jennifer Lines and Vincent Gale; photo by David Cooper
The one-person show can be a tricky format to navigate. The best of them are intimate and unfettered; the worst are akin to being stuck in an elevator with an irritating bore. Toronto presently has two one-person shows on stage that are markedly different in style and content but provide an interesting contrast.
I hope I look like this at 50, Ivea Lucs in Tijuana Cure; photo: Martha Haldenby
Cancer - a deluded, egotistical ASS - goes on his own journey of denial, anger, bargaining and acceptance when he discovers that the whole world hates him. That's the description of *This is Cancer?* the play that I'm just about to watch.
After the thoroughly disappointing touring production of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang":http://plankmagazine.com/review/theatre/chitty-chitty-bang-bang-all-car-..., there is a collective sigh of relief amongst Toronto’s musical fans that "Mirvish Productions":http://www.mirvish.com/ has imported a new production with a great deal more bite. *Spring Awakening* is that toothy show and although it may not wholly live up to the hype of its eight Tony awards, it is still a vibrant and dynamic work that pushes the boundaries of the often doughy musical genre....
Finally, a musical for horny teenagers, Spring Awakening
Patti Flather's *Where the River Meets the Sea* is a play about an abused single mother escaping from the Rez with her daughter to rebuild their lives in North Vancouver. As usually happens with stories of this nature, the past comes back to haunt them. As they pertain to family and heritage, the themes are basic but because of the local setting and Musqueam characters, the piece has a subtext that explores the intricacies of local real estate and native land deals. Patti Flather's play is decent but in the end fails to really rise above your average movie of...
where the river meets the sea, carmen moore and kim harvey
*This Mortal Flesh* presented by the "Firehall Arts Centre":http://www.firehallartscentre.ca/index.php and produced by "MachineFair":http://machinefair.ca/ opens strongly: a beautiful woman dressed in a slim and clinging red dress is on stage alone and engaged in an inner monologue, preparing herself for a sexual tryst with her lover. The seductive Tanya Marquardt (Holly) is hilarious in this sequence; she has the audience in the palm of her hand. The excellent and engaging Billy Marchenski (Harry) enters the apartment stage left with jacket over his shoulder, coming home from work....
Billy Marchenski and Tanya Marquardt can't touch this mortal flesh; photo by Natasha Kanji
My first impression of *F*, a new work by "Kokoro Dance":http://www.kokoro.ca/, presented in this year’s "Vancouver International Dance Festival":http://www.vidf.ca/, at the Roundhouse was a striking use of color and height, which the combination of Judy Nakagawa’s giant hanging sculpture and Cori Ohirko’s beautifully stark costume design certainly provide. My second impression was of the highlighted, rapid, molten phrases that Deanna Peters uses to move across the stage effortlessly; my eye was riveted to her every nuance. After that, I no longer knew where to look.
Daniel Martin and Dave Mott, co-founders of "Upintheair Theatre Society":http://www.upintheairtheatre.com/, bring us *Johnny Grant: A Rollicking Adventure Story*, the quasi-historical tale of the Martin’s real-life great-great-great grandfather John Francis Grant.
The most recent addition to the oeuvre of Toronto’s "One Little Goat Theatre Company":www.onelittlegoat.org is *Someone is Going to Come*, the first work written by Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse. Though Fosse’s minimalism boasts considerable popularity in Europe he is rarely seen in North America.
Someone is Going to Come: bleakly forceful language drives tension between Dwight McFee and Stacie Steadman; photo: Yuri Dojc
When I was 12, I went on a family vacation to "Barkerville, BC":http://www.barkerville.ca/ where the staff dress as 1860’s townsfolk and tourists lap up the Gold Rush experience. We saw the school teacher at the one room school house, the blacksmith at the smithy, and Hanging Judge Begbie at the old courthouse.
Entering through the fireplace is the cast of Under the Hawthorn Tree
