Rodney DeCroo is starting to make a name for himself as poet (a book published) and singer-songwriter (six CDs). The Cultch Lab stage is bare; often a double bass player supports both DeCroo's guitar and his speech. His show includes some half-dozen songs, spoken word and poems (one verse is rhymed, while the others sound like literary prose).
DeCroo circles the stage (Jane Heyman, directing, must have told him to keep moving) with an apparently artless sequence of recollections about people and places. Pittsburgh, Fort Nelson, Cranbrook, the Cobalt Hotel and New Westminster Secondary...
Changing Minds is a contemporary high school musical with score by Bret Simmons (film and TV composer) with book and lyrics by David Howard (he wrote the hugely popular movie Galaxy Quest). I’m not sure I was in the right state of mind to see this kind of theatre as I had just left a deeply engaging conversation about anti-oppression and dialogical practices. In addition to that this play incorporates my three least favourite story tropes: switching bodies, star-crossed lovers and beauty and the beast.
THE GOOD
If I put the content of the story aside (I’ll get...
Genre Definition = Funny · Musical · Family Friendly
Bastard Daughter is the seemingly autobiographical recounting of Kathryn Kirkpatrick’s childhood in Montreal as the daughter of the secretary of the Engelbert Humperdinck Fan Club – Montreal Chapter. This one-woman show tells the story of a period in time, when Enge is coming to Montreal, through a variety of characters within the family and the fan club.
I enjoyed learning a bit more about Enge, who until this play had always just been the name my childhood companions and I snickered at (do you know he changed his name to Humperdinck?!?). I also enjoyed the bevy of characters Kirkpatrick offered...
Alison Wearing knocks this outta the park! This was not a play...this was a heart-felt, inspiring avalanche that Alison engages with her audience at The Cultch. A historically anchored auto-biographical recount about growing up with her gay father. Starting in the 1970s, Wearing confides in us with her "confession" on what it felt like growing up confused, frustrated, ashamed, and proud.
From Toronto's bath-houses, to police brutality, to French cafes... We are all taken on a socially-enriched journey filled with snapshots of where her family, and our cultural was, and where it has landed with not so "normal" family dynamics....
Growing Up Moni is an entertaining coming-of-age comedy centering on the themes of family and race. Starring and written by Monica Mustelier, this one-woman show is told through a collection of semi-autobiographical stories charting Moni’s experiences from the age of eight through to her mid-thirties. We watch Moni, an only child and first generation Canadian born to Spanish and Cuban parents, as she navigates through life, a child of mixed race where English is not her parent’s first language. The play examines stereotypes and questions what is truly funny and socially acceptable in our multicultural society. Are we really...
The Havana hosts local playwright and actor RC Weslowski for his poignant and poetically intelligent one-man intrigue. Weslowski doesn't make it easy on himself with the subject matter. On its face, this play is about a man's severe obsession, and let's face it - deviant - relationship with paper products. After numerous attempts at curbing his desires, he find himself living with "The Watchtower" publication, struggling to have a "normal" sex life, while his "ex"...the Yellow Pages shows up at his door for a booty call.
You say, "What?"...I say, "I know hey? WTF!" But when you dive into the dialogue...
What do you do if you are being tormented by an outside force you cannot understand?
George (Kevin Ray) and Byron (Nic Turcotte) are on a camping trip together when mysterious words start appearing. The mechanism of outdoor projection is not clear, but both George and Byron can see the communications. When the entity is asked why "it" speaks of itself in the third person, it says it is a third person--thus, I will refer to the entity doing the communication as "third person" throughout. The third person is somewhat sadistic, as "it" chronicles real-time updates of everything George and Byron...
Remember when you started out in highschool. Some of us remember it well, some of us not so much and some of us probably don’t want to remember. The teenage years for most people seem awkward and emotionally taxing. We all had our own story growing up. In Braced we find a story of a young girl just about to start that crazy ride, but also having scoliosis to deal with as well.
This is a great show for those who have someone in their lives that maybe are going through the same thing. I recommend young women...
Box after box after box… Artfully and intelligently crafted by the creators (Cecilia Davis and Daniel Morton), The Shoebox Philosopher is definitely for all audiences who can tread the waters of layered thought or are willing to look into the mind of a lost philosopher. It’s an intellectual journey we tag along and watch as Sadie (Cecillia Davis) works at a deadend job, continuously and almost eternally doing inventory without end. The show is filled with quotes of many of our great thinkers of the past and quirkiness by Sadie and her coworkers.
Now, think about cuddling with a complete stranger? Could you?
Now, think about cuddling up with an assortment of strangers.
Come Cuddle Me has some real science to back it up. The playwright and performer Nicole “Coco” Roberge was inspired and based her show from a thesis written by Joy Brooke Fairfield. The Carousel is a small venue in Granville Island (beside the Granville Island brewery) and this show “snuggles” in perfectly.
This show was fun to watch. Nicole entertains us effortlessly...
