Indie theatre personality Nicola Gunn presents with At the Sans Hotel (on as part of this year's Next Stage Theatre Festival) a quirky and difficult to define one woman show about, well, a lot of things and nothing all simultaneously. Call it performance art, call it theatre, call it what you will, one gets the feeling Gunn could not care less about labels anyway.
Guiding the largely direct address presentation is Gunn's alter ego, Sophie, a skittish, flower-print summer dress wearing French import who charms with visual puns, a sprinkling of philosophical declarations, and stream of consciousness musings about...
Billed as a contemporary reimagining of the ballet Swan Lake, Swan Song for Maria on as part of this year's Toronto Next Stage Theatre Festival is more enjoyable if one does not strain to decipher the parallels between the two works. This two-hander from playwright Carol Cece Anderson is, more overtly, a wistful tale of love and aging played out by Joe (John Blackwood), a rebellious writer of French-Canadian origin, and Jillian (Lili Francks), his actor/dancer wife. The couple, both creeping along in years are prompted to reflect upon their pasts and confront their future when it becomes increasingly...
Hiro Kanagawa's new play, The Patron Saint of Stanley Park currently on at the Arts Club, is about a harried mother, a troubled teenage daughter and a brainy ten year old son coming to terms with the death of the husband and the childrens' father on Christmas eve the previous year.
The two children are sent by bus to visit their uncle on Christmas Eve but they take a detour into Stanley Park to do their own private memorial to their father, who was a seaplane pilot that regularly flew past Prospect Point. They get caught in a major...
Jade in the Coal is about a Chinese immigrant coal mining community in Cumberland BC during 1900. It begins with vignettes of some common events in the miners lives such as working underground in the mine, sending letters and money back to families in China, gambling and eating. An underground explosion has killed many miners including the beloved father of Sally, the wife of Wu Kwun, the town's Chinese power broker. Sally and a young miner, Lew Chong, had hoped to marry before her father arranged her marriage to Wu Kwun. Wu Kwun has built a new hall and brought...
Few would dispute the fact that Robert Lepage is Canada’s most celebrated stage director, and a global brand unto himself. Lepage is such a powerhouse that it is quite surprising to see him take on a far less dominant and much more vulnerable role in the multidisciplinary spectacle that is Eonnagata. This is not to say that Lepage is unaccustomed to a collaborative creative process, in fact he is the first to admit that his company, Ex Machina, is littered with artistic minds in whose instincts he trusts. Eonnagata is nevertheless a departure for Lepage - although given the...
Combine Michel Marc Bouchard’s admirable script, UBC’s talented Bachelor of Fine Arts students, and skilful director, Craig Holzschuh, and what do you get? A stunning, professional and praiseworthy production by Theatre at UBC.
Mimi (or A Poisoner’s Comedy) set in seventeenth century France, is a modern musical, with a clever and creepy feel that I loved. In this Touchstone production currently on at the Firehall Arts Centre, lavish costumes and wigs transport the audience to a world where debauchery rules. The opening scene is a rich romp in a Paris boudoir with sex, music, and Louis XIV's lavish draped material. Even the pianist plays in costume and wig.
Debauchery is fun but when Mimi’s lover introduces death to her it proves even more titillating. Mimi uses pigeons to bake her poisonous pies so...
Love Fights is Solo Collective Theatre’s latest production featuring two one-act plays - Coffee Makes Me Cry by Adam Underwood, and The Trolley Car by Amiel Gladstone. Both plays are essentially about love and how it can affect the choices we make, but in two very different, and somewhat absurd, situations.
Coffee Makes Me Cry tells the story of Steven (Raphael Kepinski), and Jasmine (Emelia Symington Fedy), who agree to go on a blind date together after the match-making efforts of a mutual friend. The date could not begin more awkwardly, with clumsy conversation and a poorly-timed waiter (Hamza...
Raphael Kepinski and Emelia Symington Fedy make love in Coffee Makes Me Cry
On the night I saw Dr Egg and the Man with No Ear the audience was resolutely adult. This is a shame because this Australian production, which was re-staged recently in Chicago and is currently on at the Cultch, would be a great introduction for young people to the power of theatre to create beautiful and evocative imagery. The visual flair that the production exhibits – which ranges from crisp projections (animated by Jamie Clennett) through to puppets (built by Graeme Davis) to the clever set and costume (designed by Jonathon Oxlade), all supported by a wonderful musical score (by...
Before the show starts, I suddenly realize that this experience is so American. It just feels hopelessly sincere and awfully over the top. The warmup guy (otherwise known as Vince Fontaine played by Eddie Mekka of “Laverne and Shirley” fame) tried his best to get this Vancouver crowd going but wow what a cold cold room. Eventually, there was actual singing and even some minimal hand jiving. It's all a bit crazy for me. He is certainly a talented guy but I don't know if this is the right town for this kind of schtick.
