Ali & Ali 7: Hey Brother, Can You Spare Some Hope and Change? begins with a slide show that is both amusing and quizzical. Set to a loud thumping beat, the audience is shown a quick succession of images of Muammar Gaddafi looking eccentric, Stephen Harper sporting his blue sweater and stock sympathetic smirk, and Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson from the film A Few Good Men. We are left to ponder which of the two leaders looks the most ridiculous: a Salvador Dali-esque Gaddafi wearing tinted shades and long robes, or an awkward Stephen Harper wearing a suit...
Camyar Chai and Marcus Youssef in Ali & Ali 7, photo by Tim Matheson
This isn't easy material. Refuge of Lies explores a story that hits close to home and it's clear that writer/director Ron Reed feels passionately about the show's subject. Inspired by actual events that took place in Vancouver, Refuge of Lies, currently on at Pacific Theatre, tells the story of a Nazi soldier on the run from his past. But the past catches up with him, as pasts are wont to do, in the form of a reporter on a quest for justice.
The Chop Theatre's KISMET one to one hundred (currently on as part of the Tremors Festival) embodies the essence of collective creation. Four artists (Anita Rochon, Emelia Symington Fedy, Daryl King, and Hazel Venzon) set out on a journey across Canada. Their goal was to interview one hundred people from the ages of one through one hundred on the subject of fate and destiny. Predictably, although their list of questions is fairly simple and straight forward, the responses they gathered were as varied and idiosyncratic as the people they interviewed. They recorded their separate journeys (Fedy and...
It was after seeing Sebastian Croon’s Fringe show Circus last year that I lamented the rarity of horror genre work in theatre, so you can imagine my glee upon hearing about The Mill, an ambitious project conceived by Daryl Cloran and Matthew MacFadzean for Theatrefront. The Mill is a series of four plays forged under the manifesto, as described by MacFadzean, to “make Canadian history less boring”, particularly by telling it through the lens of fear. March saw the delivery of the series’ third installment, though I was lucky enough to catch up on the first two...
Ryan Hollyman and Michelle Latimer are at the mill.
Hidden away on Franklin, a desolate street north of Hastings, is a small gallery space which has been turned into a theatre space for Craning Neck Theatre’s premiere of TRUNK written and directed by Jeremy Waller.
Billy Bishop is back and this time it’s personal. The Arts Club Granville Island Stage presents a youthful, enthusiastic production of the classic Canadian musical, Billy Bishop Goes to War, more than 30 years after it was first performed by its co-creators, John Gray and Eric Peterson.
Having seen the first incarnation of Theatre Melee's Cozy Catastrophe at Hive 2 in 2008, it was fascinating to see how this show has evolved. Now part of the ongoing Tremors Festival, the show has been expanded from its original form as a 20 minute short play into an 80 minute one act.
Getting cozy during a catastrophe are Juno Ruddell, Michael Rinaldi and Erin Mathews
Why Not Theatre is back for the Theatre Centre’s Free Fall Festival with I’m So Close…, an updated version of their 2008 Summerworks offering I’m So Close It’s Not Even Funny. While I unfortunately missed this first version, fellow Planker M John Kennedy put forth a thorough and very positive account here. During the interim time Why Not’s creative team have expanded on their themes, crafting a multimedia commentary on human connection in the era of globalization.
Troels Hagen Findsen reprises his role as Steve, a green-tech innovator now thrust into the world of product...
On my ever expanding list of topics for future PLANK articles there is one entitled “why are some reviews harder to write than others?” Queen Lear by Eugene Strickland, currently on at Presentation House and produced by Western Gold is proving to be a nightmare of a review to write. Why? Well, in part because I didn’t feel much of anything for this show. It is a show that could be comfortably produced in a church basement somewhere in the Fraser Valley, by an amateur theatre troupe (the type that the show gently mocks throughout) or at...
Shirley Broderick (left), Jennifer McPhee and a cello
The touring production of the Broadway version of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein is currently at the Princess of Wales theatre in Toronto, and anyone who spent their youth spouting lines from the original movie to whomever was in earshot would be well advised to check it out. In fact, anyone with a taste for the zany would find their bum-in-plush-seat time well spent.
Roger Bart and Sutton Foster; photo by Paul Kolnik
