MONDOmagazine

Severn Thompson. Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann

More Fine Girls
Presented by Theatre Columbus and Tarragon Theatre
Written by Jennifer Brewin, Leah Cherniak, Ann Marie-MacDonald, Alisa Palmer and Martha Ross
Directed by Alisa Palmer
Set and costume design by Judith Bowden
Lighting design by Andrea Lundy
Runs until April 3 @ Tarragon Theatre

By Daina Valiulis

Creating and performing with a group of women you have known very well for a long time is a risk–especially when the result is built out of recorded improvisations that are eventually sewn together to create the patchwork of the finished piece. This challenge defines More Fine Girls, the reunion of the Fine sisters: eldest, Jojo (Martha Ross), middle child, Jayne (Ann-Marie MacDonald) and youngest Jelly (a role created by Leah Cherniak, but performed by Severn Thompson). As the follow up to 1995’s hit The Attic, The Pearls and Three Fine Girls, this show has the sisters facing each other 20 years later. In The Attic, the Fine sisters fight as they make their way to the attic of their parents’ house after the death of their father. Now, we find them trying to deal with each other as they face off in the basement. Read the rest of this entry »

Cast. Photo credit: Aviva Armour Ostroff

Theatre Passe Muraille and Canadian Stage collaborate to produce Project: Humanity’s The Middle Place
Written by Andrew Kushnir
Directed by Alan Dilworth
Set and Costumes by Jung-Hye Kim
Runs until March 12 @ the Berkeley Street Theatre Downstairs

By Daina Valiulis

What is life like in a youth homeless shelter? The Middle Place offers a glimpse. The script, culled by Andrew Kushnir from 450 pages of transcripts of interviews by the members and staff of Rexdale’s Youth Without Shelter, allows these people to speak openly about their experiences and the sensitive topic of homelessness.

But, while a solid piece theatrically, The Middle Place keeps to the middle of the road in terms of its message, which is where the piece is weakest. Read the rest of this entry »

Justin Rutledge as Coop and Amy Rutherford as Bridget. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Necessary Angel in association with The Film Farm presents
Divisadero: a performance
Adapted by Michael Ondaatje, Daniel Brooks, Liane Balaban, Maggie Huculak, Tom McCamus, Aviva Philipp-Muller, Amy Rutherford, Justin Rutledge and the company
Written by Michael Ondaatje
Directed by Daniel Brooks
Runs until February 20 @ Theatre Passe Muraille’s Mainspace

By Daina Valiulis

Lights up on a young girl in a doorframe. A sliding door shifts to cover her while at the same time revealing an older woman in the door frame next to her. This is Anna (Maggie Huculak): first the younger version, then the older, crossing the division of the door to tell her story.

Adapted from the Governor General Award-winning novel by Michael Ondaatje, Divisadero tells the story of three people growing up together and the cracks that divide them from each other, the outside world and themselves.

Anna is born to a farmer (Tom McCamus) whose wife dies days after giving birth. In addition to raising Anna, the Farmer adopts the more rough and tumble Claire (Liane Balaban), a girl who is an orphan from the same town. The girls are brought up as sisters; they develop into adults with all the little jealousies and rivalries sisters have. Coop (Justin Rutledge), the final addition to this mixed family, is the neighbour’s boy who, at the age of four, lost his parents to murderous hands before his eyes. He works on the farmer’s farm, acting as older brother to the two girls. Read the rest of this entry »

Michelle Giroux, Patrick Galligan, Julian Richings, David Storch, Stephen Gartner, Brandon McGibbon, Andrea Runge, Stuart Hughes, and Maria Ricossa. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

The Misanthrope
By Molière in a version by Martin Crimp
Directed by Richard Rose
Featuring Patrick Galligan, Stephen Gartner, Michelle Giroux, Stuart Hughes, Brandon McGibbon, Julian Richings, Maria Ricossa, Andrea Runge and David Storch
Runs until February 6 @ Tarragon Theatre Mainspace

By Daina Valiulis

From the opening of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” sung in screeching operatic style, one “gets” the Tarragon Theatre’s recent adaptation of Moliere’s masterwork The Misanthrope.

Adapted by Martin Crimp, a celebrated British playwright known for his experimental style, this version has the characters speaking in rhyming couplets and using modern language. The hero, Alceste (Hughes), is a very successful playwright who is in love with (according to Martin Crimp) a materialistic, arse-licking, social game-playing, insecure young starlet called Jennifer, who despite all this, Alceste insists, is, on a deeper level, an extraordinary human being. One subplot involves a female journalist recording Jennifer’s bitingly honest commentary on her peers, which she intends to use in a scandalous exposé. Another subplot involves a bet between two men to determine whether or not one of them can coerce the flirtatious Jennifer to sleep with him.

These storylines, such as they are, however, are buried beneath a blatantly obvious concept, stock characters that have zero likability factor (and therefore no emotional resonance), and irritatingly trite rhyming couplets that are meant to be edgy by using modern language. Read the rest of this entry »

Cara Ricketts and Marc Bendavid in scene from Romeo & Juliet. Photo by John Lauener.

Art of Time Ensemble’s Shakespeare: If Music Be
Featuring Peggy Baker, Andrew Burashko, Ted Dykstra, Kevin Fox, Erika Raum, Marc Bendavid, Tim Campbell, Lucy Peacock, Cara Ricketts and others
December 9-11 @ Enwave Theatre

By Daina Valiulis

Actor Tim Campbell ushers us into the world of Shakespeare, describing the playwright as a man of many identities. He was everyone and no one, both revealing and concealing himself within his works. As fellow actors Lucy Peacock, Marc Bendavid and Cara Ricketts join, they recite quotations from famous literary figures (and Mel Gibson?) regarding the depth and breadth of Shakespeare’s works and of his commitment to exposing human truth—it’s comparable to reading book jacket quotations before cracking the cover. Rather than talk, show us! Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Bundy, Claire Calnan, Christian Goutsis, Damien Atkins. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

The Clockmaker
By Stephen Massicotte
Directed by Bob White
Featuring Christian Goutsis, Damien Atkins, Claire Calnan and Kevin Bundy
Runs until October 24 @ Tarragon Theatre

By Daina Valiulis

If you’re a Jehovah’s Witness coming to knock on playwright Stephen Massicotte’s door, be prepared for a debate. In this remount of The Clockmaker, which debuted in Calgary in 2009, winning the Outstanding New Play award at the Betty Mitchell Awards for Calgary Theatre, the atheistic Massicotte presents gentle questions regarding the afterlife and the First Clockmaker in the sky.

Set in an indistinct time, in the first scene we meet our Everyman, a nervous clockmaker named Heinrich Mann (Christian Goutsis, who comes to Toronto from Calgary in a reprisal of the role) being interrogated by the mysterious Monsieur Pierre (Damian Atkins) under an archway reminiscent of an old clock tower for a crime he is about to commit, or may have already committed. Time jumps around. Read the rest of this entry »

Via luminato.com

The Infernal Comedy
Written and directed by Michael Sturminger
Featuring John Malkovich
June 11-12 @ Massey Hall

By Daina Valiulis

“The first thing I learned was to lie — or, to be economical with the truth.”

One of the first confessions of the notorious Austrian serial killer Jack Unterweger, played by John Malkovich, reveals both his charm and duplicity. A bloodthirsty wolf in sheep’s clothing, Unterweger carried out a prison sentence of fifteen years for murder in 1976, Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by Jackson Hinton.

Frankenstein
Production conceived by Jonathan Christenson and Bretta Gereke
Directed by Jonathan Christenson
Production design by Bretta Gereke
Featuring Nick Green, Andrew Kushnir, Tim Machin, Sarah Machin Gale, Nancy McAlear, Dov Mickelson, Tracy Penner, George Szilagyi
Runs until May 29th @ the Bluma Appel Theatre

By Daina Valiulis

“Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me; let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!” – Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

Based very closely on the classic Shelley tale of isolation, woe and desperate longing for companionship and human connection, Catalyst Theatre’s Frankenstein alternates between achieving great success and falling into common traps of adaptations of literature — presenting some much exposition that the emotional undertones have no time to take root. Read the rest of this entry »

A Fabulous Disaster
Written, directed and performed by Denise Clarke
Runs until April 25 @ Factory Theatre

By Daina Valiulis

The stage lights come up on two booted feet resting on a log between two evergreen trees and a loud groan rumbles through the theatre. Groggily, our paper suit-clad heroine sits up, complaining of dry mouth as she reaches for her canteen. From the minute Denise Clarke stands up to the minute she lays back down, she holds the audience captive with her clownish and wistful musings about migrating rhinos, and the “mean” nature of sneezes to heartbreak and divorce.

A Fabulous Disaster is a one-woman show Read the rest of this entry »

Shannon Perrault, Karen Robinson, Barbara Gordon, Stephanie Jung, Daniela Lama. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

If We Were Birds
By Erin Shields
Directed by Alan Dilworth
Featuring Philippa Domville, David Fox, Barbara Gordon, Stephanie Jung, Daniela Lama, Shannon Perrault, Geoffrey Pounsett, Karen Robinson and Tara Rosling
Runs until May 23 @ Tarragon Theatre

By Daina Valiulis

The ever battling Dionysian vs. Apollonian natures of man wage a bloody war in Erin Shields’ If We Were Birds. Based on Ovid’s tale “Tereus, Procne and Philomela” from the Metamorphoses, it tells the tale of two loving sisters — Procne (Phillipa Domville) and Philomela (Tara Rosling) — who are torn apart by the marriage of the former to King Tereus (Geoffrey Pouncett), a brutish soldier with “boiling blood,” taking Procne to a state far away. While she is content with her husband and newborn son, Procne longs to see her little sister and Read the rest of this entry »

Peter Donaldson as Marc, Evan Buliung as Yvan and Colin Mochrie as Serge. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

‘Art’
Written by Yasmina Reza
Directed by Morris Panych
Featuring Colin Mochrie, Peter Donaldson, Evan Buliung
Runs until April 10 @ Bluma Appel Theatre

By Daina Valiulis

Yasmina Reza’s ‘Art’ explores the essence of character and friendship over a heated debate about a piece of modern art. Serge (Mochrie) buys a white painting for 200,000 francs – an “Andrios” – pridefully showing it off to his good friend of fifteen years, Marc (Donaldson), a committed classicist who is appalled by this “piece of shit” and Yvan (Buliung), who has no real opinion at all. A heated debate on these different perceptions and definitions of art ensues, and ultimately reflects each man’s character, growing more personal and uglier as the play progresses, calling into question their very friendships. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Communion
Written and directed by Daniel MacIvor
Starring Sarah Dodd, Caroline Gillis and Athena Lamarre
Runs until April 4 @ Tarragon Theatre Mainspace

By Daina Valiulis

Daniel McIvor’s newest work is about a mother and daughter trying to reconnect after years, and the barriers they face, including a drinking problem, a secret that needs to be told, a troubled teenage-hood, a stint in jail, and some fundamentalist religious beliefs — not to mention the balls of fiery anger shooting from both cannons, and a lesbian therapist in the middle of the battleground.

Short and sweet, the piece runs for 85 minutes, which is Read the rest of this entry »