MONDOmagazine

Tyson James heats up La Ronde.

La Ronde
By Arthur Schnitzler
Directed by Ted Witzel
Featuring Lauren Gillis, Mariana Medellin-Meinke, Marcel Dragonieri, Raffaele Ciampaglia, Michael David Blostein, Milan Malisic, Maarika Pinkney, Tyson James, Eve Wylden, and Beau Dixon
Runs until June 4 @ Club Wicked

By Jeff Maus

The text of La Ronde is a product of the early 20^th Century. It is frank, adult, and earnest in its presentation of sex. The play is very ‘modern,’ in the dawn-of-the-twentieth-century tradition. Written in 1897 Vienna by Arthur Schnitzler, it’s scene structure, dialogue, and characters all have the recognizable progressive elements of the time. This makes for a dynamic juxtaposition with the more modern burlesque setting, and the Rocky Horror meets Bernardo Bertolucci sensibility of the production.

Not there just to shock the audience or spice up a conventional narrative, sex is literally what the play is about. It isn’t that the red light district’s presentation of the play at Club Wicked is free from shock or heat; it is for adults in every sense. I went in with no knowledge of the play or the production, and was surprised all the way through. Read the rest of this entry »

David Gingerich in Wild Abandon. Photo by Jess Griffiths.

Wild Abandon and See Bob Run
By Daniel MacIvor
Featuring David Gingerich and Julia Nish-Lapidus
Directed by Eric Double
Presented by Theatre Caravel
February 17-19 @ Unit 102 Theatre

By Jeff Maus

Theatre Caravel’s presentation of two Daniel MacIvor one-act plays was held at the Unit 102 Theatre behind the Parkdale liquor store. The small theatre’s lighting consisted of a flashlight and four lights controlled with hardware store dimmers. The audience sat on kitchen chairs on a riser at the back of the all-black room. This setting worked well with the funky DIY quality of the productions.

David Gingerich starred as Steve in Wild Abandon. This play is something like a Zoo Story with us as Peter, the straight man watching the mania. Read the rest of this entry »

Billy Twinkle: Requiem for a Golden Boy
Created and performed by Ronnie Burkett
Runs until October 24 @ Factory Theatre

By Jeff Maus

There’s no mention of autobiography in Billy Twinkle, but the similarities between its title character and sole performer–they’re both gay puppeteers form small prairie towns in Canada–could be significant.

In the play, Billy Twinkle is a puppeteer on a cruise ship with his production Stars in Miniature. He tells off people in the crowd, gets fired, and gets a visit from his dead mentor. The puppeteering legend takes the form of a hand puppet making him relive all manner of moments from his life in marionette form. He seems to have had a nervous breakdown. Twinkle is “middle-aged and not even at a crossroads” and struggling with being moderately successful and bored, not having even liked puppets for nine years. Burkett carries the production and delivers a realistic, relatable world. Read the rest of this entry »

Impromptu Splendor
Featuring Matt Baram, Ron Pederson and Naomi Snieckus
September 26 edition
Runs the last Sunday of every month @ Theatre Passe Muraille

By Jeff Maus

This month’s installment of Impromptu Splendor—”an improvisational long-form in the fashion of a one-act play”—from The National Theatre of the World at Theatre Passe Muraille had a lot to offer the audience, including free smoked meat sandwiches.

Matt Baram and Naomi Snieckus, from the National Theatre of the World, acted out a “Suburban Show,” full of gentle jabs at the suburbs west of Toronto. Picked from a dozen suggestions from the audience, it wasn’t the most original topic, but the suburbs provided good fodder. The set consisted of the black stage with the QEW drawn on it with chalk, including Hamilton, Burlington, with the biggest cheer from the crowd for Paris, Ontario. All over this landscape, these talented actors wandered through Southern Ontario and looked at who we are. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Jitters
Directed by Ted Dykstra
Written by David French
Featuring Kevin Bundy, Diane D’Aquila, Oliver Dennis, C. David Johnson, Abena Malika, Jordan Pettle, Noah Reid, Mike Ross, and Sarah Wilson
Runs June 24 – July 24 @ Young Centre for the Performing Arts

By Jeff Maus

To hear actors like Diane D’Aquila, Oliver Dennis, and C. David Johnson delivering lines about paranoia over forgetting lines, the anonymity of theatre acting in Canada, our desire for American validation, professional successes and failures, and criticism of their work, I couldn’t help but wonder how strange it must be for these seasoned professionals to reflect on these things off-stage as well as on.

First produced in 1979, Jitters is a funny show about a cast and crew opening a play in Toronto and is based, in part, on David French’s experiences writing for the Tarragon Theatre in the 1970s — and the satire hits home. Read the rest of this entry »

The Tempest
Directed by Des McAnuff
Starring Christopher Plummer
June 11- September 12 – Opens June 25 @ Festival Theatre

By Jeff Maus

Depending on the quality of a production, Shakespeare’s reputation is usually necessary to carry his plays to varying degrees. Even if a version is light, it always has the words to give it some weight.

The Bard was given the night off during a Saturday preview, his script and ideas in very good hands. Des McAnuff, Christopher Plummer, and company, owned the play. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by Carol Rosegg.

Jake Ehrenreich’s
A Jew Grows in Brooklyn
Runs until June 13 @ The Panasonic Theatre

By Jeff Maus

A Jew Grows in Brooklyn is easy to enjoy. It tells the story of 54-year-old Jake Ehrenreich, who grew from being a boy to a man, throughout his life surrounded by survivors of the Shoah. He was a moderately successful musician from a young age, working with Richie Havens and auditioning for KISS. He married late in life, and happily his survivor father lived to see his wedding in the mid-1990s. Ehrenreich’s marriage produced a young son and a happy family. Near the end of the play he mentioned in a sentence or two that he didn’t get a lot of joy from booze or drugs, and is a very happy man.

That’s it. I left the theatre thinking, “this is an off-Broadway hit?” Read the rest of this entry »

Mamma’s Boy
Ghostlight Projects
Written by Randie Parliament
Featuring Sky Gilbert, Randie Parliament, Kris Skjellerup and Briana Templeton
Runs until June 12 @ Factory Theatre Studio

By Jeff Maus

Before the house went dark, the songs “To Know You is to Love You” and “You Belong to Me“ played to set the ambiance. They’re songs that sum up a lot of the parent-children dynamic in Mamma’s Boy. The play is full of beautiful details like that, and like a picture slowly developing, you don’t appreciate it all until it is finished. Read the rest of this entry »

Albert Schultz, Eric Peterson. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Glengarry Glen Ross
Directed by David Stortch
Starring Albert Schultz, Eric Peterson, Kevin Bundy, Peter Donaldson, Stephen Guy-McGrath, Jordan Pettle, William Webster
Runs until June 5 @ Soulpepper

By Jeff Maus

David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross is an 80s classic, still relevant and lean and scary. It is also touching and very funny. The best cautionary tales ring true 30 years later. This is the rare one that has gained relevance to the point that it hasn’t aged a day. Soulpepper’s production of it is as good as we’re going to get, and I’m glad to have had the chance to see it.

It involves a group of middle-aged real estate salesmen obsessed with “leads.” Leads are simply index Read the rest of this entry »