Review

Rick Roberts’ Orestes, directed by Richard Rose, confronts the progressively blurring lines between real life and virtual life in a heightened version of the bloodthirsty frenzy of online existence — an experience amplified by quarantines and self isolation. Running from February 3-14 at Tarragon Theatre, it satirized…

Every year the University of Windsor School of Dramatic Art produces multiple plays featuring its fourth-year students. This year, under the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, the department had to adapt. In collaboration with the Toronto theatre company Outside the March, the school commissioned playwrights and d…

“You must take your rightful place as Queen.” What a refreshing line to hear after countless stories about men murdering each other for a crown, men waging wars for royal power, and men pulling swords out of stones to become King. Kate Hennig’s Mother’s Daughter is the third play in her Queenmaker Trilogy that puts wom…

Essential Collective Theatre hits the mark in almost every aspect of their production of Hannah Moscovitch’s East of Berlin, but in trying to broach some difficult subject matter, the company may be taking risks with audiences involving a large number of university students. Some issues raised toward the end of the pla…

Andrea Donaldson’s take on Harold Pinter’s Betrayal oozes the same qualities as Emma (Virgilia Griffith)’s yellow jumpsuit, designed by Ken Mackenzie – it’s sexy, elegant, and very 1970s. Pinter wrote the play in 1978, and director Donaldson decided to keep the setting in that time period. In an interview for Intermiss…

Trigger warning: sexual assault, toxic gender roles. This review contains spoilers. Young women grow up learning a slew of double-standardized, mixed-signaled lessons. If you don’t put out, you’re a prude. If you do put out, you’re a slut. If you don’t conform to the standard of the male-gaze, you’re a man-hater. If yo…

Who am I? The need for self-identification and self-actualization is an experience that many of us can relate to. The Heels of Our Grandfathers by Cole Forrest (pictured above) tells this story from the viewpoint of an Ojibwe youth, Little Eagle, on the cusp of adulthood. Par for the course for someoneat that stage in…

Student critics voice their thoughts on Theatre Aquarius’ world-premier of Steel City Gangster, written by George F. Walker and directed by Ron Ulrich. The play tracks the life of the notorious organized crime boss and Hamiltonian, Rocco Perri and his partner-in-crime Bessie Starkman. The production ran on the theatre’…

The DARTCritics journied to Crow’s Theatre to see Stephen Massicotte’s play Mary’s Wedding, directed by Kent Staines. Students Dani Shae Barkley and Gwen Anderson express their thoughts below, although in relatively different formats. Dani Shae conveys her experience through text while Gwen elects to explore criticism…

To close out the coverage of Essential Collective Theatre‘s The Team by our critics, the non-embedding students attended the premiere and closing of the show last month. The Team ran at Theatre Aquarius from March 14-16, and at the First Ontario Performing Arts Centre from March 20-23. Check out what these new pairs of…