The title Love + Hate sums up my feelings towards the brightly costumed but darkly delivered doomsday pop-musical at SummerWorks this season. Performing in the Factory Theatre Mainspace, The PepTides deliver their upbeat take on what is wrong with humanity in the form of a five-part harmony interspersed with quick, qu…
Is Shrödinger’s rapist still a rapist if the box hasn’t been opened yet? That’s the question the red light district is looking to answer in their updated take on Heinrich von Kleist’s 19th Century short story, the marquise of o-. Playing in the Factory Theatre Mainspace during Toronto’s SummerWorks Festival, marquise i…
Not just for Sarah, for everyone; The Divine: A Play for Sarah Bernhardt is misleading in its title, but moving in its story. Written by Michel Marc Bouchard and developed by Jackie Maxwell for the Shaw Festival, Linda Gaboriau’s English translation of The Divine premieres this season at the Royal George Theatre. Set i…
On Thursday night a man with beer on his breath tells me about his troubles. Broken hearts, broken bones, burned bridges, and a burning building – in a dimly lit room I hear it all. Gerard Harris is the man in question; I am not his friend, his confidante, or his therapist and neither are any of the other 30 people in…
All aboard the Rukmini’s Gold train, stopping now at the Hamilton Fringe Festival. Their next stop? Perhaps a tune-up at the train yard is in order. Radha S. Menon’s play, winner of the 2015 Toronto Fringe New Play Contest, is playing at Mills Hardware this summer in Hamilton. Presented by Red Betty Theatre and directe…
It’s tea time at the Toronto Fringe Festival and James and Jamesy are serving up a delight! High Tea, playing at the Randolph Theatre, features the Vancouver-based clown duo in a zany, imaginative, and fun-filled adventure quite unlike any other tea party. An unlikely pair, the even-keeled and quiet James (Aaron Malkin…
A corporate executive, a female pope, a 13th Century Japanese concubine, a warrior peasant, a turn-of-the-century world traveler, and an obedient Renaissance wife sit down to dinner. The ensuing conversation is the iconic set up for Caryl Churchill’s feminist examination, Top Girls, playing this season at the Shaw Fes…
Murder and madness should be the political playwright’s playground. Unfortunately, the world premiere of Michael Healey’s Canadian adaptation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s The Physicists at the Stratford Festival fails to excavate the rich material at its disposal to its fullest potential. Originally written following the…
Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew presents a delicate decision for directors of our time to make: either condone the inherent sexism and celebration of male-dominance in the text or condemn it. This season at Stratford’s Festival Theatre, director Chris Abraham has taken a third option; he has chosen to ignore it.…
While DARTcritic Elizabeth is a set of fresh eyes on Peter and the Starcatcher, other DARTcritics have been embedded in the piece throughout its rehearsal process. You can read their pieces here. Peter Pan may long to stay forever young, but Rick Elice’s Peter and the Starcatcher has some growing up to do. Playing this…
