Openings We're Tracking, February 13-19, 2012

Vile Passéist poster art for Jew of Malta and Edward II

Fitzgerald

It's grim, rainy/icy, gray and slushy outside; what better way to celebrate midwinter hideousness than with the grayness (but quirkiness) of Samuel Beckett in Beckett: Feck It which Canadian stage is calling "an invigorating collection of [his] plays and the music he has inspired." The brilliant Jennifer Tarver directs. (Toronto)

Vile Passéist, almost certainly the most adventurous company in the country, is mounting a Marlowe season with Jew of Malta and Edward II. Both have difficult, flawed protagonists, both have lust, rage and buckets of blood. Both challenge. We like it. (Read artistic director Dan Bray's discussion of the company here. (Halifax)

Across the bay was the green light and, we were told in high school,  green meant hope. Gatsby, however, is instead lured into the twisted world of the unattainable Daisy - all of it in the time of prohibition and crazy parties. If you don't know this Fitzgerald masterpiece, Grand Theatre in London is giving you a theatre crash course.