Review: (Toronto / Theatre) 6 Essential Questions

(photo by Joanna Akyol)

Family Ties. 
A poetic story of self-discovery. 
by  Lisa McKeown 
@lisammckeown 

What do you like best about yourself? 

Well that question goes hand in hand with who you take yourself to be. But what defines us? It's precisely that question that this play, based on Priscila Uppal's memoir "Projection: Encounters with my Runaway Mother," is asking as Renata journeys to Brazil to find her mother who abandoned her and her brother, along with their disabled father, in Canada when Renata was five years old. 

What she finds there is, perhaps not unexpectedly, not what she was hoping for. The set design presents us with the metaphor of the world she finds there (or is it metonymy?): a glorious pile of garbage in the centre of the stage, into which Renata descends at the beginning of the show, and from which the mother and grandmother emerge, greeting Renata at first with breathless enthusiasm. What does this reunion hold in store? 

Review: (Toronto) Free Outgoing

Anusree Roy, Ash Knight (photo by John Lauener)

A Show that Deserves to Go Viral
by Keely Kwok
@Kowkles

Normally when I review a show I take a lot of notes. I probably take too many notes and drive whoever’s sitting beside me crazy. But not last night. After the first two minutes of Free Outgoing, I closed my trusty notebook knowing full well I would not forget what I was about to witness. 

Free Outgoing is about a young 15-year-old girl named Deepa who, out of love and foolishness, becomes the focus of a nationwide scandal when a video of her and her boyfriend having sex goes viral. But the real story is about Deepa’s widowed mother and brother, Malini (Anusree Roy) and Sharan (Andrew Laurie), and what they must do to navigate the scandal in their conservative Tamil community in Chennai, India. 

Review: (Toronto) Stopheart

Vivien Endicott-Douglas. photo: Jeremy Mimnagh 

Not Entirely a Review: Stopheart
Tale of Small Town Ontario Hits Awful Close to Home

by Christian Baines

Sometimes a review just doesn’t cut it.

I’ve heard theatre reviews described as acts of violence. Callous, brutal ‘buyers guides’ that reduce acts of countless months, sometimes years of creation to ‘Should I part with fifty bucks or shouldn’t I?’ When I review a work – like many critics, I’d like to think – I try to offer within that review the basis of a discussion. Or at least some contribution to it. But in framing that discussion, I – again, like others – try to maintain a respectful impartiality and distance from the work I’m seeing. 

But I can’t pretend to maintain such a distance from Amy Lee Lavoie’s Stopheart. Sure, I can tell you whether I think it’s a well-written piece of work. Well performed (without doubt). Well staged (for the most part). I can needle apart its various shortcomings or vast tracts of irritatingly redundant script in act one. But all seem fairly trivial next to what the play speaks to in broader terms. The desire for affection, from those with the greatest potential to harm us.

This is why it is impossible for me to simply ‘review’ this play impartially, and why those wishing to avoid spoilers should probably stop reading now. Because I need to reveal a very significant plot detail in order to make my thoughts on Stopheart clear.

Review: (Toronto) Iceland

(L to R) Claire Calnan, Lauren Vandenbrook & Kawa Ada (photo: Joanna Akyol) 

A Play of Ice and Fir€ 
by Beat Rice

Last summer, Iceland won the NOW Audience Choice Award, when it premièred at SummerWorks Theatre Festival. It was sold out and I never had an opportunity to see it. Now Nicolas Billon’s play is part of the Mainstage Season at the Factory Theatre. 

The play has three characters, Kassandra, Halim, and Anna, who are presented in monologues with the occasional dialogue that connects and intertwines their stories. All of them live and work in Toronto, and all are facing the consequences of capitalism and trying to deal with the reality of how money rules. 

Review: (Toronto) Every Letter Counts

Nina Lee Aquino

Accepting the tiles given

Factory resumes with mixed hand

by Jason Booker

[This article has been corrected]

Every Letter Counts, the opening play in the Factory Theatre season, takes its name from Scrabble.  You know, the game you used to play with your grandparents: crossword-style board, double word scores and those numbered letter tiles. 

In Nina Lee Aquino’s latest work, the clues become a bit cryptic and the game-players remain enigmatic though the game play is enjoyable. 

Taken from Aquino’s own background as granddaughter niece to assassinated Filipino politician Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr., Every Letter Counts explores the relationship between six-year-old Bunny and her ancestors, both in 1983 when she met Ninoy for the only time and the present.

First-Person: Itai Erdal on How to Disappear Completely

Mother and Me

Exploring life through theatre

by Itai Erdal (production photos by Emily Cooper)

Twelve years ago, I was going to be a documentary filmmaker. I became a theatre lighting designer instead. I never planned to be a designer, it kind of happened by accident. I was a good lighting technician in Israel but I was happy to leave theatre behind to pursue my dreams in film, and when I moved to Vancouver in 1999 it was its booming film industry that attracted me. I worked as a lamp operator in big union movies (Halloween 8, Air Bud 4, etc.), and at the same time I tried to be an independent and documentary filmmaker. I bought a video camera and I tried to start a business of shooting EPK’s (electronic press kits, or the behind the scenes). It was around that time that I received a phone call from Israel telling me that my mother had lung cancer and nine months to live. 

Review: (Toronto) Oil and Water

Neema Bickersteth as Adeline and Starr Domingue as Vonzia in the 2011 run at the LSPU Hall (St. John's, NL) 

ACT I Problems

Oil and Water takes its time

by Beat Rice

I am instantly curious when I hear that a play is inspired by real events and true stories. What about this story intrigued playwright Robert Chafe so much that he felt the need to translate the events for the stage?  Oil and Water is inspired by the story of Lanier Phillips, the only surviving black male from a shipwreck of U.S. marines off the coast of Newfoundland in 1942. He is rescued and cared for by the people in St. Lawrence, Canadians who have never seen a person with coloured skin. We experience the majority of the events through Phillips’ older self’s reflections, although it was not consistent.

Sunday Read: First-Person Matthew Mackenzie on creating SIA

Full of Fire and Hope
A journey, cultural dislocation and a play
by Matthew Mackenzie (photos courtesy of Matthew Mackenzie)

In the fall of 2003 I flew from Alberta to West Africa, with a brief stopover in Toronto.  My plan was to go and research my play concerning the civil war that had recently torn the tiny country of Liberia apart.  Talked out of going directly to Liberia by my parents, I decided to go to Ghana, which was the most stable English speaking country in the region, where there was a significant Liberian refugee population.  Alarmed that I was travelling half way around the world without having done any kind of research, my Aunt Karen—who is a Librarian at the University of Toronto—hastily put me in touch with a Ghanaian student she knew, in the hopes that he would be able to offer some guidance.  As it just so happened, a member of the congregation the Ghanaian student belonged to back home, was the former Head Nurse of the Buduburam Camp—the largest Liberian refugee settlement in the world.

Review: (Toronto) My Granny The Goldfish

Sincerity Wins The Day

The script is uneven, but the cast is superb

by Stuart Munro

“Yes, you may die. But are you happy with the life you have lived?”

These words are spoken early on in Act II by a loving grandmother to her grandson as they wait to hear the results of his biopsy. In many ways, this simple question is at the heart of Anosh Irani’s play “My Granny the Goldfish,” on stage now at The Factory Theatre.

Set primarily in a Vancouver hospital room, “My Granny the Goldfish” is the story of Nico (Kawa Ada), a recent arrival from Mumbai, India, who may or may not have cancer. His granny (Yolande Bavan) shows up unexpectedly in order to comfort him. Eventually, his parents Farzeen and Dara (Veena Sood and Sanjay Talwar) arrive as well, and the stage is set for an awkward family reunion; old grievances are brought up, and ultimately some wounds begin to heal.

Review: (Toronto) The Big Smoke

A Solo Fails to Stir

Structure and script hamper a tale of life and death

by Beat Rice

The Big Smoke is a unique one-woman show that is also a different kind of musical. The narrative is sung and in some parts spoken by co-writer, composer, and performer Amy Nostbakken. The play is sung in a jazzy style and is done entirely a cappella.

The story follows Nathalie's last summer before she dies. She is a young painter from Toronto, in London to compete for an exhibition spot. She tells us about the gallery openings and shows she and the other young artists attend, of raunchy nights in clubs, and of trysts with different men. It was unoriginal and shallow. We do not find out enough about the character's nature to care about her decline in the end. There were many details in the story-telling that felt petty and made the show longer than it needed to be. Detailed descriptions are effective when one knows why they are being provided.

Review: (Toronto) Penny Plain

(photo credit: Trudie Lee)

Burkett's Folk

Penny Plain reconfirms Ronnie Burkett's genius, but...

by Dave Ross

Ronnie Burkett’s Penny Plain, now running at the Factory Theatre, has received glowing reviews, as has much of Burkett’s earlier work. A play performed by one man, rendered only in puppets, is such a unique opportunity. However, the plot of the play, revolving around the characters in the boarding house of Penny Plain, leaves much to be desired, almost leaving me with the feeling the story was haphazardly assembled to showcase the puppets, rather than tell a tale.

Review: (Toronto) Imprints

TOP TO BOTTOM: Cosette Derome, Conor Green, Kat Sander 

(Photo credit: Michael Cooper)

Provocative Ideas, But...

Gargantua offers a new work at Factory

by Beat Rice

Last week Michael Spence’s play, Imprints, had its world premiere at the Factory Studio Theatre. The play explores the idea of one’s ancestry being passed down in more than just a physical way. That one’s person is made up from all of those that came before them. The idea is really interesting and opens up a lot of points of discussion. Unfortunately the play, directed by Jacquie P.A. Thomas, failed to do that. 

Review: (Toronto) The Rez Sisters

(l-r) Cara Gee, Pamela Sinha (Photo: Jeremy Mimnagh)

It's about Sisterhood

Factory puts a controversy to rest

by Beat Rice

I now understand why theatre school makes me learn about The Rez Sisters in Canadian Theatre history class. It is indeed a landmark in Canadian theatre. 

First premiering in 1986, Tomson Highway’s play makes a wonderful comeback at the Factory Theatre. The play tells the story of seven women living on a reserve on Manitoulin Island who decide to journey to ‘The Biggest Bingo in the World’ in Toronto. There, they hope to achieve their hopes and dreams by winning $500,000 in prize money. Each character has different plans in life, and we learn about them from their aspirations.