Letter From New York: The Death of Klinghoffer

Alan Opie (Leon Klinghoffer) and Jesse Kovarsky (Omar) in The Death of Klinghoffer. Photo credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Mixed Emotions.
There's a lot of post-9/11 baggage on this cruise. 
by Lisa McKeown, Senior Contributor

[PUBLISHER'S NOTE: In the past we have asked our contributors to send in reviews of productions in cities they were visiting: art as seen by Canadians abroad. In this case we asked Lisa McKeown, one of our most politically astute contributors, to review a highly controversial piece playing at the Metropolitan Opera both because it has become an international story, but also because it is a work which may, in some incarnation, make its way to Canada. I am very proud to be presenting this piece; Ms McKeown cuts through the noise. GLC]

The very controversial opera, John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer, is currently playing at the Metropolitan Opera (Met) in NYC. The opera is based on the 1985 hijacking of a cruise ship by Palestinian terrorists. In the course of events, they shoot Klinghoffer, a disabled Jewish man who was celebrating his wedding anniversary, throwing his body and his wheelchair overboard.

Review: (Toronto) Radical (Fringe)

Preaching to the Choir?
by Lisa McKeown
@lisammckeown

The play recounts the forgotten story of Dr. Vera Peters, a Canadian doctor in the 1970s who fought to radically alter breast cancer treatment for women. 

Review: (Toronto) Potosi (Fringe)

Not For The Faint of Heart
by Lisa McKeown
@lisammckeown 

When I walked into the packed theatre I had high hopes for what seemed to be a play that had gotten quite a lot of press, and an award: it's the winner of the Fringe Best New Play Contest.

And I'm sorry to say I was rather disappointed. Written by Alexander Offord, this play is about a young emissary sent to a remote country to investigate reports of sexual violence at the mine. While she's there, civil war breaks out and she is taken hostage by a former miner.

Review: (Toronto) One Legged Dancer (Fringe)

Brave New Show

by Lisa McKeown

@lisammckeown

Written and performed by Ardith Irvine, this is a one-woman mini-musical about learning to adapt to life with Multiple Sclerosis. This brave show consisted of some anecdotes about how she's had to adapt to her disease, along with some dancing and a couple of musical numbers. 

The show certainly gave the audience some insight into the life of someone dealing with MS, and the only thing I would say is that I wanted more - more of her experiences, the kinds of trials that she has to endure on a daily basis, things that most of us take for granted and things we are oblivious to.

Review: (Toronto) I Think Therefore I'm Graham

I Laugh, Therefore I Am
by Lisa McKeown
@lisammckeown

This is Canadian comedian Graham Clark's Toronto Fringe Festival debut. Clark is a natural comedian, or at least he makes it seem that way. His jokes are often self-deprecating, but there is, paradoxically, a deep security in his jokes that puts the audience completely at ease, providing a great atmosphere and providing context in which to relax and laugh for almost an entire straight hour.

Review: (Toronto) Spilling Family Secrets (Fringe)

Love's Labour Won
by Lisa McKeown
@lisammckeown

Written by Susan Freedman, this piece is a one-woman show that tells the story of her parents' blissful marriage by way of their love letters to each other in the 1920s and 30s.

Freedman points out that when your parents have a beautiful marriage, they make it look easy. She had to find out the hard way that things are not quite as simple as they appeared to her growing up. She has excellent storytelling skills, weaving the romantic and the comedic, the frustrating and sad together into a beautiful juxtapositioning of the evolution of her parents growing intimacy with moments from her childhood as well as her initial, awkward attempts at finding love. 

Review: (Toronto) Emerald City - a Musical Play

I Don't Think We're Quite There Yet, Toto
by Lisa McKeown
@lisammckeown

Written by Darren Stewart-Jones, this is the story of the characters from the Wizard of Oz, who have realized that their problems haven't magically gone away, and so they make the decision to go to group therapy facilitated by the ever-absent Dr. Oz. 

Review: (Toronto) Behind Closed Doors (Fringe)

The Complexity of Abuse
by Lisa McKeown
@lisammckeown

Written and directed by Adam Bryan, this show is about a dancer who is in an abusive relationship, and the reactions of those around her as this secret gets revealed. 

Review: (Toronto) Everything Is Fine (Fringe)

Comic Relief
Lisa McKeown
@lisammckeown

Sometimes, when one is reviewing a lot of shows, comic relief is necessary. And Everything Is Fine definitely provided that for me. A series of short comedy sketches often featuring local Toronto references, this piece was written and performed by an ensemble made up of Second City graduates, and directed by Ken Hall (2-MAN NO-SHOW). 

Review: (Toronto) Bard Fiction (Fringe)

Quentin Shakespeare
by Lisa McKeown
@lisammckeown

Written by Tedious Brief and directed by Christopher Moore, this play is a retelling of Pulp Fiction through the language and lens of Shakespeare. 

I expected the show to be good, and it certainly lived up to my expectations. But what was a pleasant additional surprise was how much the audience was loving the show - the energy in the crowd helped take this theatrical experience to the next level. 

Review: (Toronto) Mind Map(Fringe)

Prepare
by Lisa McKeown
@lisammckeown

This is a story about how life is an experiment, and we are brought into the personal lab of Wes Lord to see what the results will be. 

The result is something that is unfortunately, a bit underwhelming. He arrives on stage and announces, jokingly, that he's had to leave three-quarters of his cast, along with the set, in Vancouver, because they couldn't afford to come to Toronto for the Fringe. And I don't think he was joking, because the rest of the show seems to be something along the lines of improvised stand-up comedy: never a good idea, for anyone involved. He tells us stories of his life, often with good comic seeds, but which comes out deflated in his somewhat self-conscious delivery. Self-conscious because he seems aware that he's under-prepared but unsure of what to do about that. 

Review: (Toronto) The Dysmorphia Diet (Fringe)

The Struggles
by Lisa McKeown
@lisammckeown

Written, directed, and performed by Clay Nikiforuk, this show is a story about the quest for well-being, inspired by a ten-year struggle with food and beauty conventions. I had a feeling this show might be good, and happily it more than lived up to my expectations. Nikiforuk takes to the stage with a fantastic script and a charming presence. 

She begins with some history on the invention of the human scale, and health insurance in the 1900s that was based on the presumption that the lighter you are, the less of a risk you are. She then moves into her own personal story, beginning with anecdotes from early childhood when girls begin to compare themselves to each other, defining 'fat' relatively, and the ways in which this determines social hierarchy between women from the get-go, something that definitely resonated with me as a woman. She moves through her development as a teenager, and then as a young adult in a relationship, and working at a yoga studio. 

Review: (Toronto) Tachycardia (Fringe)

An Attack of Mediocrity 
by Lisa McKeown
@lisammckeown

Tachycardia,  written and directed by Rebecca Gismondi, is about connections: between lovers, and between mind and body. Two lovers confess their feelings for each other only to discover that the effects are not what they had anticipated. Or rather, the woman - El - confesses her love for the man and is greeted with a cool response. "I am confused," he says. "I don't know what I want." 

Review: (Toronto) Lwam is Eritrea's Greatest Hockey Player

Political comedy on its way up. 
by Lisa McKeown
@lisammckeown

Lwam is Eritrea's Greatest Hockey Player is a play about race, justice, and relationships. Written and performed by Lwam Ghebrehariat, the play is actually what might be better described as a stand-up (or, in this case, sit-down) comedy act. Drawing on his experience as a lawyer struggling towards social justice, as well as his personal story growing up as a black man in Alberta, Lwam fills the hour with stories of his childhood, adolescence, and his many encounters with racism as an adult living in Toronto. 

Review: (Toronto) Climbing Mount Rumsfeld (Fringe)

A Great View from Climbing Mount Rumsfeld 
by Lisa McKeown
@lisammckeown

“As we know, there are known knowns; there are things that we know that we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know.” 

News: (Toronto) SummerWorks Launch Event (Report)

Launching SummerWorks: 
The countdown begins
by Lisa McKeown 
@lisammckeown

SummerWorks started, in the 90s, as a Fringe Festival, transitioning to a fully juried Festival around the turn of the century. It also now features predominantly new Canadian works, and is a great breeding ground for all kinds of Canadian artists working in dance, theatre, and performance art more broadly construed. Last Friday was their annual Launch Party for the Festival, comprised of the VIP portion in the early evening, and followed by a Pay What You Can dance party. 

Michael Rubenfield, the current artistic director of the Festival, was one of the hosts of the evening, amusing the crowd with his spontaneous humour. Peppered around the surrounding gates were the posters of the upcoming Festival's lineup, and throughout the evening the guests were treated to a sampling of some of the performances and exhibits that will be a part of the Festival in August. A Maracatu band (from the upcoming Maracatu You!) started off the night with drums, singing, and dancing. Passers-by on Queen Street even stopped to watch the band's lively anthems.

Review: (Toronto / Theatre) Of Shapes Transformed By Love

Photo by Jonathan Harvey

Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms
Full of sound and fury; signifying nothing

by Lisa McKeown 

@lisammckeown 

Written and directed by Kyle Capstick, Of Shapes Transformed by Love is described in the programme as a show that grew out of three separate monologues. Inspired by a colleague who advised him that "if ever you're writing a show and it wants to be bigger, don't be afraid to let it, " Capstick turned the monologues into a play. 

And it's too bad that he did, because what came out was the most incredibly confused, inchoate, and pretentious piece of theatre I've had the misfortune to sit through in a very long time. The programme claims boldly that this play is about "the intersection of permission to love and love as permission."  In fact, it's more at the intersection of a Greek myth, Game of Thrones, and a contemporary soap-opera. And that's if you manage to make sense of anything that is happening on stage. This is hard to do, because in no way does the show provide a sense of the context or the world of the characters such that any sense can be made of their actions, nor do we have any idea of what the stakes of those actions might be. 

Review: (Toronto / Theatre) Sultans of the Street

(photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

To rags from riches and back again: 
An awkward tale of recognition and redemption. 
by Lisa McKeown
@lisammckeown 

Directed by Nina Lee Aquino, Sultans of the Street is a new play commissioned by Young People's Theatre, written by Anusree Roy. This is a story about four children in India, who are being manipulated and coerced into begging for money on the street by their cunning 'Aunty'. Two are a couple of siblings who were orphaned by a train crash; two are rich kids blackmailed into begging. 

The show is undeniably gorgeous to watch. Camillia Koo's set design is both beautiful and functional: there are four rotating walls covered in colourful saris that serve as doorways, street corners, shops, and windows. 

Review: (Toronto / Theatre) The Memo

(photo by Sunny Kaura)

Lost in Translation: 
An office comedy where Kafka meets Seinfeld. 
by Lisa McKeown 
@lisammckeown 

I was full of anticipation at opening night of The Memo. It seemed like exactly the kind of piece I'd love: a comedy that explored the political nature of language in a corporate environment. Written by Vaclav Havel - both a political dissident in Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic - the play is a look into the absurd logic of bureaucratic management. It sounded like it was going to be both sharply entertaining and deeply interesting. And it lived right up to those expectations. 

The play opens with a company Director attempting to read an official memo which has been written in a foreign language. Unable to make sense of it, he inquires about the language it's written in, only to find that the company is implementing an artificial language in an effort to make company communication more efficient. The Director then sets out on a quest to translate the memo, only to learn that the bureaucracy behind getting a translation locks him into an infinite loop of corporate logic. The perfect language, it turns out, is designed to describe the world so perfectly that there is no possibility of misunderstanding. But in order to achieve this, the language has to be so complicated that it's next to impossible to actually learn. The Director of the company finds himself on a Kafka-esque journey of attempting to find someone who understands the language well enough to translate it, and who at the same time has been granted the authority and documentation to translate it for him.

Sunday Feature: Interview - Theatreworks Artistic Director Adrian Proszowski

Thirty Years and Beyond Greeks and Romans
We're not always in a theatre, we're not always outside, it really depends on what the story demands.
by Lisa McKeown
@lisammckeown

Adrian Proszowski has been Artistic Director of Theatreworks Productions since 2006. During his tenure thus far he has produced and acted in both CREON by Ned Dickens and The Menaechmus Twins by Plautus. Born in London Ontario and raised in Ottawa Mr Petroszowski has been passionately engrossed in the arts since he attended Canterbury High School for the Arts before leaving Ottawa to train at George Brown Theatre School in Toronto. Since graduating George Brown he has been a company member of A Company of Fools, an Ottawa based troupe dedicated to the plays of Shakespeare. Adrian Proszowski has worked across Canada since graduating George Brown Theatre School. Notable roles have included: Oberon in Company of Fools Winters Tale/Midsummer Night’s Dream mash up A Midwinter’s Dream Tale at the Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa, Rad in One Thousand Cranes for Carousel Players cross Canada tour, Michael and two other characters in Kevin Kerr’s Unity 1918 at Theatre Aquarius, Louis in Michel Marc Bouchard’s Heat Wave at Sudbury Theatre Centre, Sammy in Blood Brothers at 1000 Islands Playhouse, King Louis XIII in Three Musketeers (The world premier of an adaptation by Tom Wood) and the Knight in Little Women the Broadway Musical at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton. He was one of 14 chosen from across Canada to participate in The Robbins Academy at the Banff Centre and Citadel Theatre. Upcoming: Adrian Proszowski will be directing the world premiere production of Ned Dickens play Paulo and Daphne commissioned by Theatreworks Productions.

CHARPO: So can you talk a bit about the history of Theatreworks Productions? 

PROSZOWSKI:  Theatreworks Productions was founded in 1984 by Bernadette Jones. It started out with a mandate of doing new Canadian works, and Canadian premieres of international works. Throughout the 80s and 90s Bernadette was doing a lot of New York playwrights, she had a space called Off Off Broadview over at Gerrard and Coxwell, and the Adelaide Theatre. She then moved off to do film and television around 2006, when I came on board. 

Though I'm into Canadian plays, that mandate of new Canadian works seemed to me like one a lot of people were doing and doing well like Factory and Theatre Passe-Muraille. So I was like, what's our niche going to be? And my passion is classical theatre. And one day I was hanging out with a friend at Jackman Avenue Public School. And I was hanging upside down off the monkey bars and I saw this circle of stones, and I was like, 'whoa, look at that over there!' So we checked it out, and it was big circle of stones with a stone in the middle. And we realized it was such a great theatre space. My friend said he'd always wanted to do Antigone, and so the wheels got turning, and we started thinking you know, how can we do this play with Theatreworks Productions, and that's really how the reworking of the mandate got started.