Review: (Calgary) Sweeney Todd

(photo via Twitter by Benjamin Laird)

Ordeal Poison

You shed your complexes and beg to die…Musically!

by Ryan Hurl

Trial by Ordeal Poison- where a person is forced to shed their complexes or beg to die. Happy stuff. Some cultures, such as the Efik Uburutu people of Nigeria, administer the poisonous calabar bean, known as “Esere” in an attempt to detect guilt. A defendant who vomits up the bean is innocent. A defendant who becomes ill or dies is considered guilty. The epic tale of “Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street”, is certainly a trial by ordeal, the bean that awakens our own sensibilities. For the audience that attends the tale of Sweeney, the ordeal poison courses through the jugular and emerges like a geyser.  

This is mostly because Steven Sondheim is a genius. A sensitive intuitive word wizard who spins fairy tale adventures that are the real-estate of the soul. What Sondheim knows, is evident in Sweeney; judgment and redemption are often his favored playground.

Review: (Calgary) Baobab

The Real Jungle

Baobab will please parents as much as their children

by Ryan Hurl

In the heart of the urban jungle, at the base of the Calgary tower, an ancient tale pushes up toward the sky in the form of a Baobab tree. Y stage has arranged for Theatre Motus and Troip So (Mali) to present their beautifully crafted children’s show about “How to make it rain” – Baobab. 

The show is an eclectic mix of shadow, puppetry, music and storytelling, used to weave a shamanistic imagining of a chosen boy who brings water back to the scorched earth. Ralph Propser, Mireille Tawfik, Nathalie Cora and Aboulay Kone vibrate across a simple set that mimics a barren desert littered with Baobab trees, harnessing instruments, ears, and childrens' attention. 

Review: (Calgary) Cats

Director Jacques Lemay giving notes backstage before the opening of Cats

(photo via Theatre Calgary Twitter feed)

The Mystery of Cats

A perennial takes Theatre Calgary's audience by storm

by Ryan Hurl

The Mystery of Cats in our collective imagination dates back to the pharaohs. Wherever man has gone, with our domineering quests for luxury, a cat has never been far behind. 

Unlike dogs - who bound into our lives becoming substitutes for love, affection, and character definition - cats have a more symbiotic relationship with their human kin, leaving a burning mystery in man's ego: How can we "own" this feline pet, yet never truly know it's inner workings - and worse yet, not be able to command and dominate this shifty beast. It was a particularly haunting question in the booming capitalistic empire that was the 80's, when ownership and luxury was the name of the game. But maybe not much has changed - perhaps one of the reasons why the Cats came back? 

Review: (Calgary) Mary's Wedding

Wedding Belle

Mary gets married at ATP

by Ryan Hurl

It is the night before Mary’s Wedding. We are invited into a dream. Some say dreams are the mind's way of filtering through information, absorbing lessons, and sorting emotion. In the true spirit of the theatre, this dream will be collective. Stark, stripped down, worn out beams parade up to a clouded sky that can glow with the sunrise, or shudder with a fierce storm. This is the duality of Steven Massicotte's brilliantly conceived Mary’s Wedding, a play that explores the nature of love in dangerous times–proving love is a vulnerable act that can be lost forever in our collective nightmares. Both love and survival struggle for surrender. The power of this story can be accounted for by the volume of productions it has received since the prèmiere production in 2002, across the globe. The story sits on an empyrean nerve, appearing to be capable of performance anywhere a heart beats.  It is soon apparent why…