Review: (Montreal) Lotus (Fringe)

The Facebook Wall
by Sarah Deshaies
@sarahdeshaies

It’s a bold and tempting move to rip a story from the headlines, so-to-speak, and make it your own. Playwright Caitlin Murphy’s Lotus riffs quite nicely on the threads of cyberbullying, teen rape and the permanency of actions that we’ve seen played out in the news on a regular basis now. 

Dark content, to be sure, but there are still moments of lightness and humour between cop Linda (Miriam Cummings) and high schooler Amber (Samantha Megarry).

Linda is following a hunch that the recalcitrant teen is hiding a deep and potentially criminal secret. Someone has posted a singularly shocking and sinister photo to Amber’s Facebook wall, and the quirky, depressed Linda is determined to get to the root of it.

Review: (Montreal) Tempest in a Teacup (Fringe)

Danse Sans Prétention
by Sarah Deshaies
@sarahdeshaies

Quicksilver Dance has ventured out of their Cambridge, Mass. base for their first international appearance right here at the Montreal Fringe. 

Tempest in a Teacup is an octet of dancers of varying shapes and sizes; they present five earnest and thoughtful pieces that meditate on philosophy, history, biology and other sciences. Quicksilver owes its intellectual ambition to founders (and couple) Mariah Steele and Hans Rinderknecht; they met each other in a dance class while studying law and physics, respectively, at Princeton.

Review: (Montreal) God is An Iron (Fringe)

And No Picture Available
by Sarah Deshaies
@sarahdeshaies

God Is An Iron is a sci-fi thriller that has great intentions, but doesn’t quite thrill. 

Based on the novel 1982 Mindkiller by writer Spider Robinson, this stage version was adapted by Montrealer Elizabeth Cano. First written in 1982, it is a prescient exploration of the perils of addiction and reliance on technology.

Review: (Montreal / Dance) Iredea (Fringe, Montreal)

Dancin' The Sci-Fi

by Sarah Deshaies

@sarahdeshaies

Iredea is a bold, inventive and wild foray into the future - and a must-see for dance and sci-fi enthusiasts.

Following a disastrous series of explosions, bleak post-apocalyptic Earth is inhabited by human survivors who are mutated distorted shadows of themselves. 

A shapeless narrator takes us back to the beginning, when the world’s supplies and goods were managed by an omnipotent organization called the Superstructure amid unrest and climate change. An engineer who controls the water supply begins to doubt the Superstructure, and he sets about quietly destroying the status quo from the inside.

Review: (Montreal / Theatre) 2 Pianos 4 Hands

(photo by lucetg)

Round of applause for 2 Pianos 4 Hands
Dykstra-Greenblatt classic is still delightful and appealing nearly 20 years later
Sarah Deshaies

Who knew piano lessons could impart such a universal message? 

As a former, rather weak music student, I never thought that I would look back on those hours of practicing and agonizing conservatory exams with fond memories. Last weekend, I found myself waxing nostalgic about those years after a performance of 2 Pianos 4 Hands, a simple show about the challenges that come with having a dream, whether it’s to play an instrument or a sport or have a hobby.

I’m a newbie to the play, which was first performed nearly 20 years ago in Toronto. Since then, the show has been a certifiable Canadian theatre hit, touring round the world to 2 million people in more than 200 cities, including Montreal in ‘97 and ‘99.

Review: (Montreal / Theatre) Top Girls

Leni Parker (photo by Andrée Lanthier)

Top Girls reaches for gold
You might love or hate Churchill’s feminist play 
Sarah Deshaies
@sarahdeshaies

Guess who’s coming to dinner?

In career girl Marlene’s dream hosting gig, five top, barrier-breaking (but historically overlooked) women come to sup and celebrate. They are toasting Marlene’s promotion at a job placement agency, no mean feat for a woman during Thatcher’s reign in early ‘80s Britain.

There’s Lady Nijo (Leni Parker), a 13th century concubine from imperial Japan who travelled on foot for decades as a Buddhist nun, and Pope Joan (Lauryn Allman), a woman secretly in the top cleric’s job in the 800s. Dull Gret (France Rolland) is a gruff warrior woman, peeled right off of a Brueghel painting. There’s Victorian world traveller Isabella Bird (Julie Tamiko Manning) and Patient Griselda (Lucinda Davis), Chaucer’s obedient yet resolute wife.

The opening act of Caryl Churchill’s play is a dinner party tableau that evokes both Judy Chicago’s famous feminist table and The View’s cacophony of lady voices. Each dinner guest delves into stories about childbirth, fathers, death, lovers - but to illustrate how lonely they may have been in their own times, they chatter over one another at length. As one poignantly reminisces about her child, Isabella wades in: “I never had any children. I was fond of horses.”

Review: (Montreal / Theatre) Blind

(photo : Mitindo Primary Tanzania) 

Lush, imaginative exploration of harsh reality and cultural differences
Blind raises myriad questions surrounding treatment of people with albinism in Africa
by Sarah Deshaies

The audience is seated, and the house lights are up, but so are the lights trained on the stage. The sounds of birds and other animals cooing and clicking echoes through the venue (Montreal arts interculturels). Meanwhile, actors walk the stage, warming up in the way that they do: traipsing through the set, stretching, mumbling, making playful sounds to limber up their mouths and lungs. 

This was the first 10 minutes or so of Blind’s first Saturday showing, and it was a slow and methodical build to the enterprising story about to unfold. 

Review: (Montreal / Theatre) 4000 Miles

photo by Lucetg.com

Growing up and getting old
Herzog’s 4000 Miles gets loving treatment at Centaur
Sarah Deshaies

Leo shows up in the middle of the night, schlepping his dirty bike and worldly possessions. Ringing the bell at his grandmother’s Greenwich Village home, the 21-year-old is seeking physical and mental refuge. Awoken by the buzzer, Vera opens the door in her nightgown. “Are you high?” she demands. Leo almost leaves right then and there. But he doesn’t.

A self-described hippie, Leo is running from obligations, family and a summertime tragedy that he is reluctant to confront. Vera is lonely but stubborn, ensconced in a home with memories of her long-dead husband and their radical socialist past. Though they are both progressive lefties of different ages, the gulf between these two now de-facto roommates is decades-long and miles apart. He is trying to find his way, and she is losing her way of life. 

Review: (Montreal) The Mikado

                                   Photo by Cal Cheng
Fans, fun and frolicking at fifty
McGill’s Savoy Society celebrates half-century with The Mikado
by Sarah Deshaies
@SarahDeshaies

Lurking beneath the colourful exterior of The Mikado is a sharp critique of Victorian-era English politics. By shrouding the story in far-away Japan, theatrical duo Arthur Sullivan and W.S. Gilbert got away with spoofing the establishment via pretty songs and corrupt stage mandarins. 

How appropriate then to have their 9th musical collaboration reborn in 2014 Montreal - a city with endless potholes, socks stuffed with cash, crumbling bridges and crane operators who are paid 24/7 to do nothing. 

The Mikado, or The Town of Titipu, can be adapted into its present context no matter the level of local corruption or scandals, and the McGill Savoy Society is treading into lush territory with their 50th anniversary presentation of the piece. As such, references to the Charbonneau commission, “lady separatists” and senate scandals pepper the dialogue throughout.

Review: (Montreal) Moi, Feuerbach

(photo by Matthew Fournier)

Feuerbach, who?

by Aleksandra Koplik

This is a play about the reality of theatre today. Written by Tankred Dorst, a playwright who has not once debated the death of theatre, it discusses the many facets of the stage and those who revolve around it. It felt like I was watching a remake of Waiting for Godot or Rhinoceros, I was waiting for something to happen, but it never did. Instead, it became all about Feuerbach. This very fast paced absurdist-inspired piece, directed by Téo Spychalski, introduces the audience to Feuerbach (played by Gabriel Arcand), a middle-aged actor that appears at an audition after seven years of exile from acting. There, he meets the director’s assistant (played by Alex Bisping) and attempts to educate him on the many roles that he has played and why a person working in theatre should know these works in the first place.

Review: (Montreal) Bhopal

Bhopal, the tragedy and the play, revisited
Teesri Duniya remounts successful play for 30th anniversary of worst industrial disaster
by Sarah Deshaies
@sarahdeshaies

December 2nd, 1984: a valve breaks in an underground storage tank in a pesticide plant. The resulting cloud of lethal gas seeps from the Union Carbide plant to envelope a huge swath of territory - including Bhopal, a slum town mere kilometres away. 

The noxious fumes leave hundreds of dead humans and animals in its wake; those who escape a harrowing death are plagued with breathing difficulties, blindness, organ failure and other ghastly physical injuries. Today, the final death toll is believed to have spiralled up to as many as 25,000.

Review: (Montreal) Big Shot (WildSide)

Here’s your Big Shot: a cinematic snapshot of a tragedy
Jon Lachlan Stewart is an elegant whirligig of energy 
by Sarah Deshaies
@sarahdeshaies

A shot rings out in a cabin of the SkyTrain.

Over the course of just over an hour, the bullet’s story will be revealed by those touched by it: who shot it, who provoked it, who witnessed it, who it struck.

Big Shot, which has toured in several festivals, including the Toronto and Winnipeg Fringes, is an intricate story woven by performer, playwright and Edmonton native Jon Lachlan Stewart. 

Review: (Montreal) Phaedra Project

(photo by Neil Scotten)

The Phædra Project: love stories framed by a pool of water
Sarah Deshaies

The story of Phædra, the second wife of Theseus, has been explored in countless re-tellings. Married to a king of Athens, she falls for his son, Hippolytus, only to be rejected by the younger man. Add in a few untruths and some revenge, and Hippolytus turns out dead and she turns out incredibly remorseful.

In this version of Phaedra, two solitary figures fill out different roles, acting in separate spaces that clash together in venn diagram-like motions.

This is The Phædra Project (No! I! Don’t! Want! To! Fall! In! Love! With! You!), a brainchild of 
Nervous Hunter (handle of director Sophie Gee).

Review: (Montreal) Seeds

(photo via website)

Percy Schmeiser: heroic David or crooked farmer?
Food for thought at the latest incarnation of Seeds
by Sarah Deshaies

Who is Percy Schmeiser?

The septuagenarian canola farmer based in Bruno, Saskatchewan was sued in 1988 by biotech giant Monsanto for illegally growing their patented seeds; his fame (and infamy) grew as he fought back against the company over several years, resulting in a landmark 2004 Supreme Court Decision.

But is Percy Schmeiser a good guy?

Review: (Montreal) A Brimful of Asha

Tradition versus modernism, mother versus son
Step into the Jains’s kitchen for a delightful family fracas

by Sarah Deshaies

Asha Jain has a problem. Her youngest son, Ravi, refuses to get hitched. This dilemma, which is one shared by scores of parents, is magnified by her family’s traditional Indian background, which calls for quick and early nuptials for offspring.

You know of Asha Jain’s problem because that one rebellious son is also a performer, director and playwright. And, horrified by his parents scheming to find him a wife, he’s determined to make sure the world knows about their devious plans.

Review: (Montreal) Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy Of

Debut play by Omari Newton critiques both hip hop and authority figures
by  Sarah Deshaies
 
You’re waiting amongst dozens of other people, quietly chatting and mingling. Then the sirens blair, and a svelte, First Nations transvestite bursts into the crowded lobby, eager to stroke and chastise the waiting audience members. She works the room in red, lace-up heels and a leather jacket.You’re her “tourists”, on a journey into a tale of mythological hip hop and riotous rebellion. Welcome to Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy Of, the brave if sometimes long-winded debut of playwright Omari Newton.

Review: (Montreal) Tick, Tick...Boom!

Before Rent: Larson’s autobio Tick, Tick... BOOM!
A sharp cast and quartet sometimes strains, but otherwise hits the mark

by Sarah Deshaies

@sarahdeshaies

That ever-lasting question: to be a poor starving artist with a small shot at fame and riches, or to switch into a more lucrative, secure (and maybe heartless) profession.

Jonathan Larson, known best for rock opera Rent, was deliberating this very question as a young, struggling composer living in Manhattan in the ‘90s. Tick, Tick… BOOM! happened along before Larson became known for composing and writing Rent, the modern incarnation of La Bohème, as lived by boho artists scraping by in Alphabet City. Before Rent won a Pulitzer, a Tony and grossed hundreds of millions at the box office.

And as Larson tragically died of aortic dissection the night before Rent’s Off Broadway premiere in 1996, Tick, Tick… BOOM! is a lasting self-portrait of a struggling artist, a snapshot of his life when success was only a tantalizing glimmer in the future. Before the riches and fame did not quite arrive. For Rent fans, it’s a must-see peek into Larson’s psyche.

Review: (Montreal) St. Léonard Chronicles

No mambo through St. Léonard
by Sarah Deshaies

It doesn’t add up.

“Who builds curved, wooden staircases, outside, in a place where it snows?” questions the old woman seated at the centre of a Sunday family dinner.

That is what immigrant Dora faced when arriving in a wet and idiosyncratic Montreal in April 1955: nonsensical stairs in a cold land. She’s recounting the hardships of arriving in a new country, so different from her native Italy, with one child tucked under her arm and another trailing behind her. “Stupid WOPs, maudits Italiens,” the neighbours hissed at the time. Despite not knowing a lick of English or French, Dora knew exactly what they were saying.

Review: (Montreal) Bunny Bunny: Gilda Radner: A Sort of Love Story

Gilda, in his eyes and words
Talented Kagan pulls off tribute to comic Gilda Radner
by Sarah Deshaies

[This review has been corrected - Ed]

Being 24 years old, I've accumulated what I know about Gilda Radner from YouTube clips, Wikipedia articles and walking by the now-defunct Gilda's Club in Shaughnessy Village. But even through these small scraps of evidence, Gilda's sense of humour and wacky sensibility shines through decades after the lanky performer lit up Saturday Night Live and New York City.

Review: (Montreal) Once Upon a Disco Ball (Fringe)

Unenchanted Evening
Sarah Deshaies
@sarahdeshaies

Disco queen Sarah needs help, and a Fairy Godmother is there to help her walk through her pain and personal demons in Once Upon a Disco Ball,  a Christmas Carol-esque adventure. The Fairy Godmother ferries Sarah (Shannon Topinka) through different bodies and experiences: a prostitute, a doctor prescribing special help, a bitter old lady.