Review: (Toronto / Theatre) The God That Comes

(photo by Trudi Lee)

Euripides, Redux
by Lucy Wells

The Tarragon Theatre is currently in its last show of the season, Hawksley Workman and Christian Barry’s The God That Comes, produced by 2b Theatre Company. A one-man cabaret of Euripides’ Bacchae, this is a stirring and often hilarious work.

Hawksley Workman is in fine form as he narrates the story, as well as playing the king, the king’s mother, and the god Bacchus. Workman changes characters by making minimal costume changes, putting on a hat or a boa; and by changing his voice, whether by switching registers (he sings in a lovely falsetto as the mother), or by singing into a megaphone (as the militaristic king).  To reinforce the changing characters, three  mannequin heads along the back of the stage are lit in turn to suggest who’s singing.  It’s a helpful touch, and Workman is effective in acting out the different roles – I might normally have found this constant shifting of characters rather difficult to follow, but I had no problem here.

Review: (Toronto / Theatre) Les Précieuses Ridicules

(photo by Marc Lemyre)

Giddily pretentious
by Lucy Wells
@LWellsTO

It’s been years since I last spoke French on a regular basis. But hey, I did read Molière in French literature class once upon a time, and I spent a fair bit of time on Menander and Plautus as a university student, right? And also, Théâtre français de Toronto presents their shows with English surtitles.  Definite draw. So a friend and I went to TfT’s latest production, Molière's Les précieuses ridicules, in a new adaptation, expanded with material from director Guy Mignault.

This production frames Molière’s one-act play with music and the conceit that the players are in fact a bunch of socialites putting on a play for their own enjoyment. The theatre space is small, the fourth wall is often broken, the actors greet the audience with chocolates, and the use of a semi-sheer back curtain to create extra playing space for asides feels just right for this repertoire. Mignault’s direction was bright and lively; I did feel that the extra material went on a bit too long, however. That said, it was in keeping with the fun of socialites going on tangents when their parts weren’t big enough…

Review: (Toronto / Theatre) A One Night Stand With Shaw

Spend an Evening with Shaw
by Lucy Wells
@LWellsTO

The Never Wrestle with Pigs theatre collective is presenting its first production at the Annex Theatre through this week.  I am a great fan of Shaw, and am always happy to see new productions of his lesser-known works.  I am especially happy to see that this collective has done such a fine job with this material.  The four plays presented are Inauguration Speech: An Interlude, How He Lied to Her Husband, The Inca of Perusalem, and Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction. Though some elements are a little rough around the edges, this is overall about the best acting I’ve seen in Toronto.

Directed by Anne Allen, the cast features Hilary Carroll, Mitchell Court, David DiFrancesco, Wendy Fox, Victoria Millar, Celine Peel-Michaud, Matt Pilipiak, and Nicholas Porteous.  Most of the actors play multiple roles over the evening, and it was fun to see how the dynamics changed with each new combination of characters.  Especially noteworthy was the way the ensemble rallied around outrageous characters: when one character is over-the-top, it is easy to have the rest of the cast be merely a back-up, but in this production, each character on the stage was well-considered and acted, not merely a talking backdrop for the star.  This was especially notable in The Inca of Perusalem, in which Ermyntrude is thoroughly capable of dealing with the Inca’s antics, and in Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction, in which the humour depends on everyone in the cast going full-out, not simply the warring spouses.

Review: (Toronto / Theatre) Swell Broad and The Homemaker

(photo by Neil Muscott)

Swell?
by Lucy Wells
@LWellsTO

The Storefront Theatre, despite recent flooding, is open for business with a double-bill of Swell Broad and The Homemaker (though note that certain—ahem—facilities are out-of-order and you’ll have to go across the street to the gelateria for those, and also buy tiramisu gelato while you’re there. I checked.  It isn’t poison).  It’s a good pairing: both are new plays set in the mid-20th century, dealing with women questioning their role in society.

Swell Broad, written by Brooke Banning and directed by Laura Anne Harris, shows various stages in the unconventional courtship of Delilah and Stuart.  Performed by Janelle Hanna and Philip Furgiuele, the play is a dance between the two characters (and they really do dance at times), as each tries to figure out what he or she wants from the relationship, and neither seems able to keep from knee-jerk contrariness. We root for the bluff, booming Stuart, and the intriguing, conflicted Delilah (especially with Hanna’s Transatlantic delivery!), but, well—romances aren’t so much fun if things run smoothly, are they?

Review: (Toronto) Mrs. Warren's Profession

                                                                                     Photo by Artjom Gilz
Is the Lady a Tramp?
by Lucy Wells
@lwellsto

Sterling Studio Theatre is presenting one of the lesser-known plays of George Bernard Shaw, Mrs Warren’s Profession. This four-act play runs about two hours in the company’s very intimate and informal theatre on (surprise!) Sterling Road. The setting is laid back, with front of house staff serving concessions in a cozy lobby filled with odds and ends; the theatre itself is an oblong room with a collection of risers forming a simple, multi-level set fronting a longer brick wall; mismatched chairs and benches form two rows of seating opposite. This arrangement blurs the lines between actors and audience when the action spreads across the stage. Impossible to track everything without turning back and forth between actors, it’s an interesting way of eliciting a physical response from an audience, and one of the reasons why I enjoy shows in non-traditional theatres.

Review: (Toronto) Un Ballo in Maschera

Roland Wood, Adrianne Pieczonka (photo by Michael Cooper)

What the Booing Meant

by Lucy Wells

I’ve just come from the opera and, to be honest, I’m not sure what to tell you about it. The Canadian Opera Company has just started its run of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera. One of the more frequently performed works in the operatic literature, it is a showcase of beautiful music. In the hands of the COC, it features some of the finest singing and playing I’ve had the pleasure of hearing.

The cast stars American tenor Dimitri Pittas as Riccardo, Canadian soprano and COC favourite Adrianne Pieczonka as Amelia, English baritone Roland Wood as Renato, Canadian soprano and COC Ensemble Studio graduate Simone Osborne as Oscar, and Russian mezzo Elena Manistina as Ulrica. These five, as well as the other artists rounding out the cast and the chorus, sing about as well as you could ever hope for. Pittas and Pieczonka, both debuting in their roles, sing as though the music was written for them. They all do, actually; it’s difficult to single out any one artist when everyone performs so beautifully. Stephen Lord, the conductor, brings a luscious sound out of the orchestra, and paces the work naturally. Even when there were slight ensemble issues (the fun of live theatre!), the cast and orchestra came back together almost immediately; clearly, everyone is at the top of his or her game. The performance was a master class on how to perform this repertoire. On those merits alone, it is a show worth seeing.

Review: (Toronto) Princess Ida

G, S and the Princess
by Lucy Wells

MADS, the Music and Drama Society of St Anne’s Anglican church, has recently marked its 50^th anniversary of putting on Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. In celebration, it is currently presenting Princess Ida.  A light-hearted parody of feminism, women’s education, and Darwinian evolution (that is to say, three of the hottest topics of 1884, when the work was first staged), Princess Ida is classic G&S.

Review: (Toronto) The Lady's Not For Burning

Andrea Brown, Chris Coculuzzi (photo by Dahlia Katz)

Not Old-Fashioned, Not Fluff
by Lucy Wells

Despite the strong winds last evening, I was more than pleased to make the trek out to the Alumnae Theatre to see their new production of Christopher Fry’s classic comedy. Written in 1948 but set in the year 1400, either more or less or exactly, it was so popular for a time that Margaret Thatcher’s speech-writers referenced it in one of her most famous addresses. It references Shakespearean comedy and is written in rather florid verse, but it has its own cheekily anachronistic style.

Right off the top, I really enjoyed the set.  It is an elaborate stage, on several levels, with several doors and a large window to accommodate the many entrances and exits in this very physical comedy.  Characters run in and out constantly, popping in and out of the window, hiding behind doors, jumping on the furniture, and in one case, scrubbing the floor; as this play unfolds in the same room throughout, it was nice to have a solid enough set that it could be used without wobbling! 

News: COC Season, 2014-15

COC General Director Alexander Neef and COC Music Director Johannes Debus. Photo: bohuang.ca

A New Season for Canadian Opera Company
by Lucy Wells

I was privileged to be at the Four Seasons Centre last night to attend the unveiling of the Canadian Opera Company’s 2014-2015 season, as discussed by COC General Director Alexander Neef and Music Director Johannes Debus.  It is being marketed as an all-Canadian season: three operas will be returning COC productions, and three are new co-productions. This Fall marks the reduction of the COC’s season from seven to six productions: two operas in the Fall, two in the Winter, and two (rather than three) in the Spring.  

Review: (Toronto) The Wedding Singer

80s Redux
by Lucy Wells

Just the thing, I thought, to take the edge off the first week back in the office after the holidays: a musical set in the Greatest Decade for the Use of Lasers in Pop Music! The Wedding Singer is a recent re-working of the 1998 film starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, here performed in the casual, cozy setting of Hart House Theatre.

I was there on opening night. It was clear that not everything had quite ‘gelled’ yet in the production, but I suspect that with another performance or two under its belt, the show will run more smoothly. The set, which makes heavy use of platforms on wheels, is a bit distracting: each scene change (and it’s a remake of a movie, so you can expect rather a lot) requires people and time to roll things around the stage, which gets tiring to watch after a while. For a show set in the 1980s (and believe me when I say references abound), the costumes didn’t quite fit: I hate to disappoint you, but you won’t see any 80s bridal gowns in this show. The main impediment to my enjoyment of the show was the mic system in the theatre. Voices were generally over-amplified for the space, so that the ensembles sounded shout-y; as well, there was far too much of cutting out and interference. With any luck, the crew will have the sound problems fixed.