Review: (Toronto) Turn of the Screw

(photo credit: Darryl Block)

Suffer the Children
Against the Grain scores again with Britten
by Axel Van Chee


Against the Grain Theatre has done it again. The company has set a very high bar for their future endeavors this time around with a stunning production of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, opening at the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse. It is musically satisfying, theatrically absorbing, and they really should consider keeping this in their repertoire. It is perhaps the best production of the Screw that I have seen. 

The Sunday Read: Joel Ivany on Turn of The Screw

Killing Curiousity

Staging Britten's brilliantly dark piece

by Joel Ivany

It is a curious story.

Benjamin Britten’s chamber opera, The Turn of the Screw, opened in 1954 at Teatro La Fenice in Venice.

Against the Grain Theatre will be producing the eerie tale from May 24-27 at the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse, on U of T campus.

It’s quite an exciting theatrical piece to be preparing.  Described primarily as a ghost story, it can also be interpreted, though rarely is, as a love story.