Review: (Toronto) The Marvelous Wonderettes

Poster art

Mr. Sandman, Bring Me a Dream
These Wonderettes truly are Marvelous!
by Stuart Munro
@StuartMunroTO

It’s 1958, and you’re in for a treat – The Marvelous Wonderettes are here to sing for your Senior Prom! Four lovely ladies grace the stage of the Lower Ossington Theatre’s cabaret space and transport the audience back in time to celebrate the girl groups of the 50s and 60s. The plot is thin, but that’s not really the point. The evening is light, entertaining, and filled with wonderful music.

Review: (Vancouver) King Lear (PuSh)

(photo credit: Eoin Carey)

A Cultural Curiosity

Shakespeare meets Peking Opera

by David C. Jones
@iamdavidcjones
Arts festivals like PuSh bring in boundary-pushing acts from all over the world. Sometimes techniques and styles do not transfer very well across borders, but good stories and emotional connection can help make the show resonate.

Earlier in the festival a show from Germany entitled Testament presented King Lear in the almost stereotypical stoic and austere way which at first was off-putting, but as the story of ageing and caregiving evolved it became relatable and quite moving.

creating a/broad, February 2, 2013

The Loneliness of the Long-Handed Writer
 by Cameryn Moore

“Wow, you write longhand?”

We had just finished the first part of what we had come to the café to do, an interview with me for a sex workers’ online magazine, about my experience translating my work into performance art and suggestions for other sex workers wanting to do the same thing. The second part of the evening was what I call “independent café work”. I arrange to meet up with other solo creative workers, and we just sit there at the same table, long-drained coffee cups at our sides, glaring at the screens of our laptops, every now and then interrupting each other with questions like “Oh my god, did you see this?” or “what is the best synonym for ‘seasoned’ or ‘experienced’?” 

Theatre For Thought, February 2, 2013

A PLAY OF CONSEQUENCE
joel fishbane

The epigraph on Aphra Behn’s tombstone tells us that her corpse is “proof that wit can never be defence enough against mortality." One might include other attributes which Behn, the first female novelist, might have added to that sentiment. In addition to being witty, Behn was also a bisexual, a spy, a convict, a monarchist and one of the few women to survive entirely on the profits from her writing. Yet aside from cameo appearances in the odd course on theatre history, she is today almost completely forgotten.

“When I started doing research about her,” said playwright / director Paul Van Dyck, “I thought I should just write a play about this woman.” Van Dyck’s interest in Behn was sparked after reading her 1688 novel Oroonoko, a scathing indictment of slavery couched in a love story about an African prince mistakenly put into chains. He has since penned a stage adaptation of the work which will have its world première in Montreal this week.

Review: (Toronto) RARE

We are unique!
Young Centre’s RARE is well… rare.
by Dave Ross

There is not a great deal of material written on RARE. The website for the production is rather sparse, as is the information in the program. RARE was a surprise hit and took home a Patron’s Pick at the 2012 Toronto Fringe Festival (our review here). The show is incredibly powerful, as the nine cast members, all with Down Syndrome, discuss their hopes, their dreams, and their fears. The show has a powerful creative team, principally in Canadian playwright Judith Thompson, who co-created the work along with the nine performers. This piece is not easy to assemble, but Thompson and the cast have created a remarkable theatre event. 

Review: (Toronto) Every Letter Counts

Nina Lee Aquino

Accepting the tiles given

Factory resumes with mixed hand

by Jason Booker

[This article has been corrected]

Every Letter Counts, the opening play in the Factory Theatre season, takes its name from Scrabble.  You know, the game you used to play with your grandparents: crossword-style board, double word scores and those numbered letter tiles. 

In Nina Lee Aquino’s latest work, the clues become a bit cryptic and the game-players remain enigmatic though the game play is enjoyable. 

Taken from Aquino’s own background as granddaughter niece to assassinated Filipino politician Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr., Every Letter Counts explores the relationship between six-year-old Bunny and her ancestors, both in 1983 when she met Ninoy for the only time and the present.

Review: (Vancouver) Boeing-Boeing

Andre McNee (photo credit: David Cooper)

A funny as ever

Arts Club’s take on classic comedy is polished and hilarious

by Chris Lane

The Arts Club takes audiences back to the high-flying 1960s with Boeing-Boeing, a classic farce filled with lies, love and lust.

The protagonist, Bernard, thinks he has it all figured out: he has three gorgeous fiancées who are never in town at the same time. They’re all flight attendants, and he carefully picked them because he knows that their schedules will never overlap. That is, until the advent of a new, faster plane that throws everything out of whack, so that he has to scramble to hide them from one another as they all end up in town at once.