Openings We're Tracking This Week, November 26-December 2

Ignorance (photo credit: Jason Strang Photography)

It's been raved about, it's colourful, and you're going to cry. Theatre Calgary is bringing back its production of A Christmas Carol - one of Dickens loveliest (most compact) and theatre-ready tales. The company's artistic director, Dennis Garnhum, adapted.

Red has been everywhere. CharPo reviewers have seen it in Winnipeg, Toronto, and this week we're off to see it in Montreal. This production may have a little more resonance because it is appearing in a building designed by Phyllis Lambert. Ms Lambert, in passing, is the strong-willed Bronfman (her maiden name) who hired, first, Mies van de Rohe to design the Seagram's building in New York and then hired the artists who would fill it - including Mark Rothko. Red is about Rothko creating the celebrated Seagram's murals. It is also about art itself. (Montreal) 

Yes, it's puppets, but Old Trout is reminding that Ignorance is for adults. We have evolved, we believe - but the company suggests that inside of us is that grunting beast we are still trying to tame...or are we? At times brutal, others funny, and with a deeply (but not oppressively) philosophical bent. The company blog for this show describes it (hilariously, we feel) thusly: "Ignorance is a puppet documentary about the blissful prehistoric origins of humanity, and how our brains evolved into the hideous bliss-sucking parasites they are today. Yes: it’s about how why we’re not happy. And how we might solve this problem without resorting to alcoholism, tranquilizers, frontal-lobotomies, or other forms of induced ignorance." (Toronto)