WAITRESS: WILL MORE THAN SERVE
The material isn’t immortal, but it’s substantial enough and the production is perfect. Yep, that’s what I said: perfect. Jessie Nelson’s book for the musical is based on the movie, which was written by Adrienne Shelly. In the story, a waitress and piemaker named...
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA: A STAR IS BORN
The play is slight. Director Dean Paul Gibson’s production is inconsistent. And young actor Jacob Leonard is a star. If The Two Gentlemen of Verona hadn’t been written by Shakespeare, I can’t imagine it would still be getting produced today. In the simple and...
THE DARK LADY: MURKY
Playwright Jessica B. Hill’s The Dark Lady kept me listening for the most part, but I was never fully or consistently engaged. The Dark Lady imagines a relationship between William Shakespeare and Emilia Bassano, the first woman in England to claim the status of...
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING: SHOULD BE ABOUT SOMETHING
This Bard on the Beach production of Much Ado About Nothing explains ideas that don't need explaining and misses ideas that should be obvious. The script is about the cruelty of patriarchal gender dynamics. In the central story, Beatrice and Benedick, who are clearly...
HAUS OF YOLO: NO FOMO IF YOU DON’T GO
Mediocre skills and a terrible concept do not make for a fun night at the circus. In HAUS of YOLO, which was created by a New Zealand company called The Dust Palace, four acrobats venture into the world of fast fashion — very fast: the acrobats launch the show in...
AN IDEAL HUSBAND: I’D MARRY IT
Because theatre has so many moving parts, several of which are moving actors, who come complete with independent sensibilities, stylistic adventure in the theatre is a dangerous game: if you don’t get all those moving parts coordinated, the show will crash in...
INNER ELDER: AGES WELL
The pay-off is great. A solo show — and memoir — written and performed by Michelle Thrush, who’s Cree, Inner Elder is about the artist’s journey towards self-realization as an Indigenous woman. Raised mostly by her dad, Thrush felt an absence where she wanted her...
Meeting: Could it have been an email?
It’s very well intentioned, maybe even moderately helpful — and a total wank. In Meeting, playwright Katherine Gauthier invites us to observe a meeting of Co-Dependents and Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, but what she shows us is completely unrealistic — more about...
WEST SIDE STORY: GREAT SURPRISES IN AN OLD FAVOURITE
If you don’t have a Tony and Maria, you don’t have a West Side Story. This CTORA production has both — in spades. And a lot more. Although it’s semi-professional, under the direction of Chris Adams, this is a startlingly strong mounting of one of the most breathtaking...
Subscribe Free!
Sign up for the FRESH SHEET newsletter and get curated local, national, and international arts coverage — all sorts of arts — every week.
Contact
Drop a line to colinthomas@telus.net.
Support
FRESH SHEET, the reviews and FRESH SHEET, the newsletter are available free. But writing them is a full-time job and arts criticism is in peril. Please support FRESH SHEET by sending an e-transfer to colinthomas@telus.net or by becoming a patron on Patreon.
Website by Mighty Sparrow Design.