Archives for April 2018

THIS: a funny, touching—and uneasy—mix of comedy and drama

April 30, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Jane (Loretta Walsh) seeks comfort from Alan (Benjamin Ratner) in THIS.

Actors Loretta Walsh and Benjamin Ratner negotiate tricky emotional and stylistic terrain in THIS. (Photo by Brandon Tang)

I laughed. I cried. I was confused.

In her 2009 script, This, playwright Melissa James Gibson introduces us to five witty New Yorkers—well, four New Yorkers and a Frenchman—who are desperately trying to negotiate the disappointments and responsibilities of early middle age. They’ve made it this far but nobody—except for the smug Frenchman—is pleased with the results.

Gibson employs some excellent conventions. In the opening scene, Tom and Marrell are throwing their first dinner party since the birth of their son. Tom suggests a game. Their friend, Jane will leave the room, the others will make up a story and, on her return, Jane will try to guess what the story is by asking yes or no questions. Except the rules aren’t what they seem to be and the game turns into a kind of Rorschach test: Jane unwittingly unearths a narrative about a widow who is involved in romantic triangle with a married couple. Jane was widowed a year earlier. Things get awkward. Jane leaves. [Read more…]

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The History of the World (Based on Banalities): theatrically hot, emotionally cool

April 27, 2018 by Leave a Comment
In The History of the World (Based on Banalities), actor Titus De Voogdt aims a rifle over his shoulder.

The History of the World (Based on Banalities) does an excellent job of taking aim. Sometimes, it hits its mark.

The History of the World (Based on Banalities) is a monologue for a boy about his failed connection with his mother. And that’s ironic because Phil’s Mom Martine, a physicist, was fascinated by the Higgs boson particle, which physics tells us connects everything—and all of us.

In the everyday world, Martine wasn’t so good at connecting. When Phil was still very young, she abandoned him in their home in Belgium and followed her career to the CERN facility in Switzerland. When she returned, years later, she had Alzheimer’s. As we watch The History of the World, Phil is caring for Martine, who is in the back room. All we see is her blanketed feet at the end of a hospital bed.

Texturally, this show is fantastic. Titus De Voogdt, who co-wrote the text with director Johan De Smet, plays Phil with pre-adolescent vitality, scampering around the dirty-kitchen set like a monkey, clambering up the cupboards, leaping onto the table. He’s so frank and scruffy that you can almost smell his socks. [Read more…]

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The Explanation: so untethered it’s like kissing in a hot-air balloon

April 21, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Kevin MacDonald and Evan Frayne play a straight-male couple, one of whom cross-dresses.

In The Explanation, Kevin MacDonald and Evan Frayne play a straight-male couple, one of whom cross-dresses.(Photo by Tim Matheson)

“Feeling the air up my skirt…That was one of the greatest sensations.” So says John, a cross-dressing straight guy in The Explanation. Watching The Explanation, I got a bit of wind up my skirt, too. By loosening the restrictions on gender expression, The Explanation made me feel free—even exhilarated.

In James Fagan Tait’s script, John, who’s a mental-health worker, is surprised when he stumbles across his taste for wearing women’s clothing. But, before long, he’s popping on a wig, slipping into a Value Village miniskirt, and hanging out in the literary DVDs section of the Vancouver Public Library.

One day, a shy guy named Dick, who also identifies as straight, takes a leap and decides to chat to John, whom he perceives as an attractive woman. As soon as John speaks, Dick knows he’s a man, but they go for coffee anyway. And that’s the mystery: these guys are straight, one of them is wearing a mini-skirt, and they go for coffee anyway. What’s up? [Read more…]

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Me and You is charming, gorgeous, and a little wobbly

April 19, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Playing Liz, Patti Allan embraces her younger sister, Lou (Lois Anderson) in Melody Anderson's Me and You.

Patti Allan’s Liz protects Lois Anderson’s Lou in Me and You—or is that a stranglehold? (Photo by David Cooper)

Melody Anderson’s new play Me and You is sweetly soulful. And it could be better built.

In Me and You, Anderson logs exemplary moments in the lifelong relationship between sisters Liz and Lou. The first time we see them, Liz, who is four years older, is outraged when she realizes that Lou has coloured the elephant in one of their picture books blue. “Mom!” And that sets the dynamic: Liz is literal, controlling, and scientific, and Lou is a free-spirited artist. They also love one another. [Read more…]

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Nine Dragons: a whodunnit in which you care who did it

April 14, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Playing a police officer named Tommy Lan, John Ng sits at a desk in the Kowloon police station.

In Nine Dragons, John Ng plays Tommy Lam, a sergeant frustrated with the racism of Kowloon’s police force.

Much to the credit of playwright Jovanni Sy, Nine Dragons is a rewarding thriller.

Riffing on film noir, Sy sets the action in the Kowloon neighbourhood of Hong Kong in the 1920s. A character that the press calls the Kowloon Ripper is murdering women, then chopping off their hands and cutting out their tongues. The Ripper’s crimes haven’t been getting a lot of attention—but then he murders a white woman.

Because it’s set in colonial Kowloon, Nine Dragons is saturated with issues of race and identity. Tommy Lam is the best detective on the police force but, because he’s Chinese, he has never made it past the rank of sergeant. Tommy has reasons of his own for wanting to get his hands on the Kowloon Ripper but his white his bosses hesitate to let him loose, partly because Tommy’s prime suspect is Victor Fung, scion of one of the area’s most powerful Chinese families. [Read more…]

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Misery: more like a bad cold

April 12, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Playing Annie, Lucia Frangione attacks Andrew McNee's Paul with a sledgehammer in Misery.

Despite internally consistent performances from Andrew McNee and Lucia Frangione, the Arts Club’s production of Misery fails to hit home. (Photo by David Cooper)

The Arts Club’s production of Misery is a journey straight to heck and back.

It’s not scary, which is a flaw in a thriller.

William Goldman, who wrote the play, also penned the screenplay for the1990 movie. Both are based on a book by Stephen King. In the story, a romance novelist named Paul Sheldon has just finished a more artistically ambitious—possibly pretentious—manuscript, when his car careens off the side of a mountain during a Colorado snowstorm. Suffering a dislocated shoulder and severely broken legs, he is rescued by Annie Wilkes, a former nurse, who takes him back to her house in the woods, tends to his injuries, and declares herself his number-one fan.

Annie promises to get Paul to a hospital the moment the roads clear, but it soon becomes apparent that she’s obsessed and she plans to keep him captive. When Annie discovers that Paul has killed off her favourite character, she becomes enraged—and psychotically sadistic. A whole lot of the “entertainment” in Misery derives from the suffering that she inflicts on Paul. [Read more…]

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Mr. Burns, a post-electric play: surprising, funny, and deep

April 8, 2018 by Leave a Comment
"Cape Feare", and episode of The Simpsons, becomes an opera in Mr. Burns, a post-electric play.

Mr. Burns, a post-electric play, reinvents The Simpsons—and gets to the heart of storytelling.

WTF is one of my favourite responses at the theatre. I had it a lot while watching Mr. Burns, a post-electric play.

Part of the pleasure of watching Mr. Burns is that the three acts are so different that you have to re-orient yourself after each of the intermissions. If you want to preserve that sense of bafflement and discovery for yourself, don’t read too much more of this review, just buy your tickets now. I highly recommend this show.

If you’re still reading, I’ll try not to give too much away.

Playwright Anne Washburn sets Act 1 of Mr. Burns in a post-apocalyptic near future. An unspecified disaster has set off a chain of events that involved the meltdown of nuclear power plants. We’re with a small group of survivors who are sitting around a campfire and trying to bring reassuring order back to their lives by reconstructing “Cape Feare”, an episode from The Simpsons. [Read more…]

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Once on This Island: Vote that guy off

April 7, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Ti Moune (Brianna Clark) tends to Daniel (Michael Gnansounou) in Once on This Island.

Ti Moune (Brianna Clark) tends to Daniel (Michael Gnansounou) in Once on This Island.

In Once on This Island, love triumphs—supposedly. It’s really sexism that wins.

If you want to be surprised by the story, don’t read any further; to make my point, I’m going to give away the plot.

In this musical, which premiered on Broadway in 1990 and which is currently enjoying a wildly successful Broadway revival, an island in the French Antilles is divided into two groups: poor, dark-skinned people and a wealthy elite whose ancestry includes white French colonialists.

A peasant girl named Ti Moune falls in love with a rich kid named Daniel Beauxhomme. When Daniel crashes his car on her side of the island, Ti Moune saves his life by nursing him—and by making a deal with Death. There are gods on the island and one of them, Papa Ge, is a Caribbean version of the Grim Reaper. Ti Moune offers Papa Ge her own life in exchange for Daniel’s. It takes a while for Papa Ge to collect. [Read more…]

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