Everything about this image is great: Amanda Sum as Jiminy Pattison in a costume by Barbara Clayden
(Photo by Emily Cooper)
If Pinocchio was my first East Van Panto, I’d be writing a different review. But I’ve seen all seven and some — especially Little Red Riding Hood (2016) and The Wizard of Oz (last year) — have been so much better that, although Pinocchio is a good show in some ways, it’s also a disappointment. [Read more…]
The characters in The Father struggle for coherence. (Photo of Jillian Fargey and Kevin McNulty by Tim Matheson)
My smart, charismatic mom, who had always feared dementia, sank deeper and deeper into it for the last six years of her life. She’s gone. And now I fear dementia. So, when I was keeping notes as I watched The Father and I thought, “Fuck! Did I get that character’s name right? Am I going to be able to follow this?”, I felt panic.
I think that’s pretty much what playwright Florian Zeller intended. [Read more…]
These two can act: Ashley Cook as Nobody and Isaac George-Hotchkiss as Pascal.
(Photo by Emily Cooper)
If good intentions were all that mattered, Anon(ymous) would be worth seeing. [Read more…]
All dressed up for the potential bloodbath. (Photo of Ashley O’Connell and Yoshié Bancroft by Kayla Isomura)
I think The Double Axe Murders wants to be atmospheric but, in this production at least, it’s not. [Read more…]
Houston, we have lift-off!
Maria (Synthia Yusuf) and the von Trapp children sing “Do-Re-Mi”.
(Photo by Emily Cooper)
Going into the Arts Club’s production of The Sound of Music I could hardly have been more resistant. I doubt you could find a more conventional, less adventuresome Christmas show. And the politics of The Sound of Music are weird: it tells the story of the Nazi invasion of Austria — without so much as an oblique reference to the persecution of Jews or any of the other groups the Nazis were rounding up and terrorizing at the time. The Sound of Music examines the Anschluss from the point of view of the Baron von Trapp, a nobleman of extraordinary inherited wealth who seems to object to the Nazi presence primarily on the basis of territoriality — and the Nazis’ rudeness.
So, you know, I was grumpy.
But I’ll be damned if director Ashlie Corcoran’s production didn’t win me over. [Read more…]
“She has shown us before how skilled she is at evoking both the individuality of the mass and the individual within the mass.”(Photo by Julien Benhamou, Opéra d Paris)
THIS IS A GUEST REVIEW BY MAX WYMAN
What has made Crystal Pite “one of the dance world’s most sought-after artists” (The Guardian) is not simply the ravishing movement sequences that she invents. Her dance-works are animated thoughts about the complicated miracle of being human in the universe—ongoing statements from an evolving worldview. She seems to want to touch the core of meaning, to glimpse, even for a moment, the why of it all (or not even that—the what of it all, the mechanics of existence). Through simple and unaffected images and metaphors that she manufactures from the unique language of human physicality—from dance—she invites us to join her in considering the enduring mysteries of the human condition. [Read more…]
The weapons are virtual. Is the relationship real? (Photo of Kanon Hewitt and Lou Ticzon by Chris Randle)
Sure, Kim Kardashian wears great clothes, but does she have a soul? There’s a similar problem — although it’s not nearly as severe or creepy — with Kuroko: the production is stunning but, narratively and emotionally, Tetsuro Shigematsu’s script is perfunctory. [Read more…]
If you want to scare me, lull me first. (Photo of Sara Roa and David Bloom by Javier R. Sotres)
There’s too much too soon. [Read more…]
Lena (Anna Hagan), Vi (Jenn Griffin), and Sally (Eileen Barrett) pretend life is normal — even though the world is burning. (Photo by Javier Sotres)
Go see this show. Because you should never ever turn down a chance to see a play by Caryl Churchill. She’s been one of the most exciting dramatists in the world for the last 40 years, and she will fuck you up — and reward you — every single time.
In Escaped Alone, Churchill takes on the coming apocalypse. [Read more…]
Jan Derbyshire: let her tell you a story, let her sing you a song. (Photo by Ben Laird)
Jan Derbyshire’s Certified is pretty much perfect. And how often do I get to say that?
Certified is about Derbyshire’s journey with mental illness and mental health, but it’s not one of those stories that collapses into the horrors of madness. Derbyshire allows herself to be vulnerable, but she’s also levitatingly funny. And she changed the way I see the world. [Read more…]
