by Colin Thomas | Jan 23, 2020 | Review
Unikkaaqtuat, which is billed as a circus, is a sincere and generous gift from the rich traditions of several northern peoples. From my southern settler perspective, some of the show is gorgeous and some of it is boring. In its framing device, Levy, a young Indigenous...
by Colin Thomas | Jan 19, 2020 | Review
It’s kind of a shapeless bag of jewels, but it’s still a bag of jewels. In House and Home, playwright Jenn Griffin has created a fantastically dark and funny absurdist world. It’s set in Vancouver — about a week and a half from now. Housing is bruisingly expensive....
by Colin Thomas | Jan 19, 2020 | Review
Playwright and solo performer Maki Yi means well with Gramma and it starts off promisingly, but it quickly becomes very boring. Gramma is based on the relationship that Korean-Canadian Yi had with her first Canadian landlady, a demanding 90-year-old woman who allowed...
by Colin Thomas | Jan 9, 2020 | Review
Two of the three characters in Infinity claim that they can hear time. I listened very closely, but I couldn’t hear the play’s heartbeat. Hannah Moscovitch’s script is emotionally alienating and its ambitious themes are underdeveloped. But I enjoyed it — because the...
by Colin Thomas | Dec 20, 2019 | Review
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a supremely dumb musical but, if you get its exuberance right, you have something — and director Barbara Tomasic’s production gets the exuberance right. Joseph started out as a 15-minute pop cantata that Tim Rice and...
by Colin Thomas | Dec 13, 2019 | Review
Where’s the script? It feels like playwright Dave Deveau has forgotten to write one. Act 1 of Holiday at the Elbow Room Café is just a set-up that doesn’t make sense: a small group of characters gets trapped inside the once iconic, now shuttered Vancouver eatery....
