New-Fangled Fibs: I like ’em old-fangled
The most interesting thing about watching New-Fangled Fibs: Tall Tales by Paul Strickland is trying to figure out why it doesn’t work. It’s not like Strickland, who specializes in tall tales, isn’t a talented guy. His show, Ain’t True and Uncle False, which I saw at...
Cock: I like it
Let’s talk about sex. That’s what Cock is all about — well sex, love, and identity. In Mike Bartlett’s Olivier Award-winning script from 2009, John has left his male lover M when he meets W and has sex with a woman for the first time. He thinks W’s vagina is “amazing”...
The Here and This and Now: Is that all there is?
Skip to the epilogue: the last five minutes of this production are by far the best. There are two earlier sections. Each unit is distinct. In Part 1, we witness a training session in which a sales manager named Niall coaches three pharmaceutical reps on how to make a...
Someone Like You: Cyrano de Bergerac but more on the nose
Politically, Christine Quintana’s new audio play Someone Like You is busy: it takes on fat phobia, racism, misogyny, and the capitalist commodification of human longing. That’s a worthy line-up of targets. Too worthy, as it turns out. Thematically, Someone Like You...
yellow objects: an adventure
There’s a lot going on here — and a good deal of it is engaging. Playwright Derek Chan’s yellow objects is about Hong Kong’s democracy movement, which was crushed in 2020 — although its spirit lives on. Artistically, yellow objects is adventuresome. Ten audience...
The Boy in the Moon: gazing at him
Theatre for grown-ups. I’m grateful. This version of The Boy in the Moon is playwright Emil Sher’s adaptation of Ian Brown’s memoir about raising Walker, his severely disabled son, with his wife Johanna Schneller. It’s tough. Describing Walker at birth, the character...
Post-Democracy: argument instead of discovery
Strong acting. Taut dialogue. Handsome set. But there’s no thematic revelation. In Hannah Moscovitch’s Post-Democracy — which is receiving its world premiere at Winnipeg’s Prairie Theatre Exchange — a Chief Operating Officer named Lee is trying to convince his boss,...
Alice in Wonderland: Alice unchained
All alone in my office, I was laughing out loud and clapping my hands. Bad Hat Theatre’s Alice in Wonderland is streaming online, but it does what theatre does best: it activates the concrete imagination. Without resorting to illusion, it uses sounds, bodies, and...
Silent Sky: a good night under the stars
Writing this review of United Players' production of Silent Sky isn’t as challenging as, say, astrophysics, but it’s still tricky, okay? I enjoyed the show a lot. Playwright Lauren Gunderson’s script about the turn-of-the-twentieth-century career of pioneering...
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