Bad Hats Theatre’s Peter Pan: a creaky story well told
Peter Pan is not the most progressive story in the world. Even in this adaptation, which has excised Tiger Lily along with all of the other Indians, reactionary gender norms haunt the tale like the ghosts of every frickin’ Christmas past. Through Wendy, girls are...
It’s a Wonderful Christmas-ish Holiday Miracle: There’s still New Year’s to look forward to
One thing about seeing a show like It’s a Wonderful Christmas-ish Holiday Miracle: it will leave you with plenty of cognitive space to think about other things the next day. Right off the top of Marcus Youssef's script, Esther introduces herself. She had Alzheimer’s...
Fado: The Saddest Music in the World — is just a bit sulky
Fado: The Saddest Music in the World is an odd title for a play that evokes so little feeling. The problem is the script. In playwright Elaine Ávila’s story, a young Portuguese Canadian woman named Luisa travels to Lisbon with her widowed mom, Rosida. Luisa,...
East Van Panto: Pinocchio (gets his strings twisted)
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,...
The Father: a mother of a production
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...
Anon(ymous): no need to introduce yourself
If good intentions were all that mattered, Anon(ymous) would be worth seeing. In playwright Naomi Iizuka’s riff on Homer’s Odyssey, a rogue wave sideswipes the boat that a refugee mother and her son are escaping on. The two are separated: the boy is washed...
The Double Axe Murders: one would be more than enough
I think The Double Axe Murders wants to be atmospheric but, in this production at least, it’s not. In the story, which is based on real murders that happened in Newfoundland in 1809, Sarah Singleton has come looking for her fiancé and her brother, who have disappeared...
The Sound of Music: decorative Nazis, delirious music
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...
Crystal Pite’s Body and Soul
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...
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