Nassim is a retread
Nassim feels like an endless set-up for an experience that barely arrives. Starting in 2011, playwright Nassim Soleimanpour made an international name for himself with a much better script, White Rabbit Red Rabbit. At that time, Soleimanpour wasn’t allowed to leave...
The Great Leap: hobbled by a slight script
This script’s heart doesn’t start pumping until well in to Act 2. Until then, it’s on the artificial life support of a visually dynamic production. In The Great Leap, American playwright Lauren Yee tells the story of a Chinese-American kid named Manford. Although he’s...
The Sea floated my boat — intermittently
Like a kid who has had the wrong kind of home schooling, Edward Bond’s The Sea is wildly creative—and undisciplined. It takes you to a refreshingly original imaginative world but then insists that you linger too long in some of the duller corners. Set in 1907, The...
Dead People’s Things: dump ’em
This play contains one moderately interesting idea. It comes very near the end of the 95-minute runtime. It’s a long wait. In Dave Deveau’s new script, Dead People’s Things, a young woman named Phyllis has inherited a house from her estranged aunt, who was a hoarder....
New York Report
I saw some phenomenal work while I was in New York City last week. I also some saw flawed performances and productions—but Broadway is so intense it felt like everything was on a grand scale. Ruth Wilson’s Fool tries to steady Glenda Jackson’s King Lear....
Bed & Breakfast: Don’t spend the night
The title is a spoiler. The show is called Bed & Breakfast for Christ’s sake so, when gay couple Brett and Drew spend their first half hour onstage together dithering about whether or they’re going to open a B&B, I felt like screaming, “Haven’t you read the...
Cherry Docs: steel-toed and heavy-handed
Guest review by David Johnston It's a good production and, when the script occasionally gets out of its own way, it becomes great. In Cave Canem's latest outing, neo-Nazi skinhead Mike (Kenton Klassen) has stomped a Hindu man to death; liberal Jewish lawyer...
The Tashme Project: The Living Archives – The truth is in the details
The Tashme Project: The Living Archives is an elegantly simple, moving, and important piece of theatre. Julie Tamako Manning and Matt Miwa, who created and perform the show, each have one Japanese parent and, when they met while working at the National Arts Centre a...
New Cackle Sisters: Kitchen Chicken—homemade okayness
New Cackle Sisters: Kitchen Chicken is inventive but not dazzling, an intermittently engaging form of theatrical folk art. In the show, a cast of six prepares a meal of chicken and mashed potatoes as well as appetizers—all while performing popular American songs from...
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