Shit: strong performances emerge from a distancing script
For a script with such an earthy title, Shit is oddly abstract. In Shit, Australian playwright Patricia Cornelius presents us with three incarcerated women. Billy, Bob, and Sam have all grown up in foster care and they have all been brutalized sexually, emotionally,...
Jitters begs the question, “Why bother?”
There are a whole lot of skilled artists at work here and there are a couple of good laughs in the script. Mostly, though, David French’s Jitters is a waste of precious theatre time. Jitters is a backstage comedy, a show about putting on a show. In it, a Toronto...
King Arthur’s Night opens the door to new worlds
Theatre moves me to tears on a regular basis. But after watching King Arthur’s Night I flat out sobbed. This show speaks so concretely—and so skilfully—to isolation and inclusion. The publicity material for King Arthur’s Night describes it as “radically inclusive”—and...
Of all the shows that are on right now, The Aliens is the one to catch
This production of Annie Baker’s The Aliens is one of the best shows of the season. Go see it. I love virtually everything about it and the tickets only cost seventeen bucks. Baker’s script is exquisite. In it, Jasper and KJ, a couple of slackers, hang out in the...
Sleeping Beauty Dreams is a bit of a snooze—for this adult at least
The best fairytales don’t explain themselves or make arguments. They speak the more compelling and flexible language of symbolism. Unfortunately, Sleeping Beauty Dreams reinvents the Sleeping Beauty story as a rational thesis. In Amaranta Leyva’s version of the tale,...
Topdog/Underdog: How does this American play about race resonate on Canada’s West Coast?
Big chunks of this play about African-American despair are boring. Said the white critic. In Suzan-Lori Parks’s Topdog/Underdog, brothers Lincoln and Booth—their father gave them their names as a joke—share a single room. The toilet is down the hall. There is no...
Reassembled, Slightly Askew is deeply weird—and generous
Reassembled, Slightly Askew provoked one of the most intense theatrical experiences I’ve had: deeply disorienting, often frightening. Was it worth it? Probably. Written and produced by Shannon Yee, Reassembled, Slightly Askew explores Yee’s experience of acquired...
The Events will keep you riveted
I suspect that, on some level, many liberal Westerners are experiencing a more or less perpetual state of grief and dread. Donald Trump is in the White House. Institutions including the press and democracy itself are being eroded. On the political right wing and on...
Black Boys brings it home
It gets better. And I don’t mean that in the Dan Savage your-miserable-queer-adolescence-can-turn-into-a-happy-queer-adulthood sense. I mean Black Boys starts haltingly but hits a solid and satisfying groove. In Black Boys, three men explore what it means to them to...
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