As You Like It: Is Shakespeare’s comedy the right vehicle for a meditation on the refugee crisis?
There’s a lot going on. And a bunch of it works. In setting As You Like It, Shakespeare’s comedy about banishment, director Michael Scholar Jr. draws inspiration from the global refugee crisis. The combination isn’t always a good fit, but it does result in the...
VANCOUVER GREENROOM 9: Failure is essential
Vancouver Greenroom: theatre is community FAILURE IS ESSENTIAL Comedian, actor, and filmmaker Mike Birbiglia offers some of the best artistic advice ever. Highlights include, “Failure is essential. There’s no substitute for it. It’s not just encouraged but required.”...
Japanese Problem: these people were Canadian and they weren’t a problem
Japanese Problem is delicate production, but it packs a punch. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, thousands of Canadian citizens of Japanese origin were removed from the West Coast and forced to live in internment camps in the BC interior...
VANCOUVER GREENROOM 8: Perfection is the enemy of excellence
Vancouver Greenroom: theatre is community MEANINGFUL INVITATION “Perfection is the enemy of excellence.” Doesn’t that sentence make your shoulders relax? Wouldn’t it be lovely to hear it during rehearsals? It’s a sentence favoured by Simone Hamilton, one of...
Posh: Is it worth spending an evening with these toffee-nosed gits?
I love class analysis. Posh is packed with class analysis. So why does this script, which premiered in London in 2010, not work for me in this Vancouver production in 2017? In Laura Wade’s play, a group that calls itself The Riot Club meets in the private dining room...
The Christians: for an atheist, whether or not hell exists is not a burning question
The Christians: if you’re not Christian, what’s in this play for you? Not a lot in terms of moral complexity. But a fair bit in terms of theatricality. In Lucas Hnath’s script, Pastor Paul is the leader of a gigantic evangelical congregation: his church has thousands...
Perestroika, which means “restructuring”, is faultily structured—and sometimes transcendent
Like a fever dream, this production of Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika comes and goes. Sometimes, I was completely in its thrall. At other times, I popped out of the experience and thought, “Oh. I’m in a theatre. And not much is happening.” This mix of...
September 14 Fringe reviews from Colin: Executing Justice, and Let Me Freeze Your Head
Here you go: my final reviews, Executing Justice and Let Me Freeze Your Head—critiques 28 and 29—from this year's Vancouver Fringe. Neither review is enthusiastic, but…there are a lot of excellent shows at the festival. Of the performances I’ve been to, the three...
VANCOUVER GREENROOM 7: In fall, birds fly east
Vancouver Greenroom: theatre is community FALL, AND THE BIRDS ARE FLYING…EAST? East is the direction that Vancouver artists fly when they’re getting national recognition, so it’s a very good thing that actor Alexandra Lainfiesta, writer Crystal Verge, and...
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