The Lonesome West: Will it leave you more lonesome?
The Lonesome West is about forgiveness—kind of, if you squint. But I do not forgive The Lonesome West. Martin McDonagh’s 1997 script is part of a trilogy that also includes The Beauty Queen of Leenane and A Skull in Connemera. All three are set in Leenane, a...
King Charles III: It’s stylish but is it relevant?
Who gives a toss? In Mike Bartlett’s 2014 script, Queen Elizabeth II has just died and Charles has become King, although his coronation is a few months off. In one of his first acts as monarch, he refuses to give his assent to a bill that would restrict the freedom of...
VANCOUVER GREENROOM 13: Operating theatre
Theatre is community. OPERATING THEATRE Do you know what all of those losers who got into medical school want to do? Musical comedy. The medical school at New York City’s Columbia University has its own theatre and it takes seriously the effect that rehearsing and...
Honour: this story of a Mumbai courtesan is well-intentioned but narratively weak
I have no doubt that writer and performer Dipti Mehta’s heart is in the right place, but she’s not a great storyteller. In her solo show, Honour: Confessions of a Mumbai Courtesan, Mehta introduces us to Rani, whose mother, Chameli, is a sex worker in Mumbai’s “Fuck...
The acting in Happy Place is stronger than the script
The storytelling in Happy Place could be more focused and compelling, but some of the play’s content pierces to the heart of the current cultural moment and the cast is stellar. In Happy Place, playwright Pamela Mala Sinha takes us to an upscale inpatient treatment...
Go ahead: satisfy your Kuriosity
It’s worth it. Like a great pair of shoes or an indulgent vacation, a great night out is worth a splurge. And Kurios – Cabinet of Curiosities is a great night out. The world of this Cirque du Soleil production, which premiered in 2014, is steam-punk: it’s fascinated...
VANCOUVER GREENROOM 12: Hearing voices
SOL TRAIN The core goal of the Sol Project is to strengthen the presence of Latinx playwrights off-Broadway and in regional theatres in the US. Although it only launched last May, the Sol Project has already been incredibly successful. The collective enterprise plans...
VIVA: artistic adventure in Las Vegas
There’s a lot of powerful writing in Scott Button’s new play VIVA. That’s the most important thing to know. There are also lapses of taste, which undermine the strengths. In VIVA, Button overlaps two narratives. At the outset, Alice and Graeme, who don’t know one...
Thanks for Giving: thanks for the ambition
It’s as if playwright Kevin Loring has tried to cram half a dozen Greek tragedies—plus a couple of episodes of The Honeymooners—into one evening. His new play, Thanks for Giving, is inspiringly ambitious, often funny, sometimes beautiful, and structurally scattershot....
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