The right night for Fight Night
Leave a Comment They were manipulating the hell out of me and I loved itIn Fight Night, which is produced by a bunch of companies led by Belgium’s Ontroerend Goed, politics becomes a literal game. Five actors vie for audience members’ votes and everybody in the crowd...
Walt Whitman’s Secret finally releases itself into storytelling
Watching Walt Whitman’s Secret is a bit like eating paper—but the paper is often tasty. In Sean O’Leary’s script, which he based on Vancouver author George Fetherling’s novel, the celebrated nineteenth-century American poet Walt Whitman is nearing the end of his life....
At Studio 58, Angels in America is angelic
Leave a Comment Yesterday, I saw the last performance in Studio 58’s run of Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches. Because the show is over, this isn’t really a review; it’s more of a shout out to some outstanding talent. Let’s not forget what a work of...
King of the Yees is a muddled fairytale
Leave a Comment If you’re planning to attend King of the Yees, I suggest you arrive at intermission: in terms of the story, the first act is almost entirely irrelevant. In this new script, playwright Lauren Yee offers a playful, heartfelt—and metatheatrical—take on...
Elizabethan drag with a South Asian twist
A loud yes and a quieter no. In 2012, London’s Globe Theatre commissioned The Company Theatre of Mumbai to produce a desi (Indian or South Asian) version of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Piya Behrupiya, which translates as “Lover Impersonator”, is the raucously...
Why is there a Terence Rattigan revival? Flare Path doesn’t provide easy answers
Watching this production of Flare Path is a bit like listening to an old vinyl record that’s being played on a faulty phonograph. For much of the first act, the needle keeps popping out of the groove. When the needle settles, in Act 2, there’s some beautiful music. In...
The Flick: time to watch
Look! Look how beautiful and complex human beings are! In Annie Baker’s gorgeous, Pulitzer Prize-winning script The Flick, three employees of a movie theatre hang around, clean up, and talk. It’s minimalist and it’s slow—it goes on for three hours including...
Fired from The Georgia Straight
I just got fired from the Georgia Straight. Thirty years*. No warning. No compensation. Last Tuesday, I emailed arts editor Janet Smith telling her what shows I thought I should review. Instead of the usual confirmation from Janet, I received an email from editor...
The innocence of Helen and Edgar
Its seams are showing. Helen & Edgar, which is raconteur Edgar Oliver’s account of the gothic Southern childhood he spent with his sister and their mentally ill mother, starts off spectacularly well. For one thing, there’s Oliver’s voice, which is simultaneously...
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