Bakersfield Mist: mediocre script, strong production
Bakersfield Mist is raucously funny sometimes and even moving in moments, but the script isn’t as smart as it pretends to be. LA playwright Stephen Sachs drew inspiration for Bakersfield Mist from real-life characters and events. The stakes are high. In the early...
Suitcase Stories (un)packs a punch
Sometimes, when you see a show, you know that an artist is offering you a personal gift. That’s what it’s like with Maki Yi’s Suitcase Stories. The script isn’t perfect, but both the play and production are important, skilled in many ways—and heartfelt. In her solo...
Empire of the Son also rises
I’m telling all the people I love most to see this show. Tetsuro Shigematsu’s Empire of the Son is exquisite. It’s also painstakingly honest. In his script, which Shigematsu performs solo, he explores his relationship with his father, Akira. In a talkback after the...
Straight Jacket Winter: major charm, minor disappointment
It’s charming. It’s innovative—even daring. And then it peters out. In Straight Jacket Winter, co-writers Esther Duquette and Gilles Poulin-Denis tell an autobiographical story about the alienation they felt when they moved from Montreal to Vancouver in 2011. Duquette...
Exciting descent into Three Stories Up
After I stopped panicking, things got really, really good. Three Stories Up unfolds entirely in the dark. Ushers lead blindfolded audience members into the performance space in small groups. When the lights go out, everybody takes their blindfolds off, but it’s pitchy...
In Mamahood, Nicolle Nattrass doesn’t go deep enough to become Everymama
I’m finding it impossible not to damn Mamahood with faint praise. There’s nothing really wrong with this show, but there’s nothing arrestingly right about it either. In her solo work, Mamahood: turn and face the strange, writer and performer Nicolle Nattrass tells us...
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...
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