by Colin Thomas | Sep 10, 2024 | Review
I returned to Bard on the Beach’s Hamlet to see Chirag Naik in the title role. (In a scheduled change, he has taken over from Nadeem Phillip Umar Khitab.) The news isn’t good. Naik overacts, and that exacerbates an underlying problem with director Stephen Drover’s...
by Colin Thomas | Aug 10, 2024 | Review
This production is so much better than it was when I saw it on its second night way back in June — and that’s a triumph for the actors. I returned to this show primarily because I wanted to see Camille Legg’s Viola. Just before Twelfth Night opened at Bard on the...
by Colin Thomas | Jul 19, 2024 | Review
Measure for Measure is about brutal sexual coercion. But, in his adaptation, director Jivesh Parasram frames the play as broad comedy — and he thinks he’s doing abuse survivors a favour. In the story, Duke Vincenzio is concerned about the number of brothels in Vienna...
by Colin Thomas | Jul 12, 2024 | Review
Watching this production of The Comedy of Errors is kind of like waiting in a two-hour lineup for a 15-minute ride. The show doesn’t really pay off until the very end. Before that, it burbles along pleasantly enough, but it’s weirdly shapeless. So what’s going on? A...
by Colin Thomas | Jun 25, 2024 | Review
Clarity is both the blessing and the curse of director Stephen Drover’s production of Hamlet — mostly the blessing. I was grateful to have some parts of the story more clearly defined than they’ve ever been for me. But it’s also important to remember that the play is...