by Colin Thomas | Apr 19, 2024 | Review
I wasn’t very engaged — I checked my watch a couple of times — and then tears were streaming down my face. For me this production of Keith Barker’s This Is How We Got Here took a sharp U-turn at about the 60-minute mark of its 80-minute playing time. It takes a while...
by Colin Thomas | Oct 15, 2023 | Review
Peace Country is a huge accomplishment. I love its urgency, its complexity, its humour — and its weirdness. Its weirdness — well, its eccentricity — lies in the play’s structure. Pedro Chamale’s new script is set in an area also known as Peace River Country, an aspen...
by Colin Thomas | May 28, 2023 | Review
I won’t give away the confession in Derek Chan’s Happy Valley, but it’s the best part of the script. In this interdisciplinary solo, Chan sings and recites poetry — often in Cantonese with English surtitles. We also get Cantonese surtitles. Chan grew up in Hong Kong...
by Colin Thomas | Dec 16, 2022 | Review
For me as kid and even as a young adult, watching the annual TV appearance of the Alistair Sim version of A Christmas Carol was a religious experience. I watched it every year, preferably by myself so that others who might be less devout wouldn’t distract me. I have...
by Colin Thomas | Nov 26, 2022 | Review
I was afraid that Courage Now might be ploddingly literal, but it’s a moving piece of art. There is no doubt that more people need to know the real-life story of Chiune Sugihara, who was Japan’s vice-consul in Kaunas, Lithuania near the beginning of World War II. In...
