REVIEW: What happens when a pair of married and long struggling actors realize that their talent could be put to use in a much more lucrative way? Grab a seat for Norm Foster’s Self Help, at the Ottawa Little Theatre, and you’ll learn just how funny the answer to that question is. Should you see it?
REVIEW: In Hannah Moscovitch’s East of Berlin, presented by the Great Canadian Theatre Company, seventeen year-old Rudi Klausner learns the truth of his father’s involvement as a camp doctor at Auschwitz in World War II and spends years trying to understand and to escape the sins and legacy he’s inherited. Should you see it?
The year is 1996, AIDS runs rampant in New York’s East Village, and a group of starving artists and lost souls live, love, and lose in Orpheus Musical Theatre’s production of the hugely popular Rent, now playing at Centrepointe Theatre. Should you see it?
Brian Friel’s Translations sees a small Irish town put upon by British soldiers who are there to create a new map of the area with anglicized names. Former resident of the town, Owen, has been hired by the Bristish to act as translator and facilitator for the job, putting him right in the middle of the ensuing conflict. Should you see it?
The Great Canadian Theatre Company’s Undercurrents festival lives up to its subtitle, “theatre below the mainstream” as it delivers six unique shows, most of which you’re only ever likely to catch on the festival circuit. Six shows means six reviews. Which ones should you see?
Hercule Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac is a classic tragic hero. Master swordsman and master wordsmith alike with no shortage of panache and bravado. Hercule Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac is also a classic man in the friend-zone when the woman he loves, Roxanne, asks him to take the man she loves under his protection. Should you see it?
Writer and performer Pierre Brault first performed Blood on the Moon on a Fringe stage in 1999. From there, he did runs at the National Arts Centre three years in a row, toured across Canada, took the show to Ireland, and did an on camera presentation of the show for Bravo. That alone tells you the one thing you need to know: see this show at the GCTC while you can. Should you see it?
Picture the most dysfunctional family you can think of. Maybe yours. Now kick them out of the picture and make way for the family in Lost in Yonkers. In Neil Simon’s Pulitzer prize winning coming-of-age comedy, Simon takes a hard look at this family through the eyes of 13 and 15 year old Jay and Arty who suddenly have to spend ten months living with their estranged grandma while their dad is on the road. Should you see it?
This city has an enormous and growing amount of talent at all levels of production. But what’s happening is practically a segregation of information sources, making it harder and harder to get the information you want as the amount of information worth knowing continues to grow and making half the battle is tracking down the information. And it shouldn’t be that hard.
Two clowns –Pommefrites and Restes– quest for ice cream in a gorgeous winter wonderland when they get caught up in a Shakespearean-styled drama in the Fairy Kingdom dealing with adultery, revenge, and monsters. It sounds dark but its fairies and clowns — so it’s actually hilarious. Should you see it?