Politics and scandal collide in The Parliamentarians playing at the Red Sandcastle Theatre in Toronto

In The Parliamentarians (at The Red Sandcastle Theatre), Ruben Holloway has just been elected Prime Minister and has arranged for a special rendez-vous with a favourite callgirl. The penthouse of the Chateau Laurier, a bottle of outstanding wine, an intriguing young woman–and a phone that will not stop ringing. When his chief-of-staff and the Leader of the Opposition join him in the suite, things begin to unravel in classic farce style.

Continue reading Review: The Parliamentarians (Phil Rickaby) →

Of Shapes Transformed By Love is an evening adventure through a Toronto garden to explore the human heart

Of Shapes Transformed By Love, inspired by the Metamorphoses, explores the human heart through a skewed lens. In this universe, the line between the natural and human worlds disappears: lovers grow fur and devour one another; the sea, the sky, the hills and the birds become active players in human stories (or is it the other way ’round?); and when deep emotions–longing, loss, forgiveness, regret–become so all-consuming as to transcend our humanity, so, too, do we.

And from that description, you probably already know whether or not you’ll like this show: some will find it touching and deep, others will find it cloying and too thinkity-think for its own good.

Happily, I’m a bit of a sap.

Continue reading Review: Of Shapes Transformed By Love (Aim for the Tangent/NewBorn Theatre) →

Shadows is a sexy, smoldering play about ill-fated love playing at Toronto’s Videofag

Everything in Shadows is on fire. The lovers burn for each other; their careers and relationships with others smolder, crackle, and occasionally burst into flames; and practically the entire world they inhabit–long, flowing costume gowns; dressing rooms with crepe-paper walls; a Connecticut cabin with a well-stocked wine cellar; and the ever-present newspapers–will immolate in mere seconds. All it would take is a single ill-aimed spark.

Margo MacDonald’s play is a love letter to so many things (these actors, repertory theatre, the fun to be had in secrets…) that this script could have run off in all directions, but luckily she’s found (with the help of a little creative license) two figures sufficiently interesting to bind them together. Eva La Gallienne, an actor so well-established and connected that she runs a theatre devoted essentially to her own whims; and her lover of 7 years, Josephine “Jo” Hutchison, playing juveniles and ingenues into her 30s, yet keenly aware that nothing of her world is permanent.

Continue reading Review: Shadows (Parry Riposte Productions / Videofag) →

Canadian history as seen through comic book lenses, Videocabaret presents Trudeau and the FLQ

As we walked home after Trudeau and the FLQ, my guest turned to me, energized and excited.

“So this is the Jack Nicholson Joker fever-dream version of Canadian history.”
“Pretty much, yes.”

Trudeau and the FLQ is best described as a series of living editorial cartoons. Short vignettes, none longer than 2-3 minutes, depicting significant events, private moments, public revelations and occasional blowups in Canadian history. The cast moves at alarming speed through over 10 years of history, stopping to smell the roses, drink the cognac and drop the acid as they go.

We see Pierre Elliot Trudeau rise from philosophy professor to public intellectual to Minister of Justice to Prime Minister. We see the FLQ form, germinate, and start kidnapping cabinet ministers. And in this comic-book world of lurid colour and mounties in drag, we see Canada forming despite it all.

Continue reading Review: Trudeau and the FLQ (Videocabaret) →

Toronto’s Storefront Theatre presents a tragic comedic double bill of Swell Broad and The Homemaker

Tonight, the Storefront Theatre presents a double bill: Swell Broad and The Homemaker, two tragi-comic plays which examine relationships with a special focus on the perspectives of unconventional women.

In Swell Broad, something between a budding romance and a business transaction unfolds at a local malt shop. She has expectations; so does he; and as the two begin to collide, all hell breaks loose. This script feels eerily post-millennium for something set in the 30s–and perhaps that’s the point. The 30s, like the 00s and 10s, was an era when the old scripts around adulthood in general and gender in particular suddenly stopped working. Young people–here played by Janelle Hanna and Philip Furgiuele–are left to cobble together whatever they can, and the results aren’t always going to be pretty.

Continue reading Review: Swell Broad / The Homemaker (Covetous Productions & The Peanut Butter People) →