Always a theatre lover Sam realized in middle age that there's more to Toronto theatre than just mainstream and is now in love with one person shows, adores festivals, and quirky venues make her day.
Last night I saw Molière’s The School for Wives (L’École des femmes) which is the final production in the Théâtre Français de Toronto’s 2010/2011 season. On the way to the theatre my friend Didier – do I need to say that he’s French? – explained that the play was in a classic form of French verse called Alexandrin which has 12 syllables per line and has a break after 6 syllables. I was so impressed, I thought he was a Molière expert. He admitted that he had looked it up. I was still impressed, it hadn’t occurred to me to look it up.
Last night’s show had English surtitles which I read fairly often although not as much in the second act as in the first act. Without the surtitles I would have certainly caught the drift of the play but I would have missed a lot. The text in the surtitles wasn’t a literal translation; it also rhymed so I didn’t lose the sense of the rhyming and rhythm of the play. I overheard a couple of French women at intermission saying that they were glad of the surtitles. The language of the play is old in the same sense that Shakespeare’s language is old.
“Why would anyone go see Romeo and Juliet? You know how it’s going to end.” My friend Sharon’s statement pretty much summed up my feelings. I would have added “…and anyway, it’s Shakespeare and I studied it in high school and wasn’t crazy about it.” We went to see the Shakespeare in Action production of Romeo and Juliet anyway, even though we were tempted to blow it off and just sit in the sun. I’m so glad we did.
It was fabulous. We felt as if someone gave us a gift on a Saturday afternoon. I can honestly say that this is the first time I’ve ever understood why people get excited about Shakespeare.
What do you do when you work in marketing for a text book publisher, the economy crashes, you lose your job and you need an income now? If you’re Cameryn Moore you become a phone sex operator – a Phone Whore – and then you write and perform a show about it.
Megan reviewed Phone Whore this summer and talked about the premise of the show so I’m not going to repeat it. It’s worth reading before you decide to see the show because, as wonderful as it it, Phone Whore isn’t for everyone.
The North American premiere of Our Class is produced by studio 180 in association with Canadian Stage. The play, first published in 2009, was written by Tadeusz Slobodzianek and this excellent translation is by Ryan Craig.
The play takes an unemotional approach to horror, no sugar coating and no histrionics. It was an emotional evening but I didn’t feel that I was being exploited, something I’ve experienced at other plays.
I’ve often wondered if I would have been one of the people fleeing in terror part way through the broadcast of Orson Welles’ radio play in 1938. No one fled in terror tonight as we watched the Art of Time Ensemble production of The War of the Worlds; a live recreation of the Orson Welles 1938 broadcast adapted from the H. G. Wells’ book.
This was a two hour, two act presentation. The first act was an instrumental suite based on the the film scores of Bernard Herrmann and the second act was The War of the Worlds.
