Soulpepper Theatre's A Christmas Carol – Review

Since 2001, Soulpepper Theatre has been presenting Michael Shamata's adaptation of A Christmas Carol almost every year. It's more or less a family tradition; husband and wife Oliver Dennis and Deborah Drakeford have played Bob and Mrs. Cratchit nine times; these days their daughter Charlotte Dennis is playing Martha Cratchit, and many of the other cast members have been around for upwards of five years, including Joseph Ziegler, who plays Scrooge, and John Jarvis, who plays all the ghosts.

All this is to say that the performance is tight, professional and perfectly timed. It must also be said that the three newest cast members acquit themselves very well. Sabrina Nardi as little Fan and Belinda Cratchit, Rhys Fulton-Doyle (Peter Cratchit and the boy Scrooge sends to buy the prize turkey) and Anton Gillis-Adelman (Ebenezer at school and Tiny Tim) deliver confident and convincing performances that are not at all cloying.

The show is performed in the round, which gives it a pleasantly fluid and flexible quality, with only a few odd staging choices (having the Ghost of Christmas Present wheeled in atop a ladder doesn't quite match the splendour of the image presented in the book of a jolly giant enthroned on a mountain of Victorian Christmas food).

But there's lots of creative magic in the show: objects fly through the air; people appear and disappear in startling ways. Sound effects (fragments of carols, church bells and spooky noises) are effective and evocative, and the ghosts in particular look very supernatural indeed. In fact, their costumes, designed by Julie Fox, are quite a triumph. Rather than matching Dickens' descriptions precisely, they portray the spirit (so to speak) of each character, incorporating such earlier-dated historical costume pieces as a ghost might wear and some artistic quasi-sculptural elements.

In any case, this story can't really fail. By the end, the opening night audience was hanging on every word, and in the very satisfying and funny scene when Scrooge realizes "the spirits have done it all in one night", they were almost whooping with delight. In this 200th anniversary year of his birth, clearly Dickens has still got it.

A Christmas Carol continues at the Young Centre until December 29. After each performance, the company will be inviting the audience to enter into the spirit of the season by donating money to The Stop Community Food Centre. Up to December 16, theatregoers should plan to arrive in the Distillery District a little early to take in the lights, music and vendor stalls at the Lowe's Christmas Market.

Photo credit: Sandy Nicholson. John Jarvis (Marley's Ghost) and Joseph Ziegler (Ebenezer Scrooge) in Soulpepper Theatre's A Christmas Carol.

Ross Petty Productions' Snow White – Review

There's no handsome prince in this fairytale and a dearth of dwarves... but there is a debonair secret agent and a heroic giant-killer who's also something of a lady-killer. Of course, this has got to be Snow White, The Deliciously Dopey Family Musical!, the 17th annual panto from Ross Petty Productions.

Over the years, Petty and company have developed the traditional form of the British Christmas panto into something utterly Canadian, both in personality and in its references to topics dear to the hearts of its audience members of all ages, from Don Cherry  and Movember to the TTC. This year's edition was particularly packed with one-liners – both scripted and ad-libbed – including a few fairly gentle pokes at our potentially departing mayor Rob Ford. The musical numbers are a mashup of current popular hits; expect everything from Katy Perry to Psy.

This year's material is perhaps a little more adult than usual; it includes some near-the-knuckle double entendres like the evil queen's blushworthy opening remark to the audience "I do appreciate a warm hand on my opening." However, these sorts of lines soar right over the heads of the kids, like my ten-year-old niece, who said her favourite part of the show was Snow White's entourage of furry and feathery forest creatures.

Under the apt direction of Tracey Flye, who choreographed the shows for many years, the pace is fast and very funny, beginning at the palace, where the evil queen (Petty in drag, hamming it up to attract the boo-birds as usual) banishes the pure-hearted and lovely Snow White into the dark forest.

From this point on, things take a turn for the decidedly silly, with fairytale characters from other stories popping up to lend a hand to thwart the evil queen and her Eurotrash henchpeople. Among the good guys, Bryn McAuley as a cellphone-wielding Valley Girl of a Red Riding Hood who's keen to become Snowie's BFF is a near show-stealer ("You're the princess?!? Can I tweet that I know you???" she squeals.)

The professionalism and ease of Stratford veteran Graham Abbey is a pleasure to watch; his 007, diving and rolling at the slightest provocation, is a hoot, and he communicates at all times the warm sense that he's enjoying sharing the jokes with the audience. Melissa O'Neil is everything Snow White should be – with vocal chops to boot. Eddie Glen, returning in his longtime role as the heroine's pal, once again endears himself to the crowd with his hapless hilarity.

A true Toronto tradition in a beautiful theatre, this dopey musical is a real treat. Snow White runs until January 5 at the Elgin Theatre.

Photo credit: Racheal McCaig. L-R: Graham Abbey as 007, Bryn McAuley as Red Riding Hood, Billy Lake as Pinocchio, Melissa O'Neill as Snow White, Reid Janisse as Ham and Lindsay Croxall as one of Snow White's forest friends in Ross Petty Productions' Snow White, The Deliciously Dopey Family Musical!

Soulpepper Theatre's 2013 Season Announcement

Soulpepper Theatre has announced its playbill for 2013. The roster includes some returning favourites like Alligator Pie, Kim's Convenience and Parfumerie, and new work – including an intriguing adaptation of The Barber of Seville, to be directed by Martha Ross.   Two sets of linked plays will be produced over the summer and late fall, and they could hardly be more different in tone: Tony Kushner's deeply affecting Angels in America, and Alan Ayckbourn's lighthearted farcical trilogy The Norman Conquests.

• February 7 to March 2: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
• March 25 to May 4: True West by Sam Shepherd
• March 26 to May 4: La Ronde by Arthur Schnitlzer, adapted by Jason Sherman
• May 9 to June 8: The Barber of Seville by Pierre Beaumarchais and Gioachino Rossinni, adapted by Michael O'Brien and John Millard
• May 23 to June 19: Kim's Convenience by Ins Choi
• July 5 to August 17: Entertaining Mr. Sloane by Joe Orton
• July 6 to August 17: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, adapted by Michael Shamata
• July 19 to September 14: Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part One: Millennium Approaches by Tony Kushner
• July 20 to September 14: : Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part Two: Perestroika by Tony Kushner
• September 27 to November 16: The Norman Conquests: Table Manners by Alan Ayckbourn
• September 28 to November 16: The Norman Conquests: Living Together by Alan Ayckbourn
• September 28 to November 16: The Norman Conquests: Round and Round the Garden by Alan Ayckbourn
• October 11 to November 9: Farther West by John Murrell
• November 3 to December 1: Alligator Pie by Dennis Lee, adapt Ins Choi, Raquel Duffy, Ken Mackenzie, Gregory Priest & Mike Ross
• November 27 to December 21: Parfumerie by Miklós László, adapt. Adam Pettle & Brenda Robins

Photo credit: Jason Hudson. Raquel Duffy, Ins Choi, Mike Ross and Ken MacKenzie in Alligator Pie

Soulpepper Theatre's Endgame – Review

As soon as last night's production of Endgame let out, I checked the program to calculate Samuel Beckett's age when he wrote it. I make it out to be 51, which was just what I was expecting. I gather Beckett was never the most lighthearted of playwrights, but this particular play is all about the things that are uppermost in your mind as you pass the Big Five-Oh: the increasing imminence of death, the growing presence of physical pain and the big question: if we're just going to die anyway, is anything worth bothering about at all?

I find it a maddening play. If you don't know it, it's about Hamm (Joseph Ziegler), who's blind and confined to a chair, Clov (Diego Matamoros), who attends to his needs, and Hamm's aged parents Nagg (Eric Peterson) and Nell (Maria Vacratsis), who have been (literally) tossed into the trash, whence they cannot escape.

In the bleakest of indoor settings, painted by set designer Julie Fox in fifty shades of grey – but not the fun kind – Hamm orders Clov about a series of pointless, mundane tasks while waiting for the inevitable end. In Hamm's universe, there is no comfort. It's cold and dirty, and the household has run out of everything nice, including (among other things) sugar plums, painkillers, blankets and bicycle-wheels. The experience of the play is not unlike spending an excruciating day or two in an intensive care ward, where what once seemed "normal" becomes an unattainable delight. ("Yesterday!" rhapsodizes Nell.)

My problem with the show is partly that it's so alien to my way of seeing things. I'm with Woody Allen, who, in Hannah and Her Sisters, confronts the same difficult question, but decides it's all worth it if you can experience a few immortal moments (in his case, when laughing at the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup).

But Endgame is undeniably elegant. It opens with a little riff on Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy from – name no coincidence? – Hamm ("What dreams! Those forests! ... Enough, it's time it ended, in the shelter, too. ... And yet I hesitate, I hesitate to... to end."). The play builds repeating and gradually accruing layers of detail, nuance and reference to flesh out Hamm's utterly hopeless existence; one he nonetheless seems to take some satisfaction in.

Fifty-plus years after its first production, Endgame still rings with eerie connections to life of the moment. I felt a disturbing frisson at one of Clov's very first lines: "I can't be punished any more", because it so closely echoes certain words of Ashley Smith, the young woman who took her own life in a federal prison in 2007, heard in videos released recently as evidence of her treatment while in custody. On two occasions, she can be heard saying more or less the same thing in answer to threats of discipline from the guards; her meaning is plain: "You can't make me feel worse than I already do."

In the absurdist view, human life is so awful that you have to laugh about it, but the world of Endgame seems to have run out of laughter when it ran out of sugar plums. One of the few comic lines is also among the bleakest – and to me sums up the world view of the whole play; it comes when Hamm asks Clov whether his father is still alive. "He's crying," Clov tells him. "Then he's living," says Hamm. It's an either-or proposition: living is weeping; the only end of weeping is death.

But perhaps what I find most maddening is that I'm not sure Beckett isn't just tweaking our noses. "Me to play" says Hamm, at the beginning and end of the piece. It's his chess move, that is; he starts the game. And maybe the whole depressing scenario is Beckett's own game. Are we to believe that life's just an imprisoning dungheap, or is Beckett simply forcing us to confront the possibility in case we may choose to believe something else instead?

Just as the characters of Endgame know they're in a play, and refer to that state from time to time, Beckett gives himself away; after all, he made plays. What's more pointless than that in a meaningless universe? No, Beckett believes in meaning; you might say he's all about it.

Hamm even has a tiny moment that almost resembles the warning of Marley's Ghost in A Christmas Carol, in which he refers, however archly, to one of Christianity's central commandments, one that gives a possible meaning for our mortal existence: "All those I might have helped. ... Helped! ... Saved. ... Saved! ... The place was crawling with them. ... Use your head, can't you, use your head, you're on earth, there's no cure for that! ... Get out of here and love one another! Lick your neighbor as yourself!" What is one to make of that? I'm eternally hopeful; I have my own answer, which may not be yours.

Daniel Brooks' clear and seamless direction, with the enormous energy and focus of Ziegler and Matamoros, bring all this vexing complexity to the stage in its brutal and inexorable rawness. Love it or hate it, Endgame is a brilliant masterwork. It continues at the Young Centre until November 17.

Photo credit: Cylla von Tiedemann. Maria Vacratsis and Eric Peterson in Soulpepper Theatre's production of Endgame.

Stratford Festival Expands Toronto-Stratford Shuttle Bus Service

It's very good news for Toronto-area theatre lovers – especially those on a budget. The Stratford Shakespeare Festival has announced it will be extending its existing shuttle bus service between Toronto and  Stratford. As of the 2013 season, the Festival will provide twice-daily "Stratford Direct" bus service on performance dates for only $10 each way, departing from the Hotel InterContinental Toronto Centre (Front and Simcoe).


For some time, there was no convenient way for a Toronto theatregoer who did not drive to see a play and return the same night. In 1999, the Festival launched a Saturday bus service, and it has now been expanded to give a much wider range of theatregoers access to the Festival. The 2013 schedule is as follows:

• On performance dates between May 1 and 25, 2013: Departure from Toronto at 10 a.m., with return from Stratford at 5 p.m.
• On dates when a matinee is running between May 27 and September 29, 2013: Departure from Toronto at 10 a.m., with return from Stratford at 5 p.m. 
• On dates when an evening show is running between May 27 and September 29, 2013: Departure from Toronto at 3:30 p.m., with return from Stratford at 11 p.m. 
• On performance dates between October 1 and 20, 2013: Departure from Toronto at 10 a.m., with return from Stratford at 5 p.m.

Bus reservations can be booked online or through the Festival's box office (800-567-1600) along with play tickets.


Photo credit: Erin Samuell, courtesy Stratford Shakespeare Festival

Les Fourberies de Scapin – Review

I've long been a fan of the Théâtre français de Toronto. In fact, when artistic director Guy Migneault addressed the audience before last night's season-opening performance, I was shocked to realize the company is now in its 45th season, since I so clearly remember writing about the 20th anniversary.

The TFT gives Toronto audiences a unique opportunity to hear French-language plays performed – and very capably so – in the original words. Whether the work is by Quebec's Michel Tremblay, a new Franco-Ontario playwright or some master of the classic stage, nothing beats hearing it in French. As a particular fan of Molière, I am always especially happy to see the TFT tackle one of his scripts, and last night I got to see his Les fourberies de Scapin (which translates, less mellifluously, as "The Deceits of Scapin"). Almost the last play the great playwright ever wrote, it sees the master joyfully working the business of traditional Commedia dell'Arte, with two sets of young lovers, a pair of disapproving fathers, a duo of scheming servants and a couple of long-lost children.

The company has pared the classical three-act comedy down to a lean one-acter by means of some clever strategems worthy of Scapin himself – such as turning one onstage character into a mere note delivered anonymously via a fishing line. A couple of other minor characters have been dispensed with entirely.

As a nod to the conventions of 17th-century production, which would generally have included original music and lavish dance numbers, this production includes several interpolated songs, ranging from opera to folk songs, and including some snippets of Molière's dialogue sung to familiar tunes. Although it doesn't add much of practical value to the storytelling, it's a pleasant touch, rather like powdered sugar on strawberries.

This trim amusement is no longer set in Paris of 1671, but on a beach in a dream world based on post-WWII France, with blue jeans and espadrilles; however, the elderly fathers wear clothes that suggest the 1600s (or 1700s) and antique white wigs (the work of Alice Norton, whose much more contemporary hairstyles for the other characters add a lot to the whimsical visual appeal of the production).

The tight pacing makes for a show that's over before you know it. In fact, it left me wishing I'd seen a bit more of a few characters, especially the tall, emotive and funny Phillipe Van de Maele Martin, who plays the anxious lover Octave like a cross between Danny Kaye and Tintin. Those characters who do get a lot of stage time (the fathers: Robert Godin and René Lemieux and especially the servants: Sébastien Bertrand as Sylvestre and Nicolas Van Burek in the title role) are consummate professionals who are a pleasure to watch. I dare say their portrayals will only improve as they get to fine-tune the timing and gesture in front of live audiences.

Important to note that the TFT started to use surtitling a few years ago, which means that certain performances show the text of the play projected unobtrusively over the acting area as each performer speaks his or her lines. Beginning with just a few nights of each production, the company has now secured enough financial support that about half the performances will be surtitled in this run. Combined with the expressive direction, the surtitles mean that even someone with no understanding of French at all now has access to enjoying this classic of the world stage in a short, sweet production with a great deal of charm.

Les fourberies de Scapin runs at 26 Berkeley Street (upstairs) until November 10. Tickets are available online or by telephone at 416-534-7303.

Photo credit: Marc Lemyre. Robert Godin as the foolish father Argante, standing above (left to right) Sébastien Bertrand (Sylvestre) and Nicolas Van Burek (Scapin) in the Théâtre français de Toronto prodution of Les fourberies de Scapin.

Playwrights Guild of Canada Award Winners 2012

Last Monday, the Playwrights Guild of Canada presented its awards to playwrights at the inaugural Tom Hendry Awards at Stage West in Mississauga. Here are the winners:

• Carol Bolt Award (best work premiered by a member): Don Hannah for The Cave Painter
• New Musical Award: Lorne Elliott for Jamie Rowsell Lives
• New Comedy Award: Michael Grant for Shorthanded
• Lifetime Membership: Norm Foster (pictured above)
• Post-Secondary Playwriting Competition: Leah Jane Esau for Disappeared

Also,Theatre Ontario presented the 2012 Maggie Bassett Award, which honours "an individual who, over a number of years, has made a sustained and significant contribution to the development of theatre in Ontario", to Dave Carley.

Harbourfront Centre Announces World Stage 2013 Lineup

Harbourfront Centre today released the roster of international theatre and dance performances that will make up the 2013 edition of the annual World Stage series, which runs from February to May.

• February 6 to 9: Othello, c’est qui / Othello, who’s that – Gintersdorfer/Klaßen (Germany | Côte d’Ivoire), a reinvestigation of Shakespeare's Othello from Africa, where the Moor of Venice is little known
• February 19 to 23: Sem Mim & Ímã – Grupo Corpo (Brazil), two dance performances: "Without Me" and "Magnet"
• February 28 to March 3: Dachshund UN – Bennett Miller (Australia); what if a meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights were conducted by small, sausage-shaped dogs?
• March 5 to 10: Lear – Philip McKee (Canada), with acclaimed Toronto actor Clare Coulter as King Lear
• March 6 to 9: Everyday Anthems, choreographed by Heidi Strauss – Toronto Dance Theatre (Canada), exploring anthems as metaphor
• March 20 to 23: Weight x3 & 2 – TAO Dance Theater (China), four works in one: a triptych about boundaries, plus a piece about the nature of language
• April 10 to 13: A Dance Tribute to the Art of Football – Jo Strømgren Kompani (Norway), a loving dance deconstruction of the Beautiful Game
• April 17 to 20: She She Pop & Their Fathers: Testament – She She Pop (Germany), a different take on King Lear
• April 23 to 27: Still Standing You – Pieter Ampe & Guilherme Garrido/CAMPO (Belgium/Portugal), a dance duet about the gestures of love and friendship
• May 23 to 26: what we are saying – Ame Henderson/Public Recordings (Canada) & The Power Plant, exploring language and movement in a gallery space 
• May 23 to 26: KAMP (CAMP) – Hotel Modern  (Netherlands), a puppet-play recreation of Auschwitz

World Stage tickets and further details are available online or via the Harbourfont Box Office at 416-973-4000. World Stage is on Twitter (@WorldStageTO or #WSTO) and Facebook.

Photo credit: José Luiz Pederneiras. The "tattooed" artists of Grupo Corpo's Sem Mim.

Alumnae Theatre Seeks Directors for New Ideas Festival

The Alumnae Theatre Company has issued a call for directors (especially women) who wish to be considered to direct one of 15 short plays that make up the 25th annual New Ideas Festival, coming up from March 6 to 24, 2013. Candidates should be non-union directors who are interested in working with a playwright to develop a new script. The positions are not paid; however, all basic production costs and resources are provided.

Interested applicants are invited to email the New Ideas Festival a brief description of directing experience by Saturday, October 27 under the subject line “Director Application [name]". For further details, visit the New Ideas page on the company website.

Photo credit: SimonP, Wikimedia. Alumnae Theatre.

Bloodless: The Trial of Burke and Hare – Review

Theatre 20's inaugural production of the new musical Bloodless: The Trial of Burke and Hare by Joseph Aragon will inevitably call up comparisons to Stephen Sondheim's 1979 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Like Sweeney Todd, it draws its inspiration from a melodramatic pre-Victorian episode (a real-life one, in the case of Bloodless) with a gritty, grimy ambience in which equally gritty and grimy characters perform vicious deeds to a disturbingly dissonant score and wickedly witty lyrics, the witnessing of which is calculated to make the average audience member question his or her own state of morality, and that of our society at large.

To say Bloodless is not as strong a work as Sweeney Todd would be to miss the point; Sweeney Todd was a full-scale Broadway musical created by some of the greatest of music theatre proponents (Hal Prince, Len Cariou, Angela Lansbury, Sondheim himself). To see it when it debuted, as I was lucky enough to do, was an unforgettable experience. Bloodless isn't Sweeney Todd, but it may be something even more interesting: the birth of a Toronto company founded by a remarkable group of seasoned musical theatre performers "to create a unique voice for modern musical theatre" while developing new works, re-imagining older ones and advocating "for Canadian composers and their unsung work".

We haven't had anything quite like that before, and in the year that Dancap Productions has called it quits, and Mirvish Productions has announced that the Princess of Wales Theatre is worth more as a condo development than as a performing arts space, this is good and timely news.

Bloodless is a taut two-hour production with a tight, focused, simple storyline about two married couples who drift into the unsavoury profession of murdering people so they can sell their bodies for medical research. The four main characters, who could have been shown as heartless ghouls, are rendered as distinct and believable human beings, with varying degrees of greed, reluctance, compassion, selfishness and stupidity at play in each one.

Eddie Glen in particular gives a noteworthy performance as William Hare, who's never more than a half-hearted assassin. Most often seen as a jovial comic sidekick, in this show Glen evokes real pathos as he finds himself the only active participant in a marriage to a woman he loves, and struggles to maintain his dignity, if not his honour, while participating in 16 murders.

Set in Scotland, with several Irish characters, the script poses accent challenges to its cast, which are mostly handled with aplomb.

There are plenty of songs, though mainly not of the type that later becomes a standard outside the show. Much of the singing takes the form of recitative rather than ballad; the few exceptions are largely parodic: a Gilbert-and-Sullivan patter song, a Scottish folk tune (perhaps the most lyrical number in the show, and sung by a pair of "prossies"), a pub ditty.

As with Sweeney Todd, one of the most crowd-pleasing numbers (and one with the cleverest rhymes) covers the difficult-to-write moment when two people decide they'll become professional killers. In Sweeney Todd it's "A Little Priest"; here, it's a song that's probably titled "Better Off Dead" (there was no song list in the program.) In general, however, the harmonies and arrangements are more interesting than the lyrics or melodies. The strongest musical moments come when the chorus assembles for stirring, jarring ensemble numbers in many parts.

There's no dancing to speak of, although the performers move adroitly around the smallish stage. The costumes are not literal interpretations of the late 1820s setting; only a couple of dresses have the appropriate lines for the period; others have the characteristic bustles that didn't appear until after 1870. Instead, most of the characters wear an assortment of clothing that fits the mood and theme rather than the precise time and place; this is not after all a BBC television adaptation.

Bloodless continues at the Panasonic Theatre until October 28. In January, Theatre 20 will present Stephen Sondheim's classic Company. An auspicious first season for Toronto's newest theatre.

Photo credit: Riyad Mustapha. Theatre 20's production of Bloodless: The Trial of Burke and Hare by Joseph Aragon. Oct 2012. Top (left to right): Jan Alexandra Smith (Margaret Hare), Eddie Glen (William Hare), Evan Buliung (William Burke) and Trish Lindstrom (Helen McDougal).

New Home for The Theatre Centre Breaks Ground

The Theatre Centre today celebrated the groundbreaking of its new home at 1115 Queen West, the elegrant and historic Carnegie library building at Queen and Lisgar (pictured above). After renovation, its new permenent residence will house a 225-seat theatre, a rehearsal hall, a design workshop and office space. The federal government marked the occasion by announcing its contribution of $1.8 million to the project through the Canada Cultural Spaces Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

The Theatre Centre has made a home for innovative theatre in several different buildings over the past 33 years. Current resident companies include Project: Humanity, The Sixth Man Collective, Philip McKee and Tanja Jacobs. Until the building is ready to receive it, The Theatre Centre is operating from a pop-up space at 1095 Queen West.

Factory Theatre Announces Revised Season

Factory Theatre has announced its plans for a reconfigured season to replace scripts by George F. Walker, Judith Thomson and Michel Marc Bouchard that were withdrawn by the playwrights in protest over the dismissal of  former artistic director Ken Gass last June. The new season is designed by the interim artistic team of Nina Lee Aquino and Nigel Shawn Williams (pictured above), who were appointed in September.

There are two remaining productions from the Ken Gass-designed roster. The first is Every Letter Counts by Aquino, which will be directed by Williams. It runs from January 26 to February 24. Next up is Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata by composer Veda Hille & CBC's Bill Richardson. Co-produced by Acting Up Stage, it runs from January 30 to March 3.

New additions to the season are Iceland by Nicolas Billon, which runs from March 2 to 24, and Stopheart by Amy Lee Lavoie (May 4 to 26).

Photo credit: Jonathan Heppner.

This Must Be the Place: The CN Tower Show – Review

Theatre Passe Muraille's production of This Must Be the Place: The CN Tower Show is not so much a play about the CN Tower as a look at the evolution of the urban area illuminated by that distinctive beacon. It makes up part of an innovative fall season for the theatre that examines the social fabric and geography of Toronto in a series of performances that happen not only inside the theatre, but also on the 501 streetcar, on the sidewalks of Queen Street West and in other unexpected locations.

This show is composed of a series of vignettes based on personal interviews with Toronto residents (both famous and obscure), interspersed with  short song performances and a few interactive games with the audience. It's cleverly set in a space furnished with bits and pieces of Toronto infrastructure: a pedestrian crosswalk, a tree planter, a post-and-ring bike parking stand and overhead cables that resemble streetcar wires, among others.

The production is full of equally clever, specific and appealing sound effects, both taped and produced by the actors: the ding of streetcars, the bells of the City Council chambers, birdsong, the distinctive tones of the TTC public address system, and so on. In fact, a great deal of the audience's pleasure in the show derives from recognizing these familiar details transposed to the stage.

The songs (except the last one) are perhaps the weakest element of the show, as they deviate a little from the  forward-moving energy of the rest of the production. However, some of the vignettes are remarkable, such as Greg Gale's intense and beautifully realized portrayal of a Mississauga construction worker who rediscovers the wonders of the city in a week of outings with his young daughter via subway ("first time in 30 years!"), or Ingrid Hansen's subtle delineation of a Scarborough social worker's ambivalent devotion to the place she serves. A few, though effective in themselves, don't add much to the gradually accruing narrative.

What does the play tell us about our city, where it's come from and where it may be headed? It suggests that our greatest danger, and also our greatest hope, may be that cities are inherently "self-organizing and surprising", in the words (apparently) of the great urban theorist Jane Jacobs, who spent the second half of her life in Toronto (and can it already be six years since she died?)

These words, mentioned early in the play, reoccur at the end, and their repetition pulls the structure of the play into focus. It's not just a series of cabaret turns, but – because it is shaped by random encounters with interview subjects, as well as by unscripted audience contributions during the performance – the play itself is also "surprising" (even to the actors) and "self-organizing".

All in all, This Must Be the Place: The CN Tower Show is a fine addition to Theatre Passe Muraille's noble four-decade history of collaborative creation based on observation of life. It runs in the Mainspace until October 27.

Photo credit: Aviva Armour Ostroff. (L-R) Greg Gale, Georgina Beaty, Ingrid Hansen and Thomas Olajide in This Must Be the Place: The CN Tower Show at Theatre Passe Muraille.

Stratford Festival on Film but Canadian Opera Company Off the Airwaves

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival is going on tour... sort of. In October and November, the Festival will present screenings of films based on its 2011 production of Twelfth Night and its 2010 production of The Tempest, starring Christopher Plummer as Prospero.

Twelfth Night, which features Ben Carlson, Brian Dennehy and Stephen Ouimette, will be shown in Toronto at the exciting new Daniels Spectrum space in Regent Park (585 Dundas Street East) on Wednesday, October 10 at 7 p.m. Admission is free, and a post-film question-and-answer session with actors Cara Ricketts and Mike Shara follows at 9:45.

Twelfth Night will also be screened in Detroit on Sunday, October 14 at 3:30 p.m. at the Detroit Institute of Arts. A month later, the DIA will show the film version of The Tempest (Sunday, November 11, at 2 p.m.)

In addition, Stratford veteran Lucy Peacock will deliver a lecture titled "Prayer, Carnival: My Journey with Shakespeare" on Thursday, October 25 at 5:30 p.m. in Room 232 of the Leacock Building at Montreal's McGill University.

While the Stratford Festival will be able to extend its viewing audience beyond the walls of its own theatres this fall, the current season's productions by the Canadian Opera Company, formerly broadcast on radio via CBC Radio 2 and Radio-Canada's Espace Musique, will not be made available. The COC announced today that negotiations with the two unions representing the performers – Canadian Actors' Equity Association and the Toronto Musicians Association – have not come to a successful conclusion.

Since 2009, 21 COC productions have been broadcast over the airwaves and streamed internationally via the internet, earning about $200,000 per season in fees for the artists. The issue under debate was the COC's request to reduce fee payments to $150,000 for the current season.

Photo credit: Cylla von Tiedemann. From left: Tom Rooney as Malvolio, Cara Ricketts as Maria, Brian Dennehy as Sir Toby Belch and Juan Chioran as Fabian in the 2011 Stratford Festival production of Twelfth Night that was captured on film.

2012 Drama Finalists for the Governor General’s Literary Awards

The finalists for the 2012 Governor General’s Literary Awards were announced today. The awards, which come with a $25,000 cash purse, a special edition of the winning book and a $3,000 promotional grant grant, recognize English- and French-language fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, children’s book writing and illustration and translation.

The winners will be announced on November 13 in Montreal; a presentation ceremony follows on November 28 at Rideau Hall in Ottawa. Here are this year's nominees in the drama categories:

English-language Drama

• Catherine Banks, It is Solved by Walking (Playwrights Canada Press)
• Trina Davies, The Romeo Initiative (Playwrights Canada Press)
• Karen Hines, Drama: Pilot Episode (Coach House Books)
• Cathy Ostlere & Dennis Garnhum, Lost: A Memoir (Scirocco Drama)
• Anusree Roy, Brothel #9 (Playwrights Canada Press)

French-language Drama

• Geneviève Billette, Contre le temps (Leméac Éditeur)
• Simon Boudreault, D pour Dieu? (Dramaturges Éditeurs)
• Fabien Cloutier, Billy [Les jours de hurlement] (Dramaturges Éditeurs
• Evelyne de la Chenelière, La chair et autres fragments de l’amour (Leméac Éditeur)
• Philippe Ducros, Dissidents (Éditions de L’instant même)

Photo credit: Izabel Zimmer. Evelyne de la Chenelière, nominated for the 2012 Governor General’s Literary Awards; in 2006, she received the Governor General’s Award for French-language drama for her play Désordre public.

Playwrights Guild of Canada Announces Shortlists for Inaugural Playwriting Awards Celebration

On Monday, October 22, the Playwrights Guild of Canada (PGC) will announce the winners of its annual playwriting awards at its first-ever awards ceremony at Stage West in Mississauga. Today, the Guild announced its shortlist. Guests will be able to board a shuttlebus in downtown Toronto to attend the event, hosted by Damien Atkins, which begins at 6:30 p.m.

The Carol Bolt Award is presented annually in recognition of the best work premiered by a PGC member in the past year. This year’s shortlisted entries are:

• After Jerusalem by Aaron Bushkowsky, a dark comedy set in Israel about a teacher masquerading as an actress and a soldier with scriptwriting ambitions.
• The Happy Woman by Rose Cullis, a play about a performance artist that explores "the nature of happiness, the desire to be normal, and the tension between truth and lies".
• The Cave Painter by Don Hannah, a one-woman show about a visual artist facing a life crisis at 60.

The Best New Musical Award is presented to a musical by a PGC member that has not yet premiered publicly. This year’s shortlisted entries are:

• Hersteria by Sharon Bajer and Joseph Aragon
• Jamie Rowsell Lives by Lorne Elliot
• Tom Pinkerton: The Ballad of Butterfly's Son by Hiro Kanagawa and composer David MacIntyre

The Best New Comedy Award is presented to a comedy by a PGC member that has not yet premiered publicly. This year’s shortlisted entries are:

• Michael Rising by Damien Atkins
• Shorthanded by Michael Grant
• Aftershock by Evan Tsitsias

At the awards event, PGC will also present the winners of its Post-Secondary Playwriting Competition: Leah Jane Esau (Disappeared) and runner-up Maureen Gualtieri (The Green Man), as well as the winner of Theatre Ontario's 2012 Maggie Bassett Award, the generous and prolific Dave Carley and the winner of PGC's Lifetime Membership Award.

Theatre community members or media who wish to RSVP for the event should contact executive director Robin Sokoloski at 416-703-0201 or via email.

Photo Credit: Guntar Kravis. Maria Vacratsis, Martin Happer, Maev Beaty, Ingrid Rae Doucet and Barbara Gordon in the Nightwood theatre production of The Happy Woman by Rose Cullis, among the shortlisted plays for this year's Carol Bolt Award.

Shaw Festival Announces 2013 Season

For the first time, the Shaw Festival in Niagara-On-The-Lake will present a work by Tom Stoppard in the summer of 2013, the Festival's 52nd season. His Arcadia will be directed by Eda Holmes (pictured, courtesy of the Shaw Festival).

Only one play actually written by George Bernard Shaw is included in the season: the classic Major Barbara, whose central character works in the Salvation Army. That makes it a clever pairing with the wonderful Broadway musical Guys and Dolls, which is partly about a New York con man's bet that he can date a Salvation Army "doll". The Festival's two other musicals are Tony nominees Enchanted April and The Light in the Piazza.

A second Shaw script comes in disguise: titled Peace in Our Time: A Comedy, it's an adaptation of Shaw's play Geneva by Canadian playwright John Murrell. The 2013 season is rounded out by a selection of plays by playwrights who are, like Shaw, Irish (Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan and Brian Friel's Faith Healer), or at least of Irish ancestry (W. Somerset Maugham's Our Betters). There's also a Lunchtime program of two short plays: Trifles by Susan Glaspell and A Wife for a Life by Eugene O'Neill (yet another Irish descendant).

The Shaw Festival's 2012 season continues into October, with productions of Hedda Gabler, His Girl Friday, The Millionairess, Trouble in Tahiti, Ragtime, Misalliance, Present Laughter and Come Back, Little Sheba. To order tickets and for further information, visit the Shaw Festival.

Global Cabaret Festival at the Young Centre

From Friday to Sunday, October 12 to 14, the Young Centre for the Performing Arts in the Distillery District opens its doors to the fifth annual Global Cabaret Festival, a smorgasbord of creative one-hour cabarets featuring outstanding Toronto singers, musicians, dancers and theatre artists.

It's a chance to see remarkable performers like Brent Carver, Jackie Richardson and Jean Stilwell up close. I'm especially excited that Judith Lander is performing an hour of songs by Kurt Weill, Jacques Brel and Stephen Sondheim, since I grew up listening to her on the original cast album of the 1972 Off-Broadway show Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill.

"Dennis Lee's Toronto" should also be fun: it's former Toronto Poet Laureate Dennis Lee's songbook of tunes that should have been written about this city throughout its history.

Patricia O'Callaghan (pictured) is especially busy. She performs a cabaret called "Heart of the Song", which traces the journey of traditional Irish folk songs through world culture (with Julia Aplin, John Gzowski, Miranda Mulholland, Andrea Nann and Joe Phillips). She also appears in a diverse range of other presentations, including one based on the songs from the musical Oliver! with musical direction by the always interesting John Millard, a Brazilian bossa nova show, an opera potpourri, and "Bohemians in Brooklyn", which visits the artists and thinkers at large in 1940s Brooklyn.

Admission to the Global Cabaret Festival ranges from $20 for single advance tickets to $108 for a pass that grants admission to six shows, plus reduced prices on others. To buy tickets and for further information, call the Young Centre box office at 416-866-8666 or visit the Global Cabaret Festival online.

Photo credit: Jason Hudson. Patricia O'Callaghan performs with Mike Ross at the 2011 Festival.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at Hart House Theatre - Review

"To be or not to be?" That's about the only important question the title characters don't ask each other in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard's clever 1966 play about what happens to two minor characters from Hamlet outside their scenes in the play. No coincidence that they come from a script best known for a soliloquy about the nature of existence and death; Stoppard's brilliant script is all about the same big questions.

Shakespeare's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are courtiers who have known Hamlet from their student days. They are recruited by the king, Hamlet's uncle, to deliver him to England along with a letter that will have him executed. However, the cunning prince exchanges the letter for one that calls for the death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern instead. In Stoppard's play, which is something like a more upbeat Waiting for Godot, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern exist between the scenes of Hamlet in a troubling universe where even the rising and setting of the sun can't be taken for granted, and action can only be precipitated by the arrival of other characters.

Their plight works as a metaphor for human existence. They seem to have no idea they're in a play, although they have occasional glimmers of recognition that there's an audience watching them. They don't know where they came from or where they're going, and although they ask a lot of questions, they find no answers. In fact, their efforts to understand their situation by means of logical deduction generally fail completely.

The play is also a loving extended joke about the nature of theatre itself (it manages to include a play-within-a-play-within-a-play, and it has a character who actually yells "Fire" in a crowded theatre.) It poses the puzzling question as to whether a performance exists if no one's there to watch, and it's bursting with quotable quips about the stage ("We're actors – we're the opposite of people!")

It's a pleasure to get a chance to see this modern classic performed, and the current Hart House Theatre production, with able direction by Matthew Gorman, is enjoyable. The cast consists largely of recent theatre school graduates, and although they lack the experience to go as far with timing and expression as the script would allow, they do occasionally soar, especially with the physical comedy.

Andrew Knowlton as Guildenstern (or Rosencrantz), who slightly resembles David Tennant, endows his character with an anxious (though futile) determination. Jim Armstrong as Rosencrantz (or Guildenstern) comes across like a young Brendan Gleeson with a touch of Samwise Gamgee, and his discomfort, slower to build, eventually rises to ill-contained panic.

David Tripp, who has something of a Ralph Fiennes look about him, is perhaps the most successful in animating his character (the Player) with intensity and putting across all the sense of his lines with coherenence and comedy. Benjamin Muir, as a Hamlet who's part Edward Cullen (from Twilight), part Joaquin Phoenix and part Adam Ant (if you remember Adam Ant), is also hilarious.

The set and lighting by Stephan Droege, whom I have long thought of as Toronto's best lighting designer, are wonderful: a jagged bit of terrain illuminated by a sun (or moon) that changes constantly into semi-recognizable images (a human brain, a flower).

In the end, is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead hopeful or depressing? On the face of it, we may all be wandering cluelessly through a nonsensical and uncontrollable universe with death our only certainty. On the other hand, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern aren't dead, really; there must hardly be an hour on this earth when someone isn't reading, rehearsing, performing or watching one of the plays they appear in. Maybe things aren't so bad after all.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead runs to October 6. For tickets, call 416-978-8849 or visit the University of Toronto box office.

Photo: The tragedians perform the play-within-the-play in the Hart House theatre production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

Theatre 20 Announces Creative Team for Debut Production

Theatre 20 has announced the creative team that will come together to produce the new company's first full production, Bloodless: The Trial of Burke and Hare by Joseph Aragon. It's a dark musical comedy loosely based on the story of two murderous 19th-century entrepreneurs who earned extra cash by selling the bodies of 17 people they'd done away with to the Edinburgh Medical College as research cadavers.

The show will be directed by Theatre 20's founding artistic director Adam Brazier, with musical direction by Jason Jestadt and creative consulting from Colm Wilkinson. Design will be by Beth Kates (sets) and Melanie McNeill (costumes), with choreography by Linda Garneau. The cast will be announced in a few days.

Theatre 20 is a new artist-led company. Its founders are the performers who've been associated with most of Toronto's biggest musical productions of the past 40 years, like Wilkinson (Les Misérables, Phantom of the Opera), Louise Pitre (Les Miz, Mamma Mia!), Brent Carver (Lord of the Rings, Kiss of the Spider Woman), Ma-Anne Dionisio (Miss Saigon) and Dan Chameroy (Beauty and the Beast).

Bloodless: The Trial of Burke and Hare runs from October 9 to 28 at the Panasonic Theatre, and is among the Mirvish presentations this season. For tickets, visit TicketKing.

(Incidentally, Theatre 20 is holding a "Name That Cadaver" contest for a pair of tickets to the press opening. Something Scottish, perhaps?)

Photo credit: Image by Ashton Doudelet and Andy Thomas.

This Year's Panto is Snow White, The Deliciously Dopey Family Musical

I know we've only just started the new school year, but is it too early to start thinking about Christmas? Because Ross Petty Productions has already announced the lineup for the annual holiday pantomime, this year titled Snow White, The Deliciously Dopey Family Musical.

The production stars Canadian Idol winner Melissa O’Neil (Belle in the 2010 Beauty and the Beast) as Snow White, with Graham Abbey (The Border) – not as Prince Charming, but "super spy 007" in what promises to be a Shrek-style fairytale mashup, without dwarves, but with other famous storybook characters like the Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood and Pinocchio. Ross Petty once again takes on the villain's role as Snow White’s evil stepmother, and Eddie Glen, a panto favourite, is his comic foil.

Snow White, The Deliciously Dopey Family Musical runs from November 23 to January 5 at the Elgin Theatre. For tickets, contact Ross Petty Productions.

Photo credit: Bruce Zinger. Left to right: Eddie Glen, Graham Abbey, Melissa O'Neil and Ross Petty.

Stratford Shakespeare Festival Announces 2013 Season

Antoni Cimolino, newly named artistic director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, today announced the festival's 2013 playbill. It includes four of the better known plays by Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Othello and Measure for Measure – as well as two musicals: Fiddler on the Roof and The Who's Tommy. The latter will be directed by Des McAnuff, who won a Tony in 1993 for his direction of a revival of the show.

Other plays on the roster are Waiting for Godot, Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward, Mary Stuart by Friedrich Schiller and The Three Musketeers, adapted by Cambridge professor Peter Raby. There are two Canadian plays in the season; one is the intriguing Taking Shakespeare by John Murrell, about two men at a loose end who are unexpectedly brought together by William Shakespeare. It will premiere in January 2013 at One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre's High Performance Rodeo in Calgary. The second is the world premiere of The Thrill by Judith Thompson, a Stratford Festival commission.

Photo: Antoni Cimolino, courtesy of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

Soulpepper Theatre's Speed-The-Plow: Review

David Mamet's Speed-The-Plow is a bitter little confection, something like a theatrical version of a Sour Patch candy. Soulpepper Theatre's production, which opened last night, is directed by David Storch and stars Ari Cohen, Jordan Pettle and Sarah Wilson.

The play's title is a reference to a Medieval poem that calls on God to "spede the plow (...) our purpose for to mak"; an apt name for a play about the battle between God or virtue and the desire for wealth and power  – specifically, in this case, in Hollywood. It's about a recently-promoted young movie producer who must choose between two proposals: a dreadful, repugnant piece of formulaic schlock that's guaranteed to make him rich, and an eminently worthy though utterly depressing book adaptation that could change lives, but which will most likely bomb at the box office.

One has to imagine that Mamet had plenty of personal experience to draw on; by the time Speed-The-Plow was produced in 1988, he had already written screenplays for The Verdict and The Postman Always Rings Twice, as well as The Untouchables and an episode of TV's Hill Street Blues. Of the three actors, Pettle (as the proponent of the violent and soulless prison film) is closest to perfecting the driving rhythmic flow of Mamet's language, as he registers his character's growing desperation at the increasingly likely prospect of being about to be destroyed by his colleague's random access of goodness.

The issues debated in Speed-The-Plow are certainly still on everyone's minds these days, almost a quarter century after its premiere. I found it in a way comforting to be reminded that a kind of generalized angst – not just every individual's uneasy apprehension of mortality, but an oblique dread of something much bigger (global warming? zombie apocalypse?) – was already in circulation in the late '80s, long before 9-11.

Presented without intermission, this production is an apt and amusing little fable that will certainly ring with painful, funny truth for anyone involved in the arts. Speed-The-Plow runs to September 22. For tickets, call 416-866-8666 or visit Soulpepper.

Photo credit: Cylla von Tiedemann. Ari Cohen (L) as Bobby Gould and Jordan Pettle (R) as Charlie Fox.

Million Dollar Quartet at Toronto Centre for the Arts: Review

It's a tricky premise for a writer to tackle: a musical comedy based on the historical chance recording session at Sun Records in 1956 when Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash all happened to be "in the building" at the very same time. Why tricky? Well, there's no hook for a storyline, or even any particular dramatic tension, or character development, or any of those other things a play's supposed to have.

In truth, Million Dollar Quartet's not really a play. Yes, writers Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux have managed to stitch together some wispy fragments of a plot: will Johnny Cash re-sign with Sun Records? Will Sun Records producer Sam Phillips leave the company for a job with Elvis at a bigger label? Is rock 'n' roll a passing fad or just a vey lucrative flash in the pan?

The most interesting of these plot shreds has to do with Phillips' talent for polishing the diamonds in the rough that came his way; we see him turning Elvis from a Dean Martin imitator into the King, and picking up Carl Perkins more or less off the sidewalk because he could see the talent shining through without the window dressing.

Ultimately, however, any production of this show is going to stand or fall on the vocal and impersonation talents of its stars, who perform all their own singing and musical accompaniment. In this production, all are capable, and they've certainly mastered the physical gestures and performance styles of the icons they're emulating.

Martin Kaye is an audience pleaser as a scrappy little terrier of a Jerry Lee Lewis at odds with the big, broad-shouldered Carl Perkins (Lee Ferris). But the most astonishing performance from the point of view of straight impersonation is Derek Keeling as Johnny Cash, whose resonant bass is uncannily note perfect.

As the cast worked its way through a roster of the "quartet"'s hits ("Blue Suede Shoes", "Great
Balls of Fire", "Folsom Prison Blues", "Hound Dog"), most of the audience ended up on their feet, clapping and dancing along. Somewhat to my surprise, so did I.

Photo credit: Jeremy Daniel. National Tour of Million Dollar Quartet (L-Rl) Martin Kaye as Jerry Lee Lewis, Lee Ferris as Carl Perkins, Chuck Zayas as Jay Perkins, Derek Keeling as Johnny Cash, Cody Slaughter as Elvis Presley.

Caribbean Dream

Speakeasy Productions is presenting a Caribbean Carnival adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Annex Theatre (730 Bathurst Street) from July 24 to 28. It coincides with Toronto Caribbean Carnival, and includes in the cast Joella Chrichton, who's won the Queen of the Bands title in the festival parade.

Adapted and directed by Marvin Ishmael, Caribbean Dream also stars well known comedian Jean Paul as Bottom, and features Katelyn McCulloch, a silks dancer and choreographer, as Puck. The production includes original music plus calypso, hip hop and rap. For tickets, call 647-938-2804.

Michael Hollingsworth's War of 1812 at Stratford

If I were to recommend one must-see production at this year's 60th season of the Stratford Festival, it would be VideoCabaret's The War of 1812 (The History of the Village of the Small Huts: 1812-1815). Not only is it timely (we've just begun a two-year period of commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the war), but it's part of an unparalleled project in Canadian theatre. The History of the Village of the Small Huts is a multi-decade series that tells the entire history of Canada in a unique manner that somewhat resembles a circus inside a shoebox viewed through a tiny peephole with a pinlight.

The visionary Michael Hollingsworth, with creative support from Deanne Taylor, has devoted much of the past 30 years to the cycle. This is the first time that it's been staged in a theatre of a magnitude that begins to approach the scope of his imaginings. Wisely, instead of recasting with Stratford regulars, this production uses veterans of VideoCabaret's distinctive acting idiom, a stylized satirical performance that demands great timing both in the sense of getting the comedic style to gel and literally, in order to be in the right place when the lights go on or off. They are Greg Campbell, Richard Alan Campbell, Richard Clarkin, Mac Fyfe, Jacob James, Linda Prystawska, Anand Rajaram and Michaela Washburn.

The brilliant (and frequently award-winning) costumes – pictured above – are by Astrid Janson with Melanie McNeill. There are astonishing wigs by Ward's Island's resident queen of coiffure Alice Norton and hyperbolic props by puppeteer Brad Harley, with set and lights by Andy Moro.

The War of 1812 runs to August 12. For tickets and further information, call l-800-567-1600 or 519-273-1600, or visit Stratford.

Photo credit: Andrew Eccles, courtesy of the Stratford Festival. Left to right: Robert King, Michaela Washburn and Wayne Best.

Anandam Dancetheatre's Divergent Dances

From July 24 to 28, the multidisciplinary and cross-cultural dance company Anandam Dancetheatre presents Divergent Dances for Walls and Windows, the second installment in their ongoing Precipice series, which explores "our relationships to each other through the lens of public space, urban architecture, participatory arts practices and gravity".

The production takes place at the Bata Shoe Museum (327 Bloor Street West), and it uses the whole building, inside and out. It even makes use of the sloping walls of the arresting building – expect to see dancers rappelling their way through the work on ropes. Divergent Dances for Walls and Windows is choreographed by company director Brandy Leary (pictured) to the compositions of James Bunton. For tickets or more information, visit Anandam.

Photo credit: Walter Lai

Eifman St. Petersburg Ballet Presents Rodin

Whoa, check out this video clip of Boris Eifman’s choreography for the ballet Rodin, which is based on the life of French sculptor Auguste Rodin (of "The Thinker" fame).

I'm usually a little cynical when I hear that a ballet is "sexy" – especially when it comes from Russia, a bastion of traditional, formal ballet. However, this one looks very fresh and energetic, and it's set to exuberantly passionate music by Saint-Saëns, Massenet and Ravel

Rodin runs from May 23 to 25 of 2013 at the Sony Centre For The Performing Arts. Tickets go on sale this year, May 26, 2012. To find out more, call 1-855-872-7669 or visit the Sony Centre.

Cavalia's Odysseo Extended to September 9

Cavalia's latest equestrian spectacle Odysseo is extending its Toronto run again due to strong ticket sales. For tickets and further information, call 866-999-8111 or visit Cavalia.

Photo by JF Leblanc.

Volunteer for The Encampment at Fort York during Luminato

From June 8 to 24, Fort York will be the setting for an ambitious installation, part of Luminato 2012, commemorating the bicentennial of the War of 1812. The Encampment is "temporal village" consisting of 200 A-frame tents (like the ones that have already been set up in the photo above). Each one will contain a visual representation of some aspect of the war’s civilian history; the site will also be animated with music, bonfires and storytelling every night.

Fort York is seeking volunteers to help out evenings from 7 to 11 p.m. during The Encampment as Heritage Hosts and Garrison Greeters, who will represent the face of Fort York. Training will be provided. To find out more, call 416-392-6907, ext. 226 or email Fort York.

The Encampment is a project of Thom Sokoloski and Jenny-Anne McCowan, and produced by Sherrie Johnson Productions

DanceWorks CoWorks Presents LINK Dance Foundation

On May 25 and 26, LINK Dance Foundation performs Experiments - where logic and emotions collide, a work about science and dance, at the Winchester Street Theatre in Cabbagetown. In an interview with Lucy Rupert, creator Gail Lotenberg says that "Each section in the dance revolves around a key fascination or area of achievement of the scientists collaborating on this project. (...) A unifying theme of the work is the abstraction that is used commonly by scientists and artists to express our deepest insights."

Part of the DanceWorks CoWorks Series, the performance is choreographed by Lotenberg to music by Jordy Walker, and incorporates the work of actual scientists, both live and via projection. For tickets and further information, contact Danceworks.

Toronto Festival of Clowns

How do you feel about clowns? If the idea of confronting 100 of them in less than a week doesn't terrify you, you'll be pleased to hear that from May 31 to June 3 the seventh annual Toronto Festival of Clowns is running at Pia Bouman Studio Theatre (6 Noble Street, near Queen West and Dufferin).

In past years, the festival has presented the work of some of this city's preeminent clowns, including John Turner (Mump & Smoot), David S. Craig, Rick Roberts, Sue Morrison, Michelle Smith and Dean Gilmour. This year, a highlight will be a work by the renowned French Master Clown Teacher Philippe Gaulier, called La gnole de Tante Christine est imbuvable (Betcha Can't Stomach Auntie Christine's Rotgut – my translation). It's in the bouffon style, which means it'll most likely be uncomfortably confrontational... which, in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, can be great.

Other performers – who will be working in a wide range of clown performance styles – include Christine Lesiak and Adam Keefe from Edmonton, and Torontonians Phil Luzi, Foo, and Morro & Jasp. A full schedule and ticket information are available at Toronto Festival of Clowns.

Photo credit: Kathleen Finlay Photography.

Cavalia Odysseo: Review

When the equestrian spectacle Cavalia made its debut in Toronto in 2003, I saw a short media preview and was charmed. But it wasn't until tonight that I had a chance to see a full show, this time a different production, called Cavalia Odysseo, which is running under an impressive giant tent on the lakeshore.

Horses are the focus of this opulent performance: 61 of them, to be exact, along with 49 two-legged performers. I had expected some sort of basic storyline, à la Cirque de Soleil, but this truly is more like a contemporary circus, with tumbling, aerial rings and silks, some song and dance, and several other acrobatic performance styles intermingled with fancy riding tricks.

The tent (which as my companion remarked, shares in common with the paradoxical Doctor Who tardis that it's much bigger on the inside), houses an absolutely enormous stage area; in particular it's so deep that there seems to be about a city block between the nearest and furthest performers.

Furthermore, it has a steep rise built into it, which adds to the sense of distance, and a vast cyclorama across the back allows for almost hallucinatory high-definition projections of huge skies, clouds, forests, deserts and mountains. These come closest to giving some narrative to the various acts, as they illustrate a progression from Mongolian steppes to African savannah to Saharan desert, and so on.

In this dreamlike wordless landscape, one of the things  that gave me the most pleasure was the costuming by Georges Lévesque and Michèle Hamel. In particular, the use of colour is stunning. In one particular section of the show ("Grand Cavalia" or "Equestrian Carrousel"), mounted riders parade solemnly in formation, wearing robes that drape the entire back of their horses. I have rarely seen a stage design so deftly composed as these outfits, in glowing burgundies, peaches, reds, golds, ochres and warm greens.

Some of the most satisfying parts of the show were the simplest, such as the interludes when a group of unbridled, unsaddled horses emerge onto the stage and move about naturally with minimal human intervention... or splash through a pool of water (as in the top photo), a blissfully basic but utterly lovely thing to watch.

I was curious about a troupe of multitalented African acrobats who also drum, dance and sing, and who are used as a kind of Greek chorus alongside the horseback activities. In the press material they seem only to be mentioned as a "troupe from Guinea", but that struck a chord with me. I did a little digging, and I believe that the group represents members of Kalabanté, a project to support basic education in Guinea through teaching circus skills.

It was founded by a charismatic self-taught acrobat called Yamoussa Bangoura; he worked for some time at Montreal's Cirque Éloize, and there formed connections with Cavalia, which is also based in Montreal. The Kalabanté ensemble is not only impressively athletic, but communicates lots of humour in a show that's more often lyrical and grand than funny. 

Cavalia continues its run until June 3. For tickets and further information, information, call 1-866-999-8111 or visit Cavalia.

Photo credits: Pascal Ratthé (Kalabanté) and François Bergeron (top image).

West Side Story at Toronto Centre for the Arts: Review

The first question you want to ask about a touring production of West Side Story is: how's the dancing? In the first national tour of the recent Broadway revival that opened tonight at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, the answer is: pretty good.

Sometimes a touring production has a shopworn look, but this one (a taut two-and-a-half hours) seemed crisp from the dissonant opening snarl of the orchestra (a respectable 20 pieces, including strings) through some of the most iconic (and demanding) dance numbers ever. This production restages the original Jerome Robbins choreography that has been imitated so often that every kick and lunge seems familiar. But the (for its time) groundbreaking "street ballet" is still exciting, robust and virile.

The storyline (based on Romeo and Juliet, as everyone knows) is sadly as potent a lesson as it was in Shakespeare's day. The virulent poison of racism infects not only the youngsters in the streets but also the cops who are supposed to be keeping order, and the few voices of reason are laughed down and abused as the violence spirals out of control to its inevitable climax. (One measure of the enduring effectiveness of the show: when the scrapping gang rivals Bernardo and Riff snapped out their switchblades in what was up to that point supposed to be an honourable fistfight, a woman a few seats down my row gasped loudly in spontaneous shock.)

Of course, the music is great too. It's become so much part of the popular imagination that even the opening theme for The Simpsons shamelessly rips it off. Leads Ross Lekites (Tony) and Evy Ortiz (Maria) – pictured above – have the vocal chops to really make the most of their big songs: "Maria" (Lekites takes his time over some really strong high notes in that one), "Tonight", "Somewhere", and (for Maria) "I Have a Love".

There were a couple of offbeat aspects to the production. The first, translating some of the dialogue and song lyrics into Spanish, made sense most of the time and added a certain feeling of authenticity to the action in Maria's home. Once or twice it was jarring. For example, when Chino arrives to break the news to Maria that there has been a gang fight, he speaks Spanish, but when he tells her the worst part of the story ("He killed your brother!"), he switches to English. This is clearly so the audience understands what's going on, but it makes no sense for the character in the context.

Also (a very minor quibble), the choice has been made to give the rival Jets and Sharks gang colours, a detail that didn't figure in the original staging, to the best of my knowledge. In the case of the Puerto Rican Sharks, it's fairly understated, but the jets wear orange accessories (especially cloth strips used as headbands, neckties and armbands, as in the photo above) that don't look quite in keeping with the rest of the design; it almost feels as though each cast member was told to go out and find something orange for their character to wear. But you know? As soon as they started dancing again I forgot about the colours.

Finally, I must say that whoever hung and focused the lights did a bang-up job, and the actors were admirably hitting their marks considering how new they are to this stage; this is a show that has a lot of lighting cues in which a bright white pool of light suddenly bathes one or two performers in order to pick them out from the rest of the action – most critically of course when Tony and Maria first spot each other on the dance floor. Every single one seemed spot-on (so to speak), and no one was lost in shadow or (almost worse) in darkness from the knees down.

The Dancap presentation of West Side Story runs at the Toronto Centre for the Arts until June 3. At the moment, tickets are only available as part of a subscription with the upcoming Beauty and the Beast and Million Dollar Quartet. To find out more, call 416-640-0172 (toll-free 1-866-950-7469) or visit Dancap.

Photos: ©Carol Rosegg 2011 – The First National Tour of West Side Story.

Just Announced: Nomanzland at Young People's Theatre

From June 15 to 17, Young People's Theatre (YPT) presents Nomanzland: Known to Police. Nomanzland (formerly known as CAST) is a youth collective based around Jane and Finch that has been working with YPT since 2008; they use poetry, rap and theatre techniques to address contemporary youth issues.

In Known to Police, resilient Jane-Finch residents face tough choices in a (semi-fictional?) dystopian non-democracy. It's recommended for ages 14 and up, contains strong language, and is being presented free of charge. For tickets and further information, call 416-862-2222 or visit Young People's Theatre.

Photo credit: Jack Frost Photography. Members of Nomanzland (Known to Police).