Tag: theatre Page 5 of 9

Roar

On November 15, 2010

It was predicted, and it came true: I’m in definite withdrawl from the amazing experience of seeing Grinderman last week. A mad mix of shrieking guitars, creaky violin, ear-splitting feedback, thudding bass, crashing drums & scratchy cymbals (oh, and one very booming baritone) has invaded my aural -and spiritual -space. It’s been perfect in terms of creative inspiration, but has totally stymied the more mundane aspects of Good And Proper Adult Responsibility. Oh dear.

Along with getting retweeted by the band’s amazing Twitter team and looking up every single live clip I can find online, I’ve been thinking a lot about women in rock and roll. It’s no accident that this fascination coincides with my diving head-first into the work of Patti Smith. Years ago I remember music-mad broadcaster George Stroumboulopoulos wisely observating that if Patti had been born male, she’d be as well-known as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen (and, I might add, just as comfortably rich too). I think about all the crap (some deserved) Courtney Love has endured, despite the fact she’s put out some incredibly good stuff. I remember the great shows L7 used to give back in the early 90s, and how people I knew sneered and thought they were vulgar. I remember bopping along to Joan Jett and the Blackhearts as a kid and being accused of being “butch.” I enjoy all these artists as much as I enjoy Soundgarden, Led Zeppelin, and yep, Grinderman. Seeing them last week, I really have been wondering: where are the women doing this? why aren’t they being promoted? Why aren’t little girls who rock out being encouraged to… well, rock out? Somehow it feels like it goes against the image of what everyone thinks girls should do. Wear pink, like Barbies, wear makeup, and eventually, don heels. Why can’t we do all that AND rock out? (Or not do any of it but still like boys, drinks, and the rock music?) What’s the role of aggression and creativity -especially when you happen to have boobs?

It’s always been my opinion (based on direct experience) that the world doesn’t take very well to aggressive women: “butch”, “dyke”, “trashy”, “nuts”, even the eponymous “bitch” all get thrown at those women. Toronto’s urbanvessel theatre company wanted to take a closer look at this idea of women and aggression. Their show, Voice Box, was produced this past weekend in association with the city’s Harbourfront Centre (a big arts complex on the edge of Lake Ontario), and it integrates boxing with theatre and music. From the very first notice I got of this show, I was curious about the hows and whys. I interviewed Voice Box’s whip-smart writer, Anna Chatterton, at CIUT just before the show’s opening to get her insights into popular perceptions around female aggression, and how they relate to the art of getting in the ring.

Voice Box with Anna Chatterton by CateKustiAlas, I’m no closer to solving the riddle of why women aren’t making the kind of balls-out, kick-ass music that puts my stomach in knots and makes my blood do aerobics in my veins. But then, I suppose, there’s another argument that, if I enjoy it (like so many women do), that’s enough. But is it? Hmmm. Pop music has its fair share of male-female ratios in terms of performers (their presentation and marketing is a whole separate argument); why not rock and roll?

Dear Grinderman, please think about having Patti sing a number with you. I can hardly wait for her version of “No Pussy Blues”.

Blowing Leaves

By Catherine Kustanczy

On September 27, 2010

In opera

Much to my horror, I don’t think I’m going to be able to get to see this before it closes on Sunday.

I’d been so anxious to catch this particular play, especially since it features two of my very-favorite actors: the amazing Nicholas Campbell (who you might know from the long-running TV series Da Vinci’s Inquest) and veritable force of nature Maria Vacratsis (from Little Mosque on the Prairie). The two-hander work is directed by the utterly-talented Phillip Riccio, who makes up one-half of the ridiculously good Company Theatre group; the other half is the brilliant Allan Hawco, star of CBC TV’s Republic of Doyle (I’m hoping for a Q&A with him in the coming months -stay tuned), who appeared with Campbell in the company’s last production, a jaw-dropping production of Festen, that, even two years on, remains seared into my brain for its sheer…genius. Three words for the Company Theatre: they kick ass.

Nicholas Campbell Returns To The Stage by CateKusti

I had the amazing good fortune of interviewing both Campbell and Riccio a couple weeks back, amidst the madness of the Toronto International Film Festival. With all the starry/film-y chaos ensuing, there was something weirdly soothing about speaking to thee two talented men about a little-known (if awfully good) theatre work; it was like standing still on solid ground after so many days of trying to jog in an earthquake. Their insights on the play’s exploration of male-female relations, something I’m continually fascinated by, was especially enlightening.

That sense of displacement vanished as soon as the pair left the studio, and I’m sad to say I haven’t been able to see their production of Through the Leaves, which closes October 3rd. With more madness on the near horizon, I’m hoping to make time. The Company Theatre always demands that -and rewards with memories that last forever. No kidding.

Inside Looking Out

By Catherine Kustanczy

On August 23, 2010

In music

The latest offering from Soulpepper Theatre Company‘s venerable Academy is the lovely, whimsical work Window on Toronto. With a mix of movement, dialogue, and music, the show is a brisk 50-minute dip into the world of the Big Smoke through the eyes -make that window -of a hot dog vendor parked at Toronto’s City Hall.

While director Laszlo Marton states in the program notes that “I love Toronto” and the show has its focus in the Canadian city, in watching the work, it’s entirely conceivable that the series of scenes and vignettes presented could be from any large urban area. There’s a beautiful universality to the range of people and experiences that Marton and the Academy present to us, from the surreal to the gross to the touching; everything one might experience over the course of a day, a month, a year, in a city is here, if only we look.

A big part of this emotional resonance comes from the huge range of characters the eight-member troupe play: flirty girls, corporate Bay Street types, homeless people, workmen, yuppies, activists, musicians, immigrants, eccentrics, even friendly fast-food competition. They’re all here, refreshingly free of predictable stereotypes. The choice of using the music of Aram Khachaturian further conveys the international flavour of the work. After all, there are any number of local, beloved bands that could’ve stepped up (Broken Social Scene, anyone?) but with Marton at the helm, Window On Toronto takes on a uniquely worldly air. Yes, it is intended to be squarely in Toronto, but… it’s really everywhere.

The show maintains the Hungarian director’s European flair for timeless imprecision -which, in turn, gives Toronto a kind of European quality (take that, Montreal!). The famous “Saber Dance” is played a few times as cast members hurriedly move back and forth, in circles, up, down, and whirling into pace, within the frame of the vendor’s window, though the show starts simply enough, with raindrops covering the window. Marton adds a nice, meta-theatrical touch, by having the vendor himself (Jason Patrick Rothery, named, appropriately, “Jason”) sit in the front row seat, in effect becoming the audience to a continuous cavalcade of drama, comedy, and absurdity that unfolds before him over the course of a year.

That cavalcade includes a series of recurring, and deeply fascinating, characters. These include a Korean immigrant (played by Ins Choi) who befriends the vendor, and regularly comes around, first to introduce his wife, and later, his baby. There’s a braided flirty girl who loves sauerkraut (Karen Rae). There’s a quietly menacing man on a bike who comes to the window, looks around the window, silently takes notes, and rides off (Gregory Prest). There’s a lawyer-type who keeps our fearless vendor apprised of the ever-changing social situation, and leaves with a mantra-like “call me!” (Brendan Wall). There’s a hungry-looking woman in a hijab with a baby in her arms (Tatjana Cornij). There’s a protestor with hurting eyes (Ryan Field). There’s a potential love interest (Raquel Duffy) whose own pregnancy offers a quietly poignant moment. There’s a gay couple (who display remarkable “skating” skills during the winter scene, which comes complete with Strauss music to accompany). There are also impressive musical interludes performed by the cast. Touching on mime and even commedia traditions, these interludes aren’t so much diversions as they are vignettes in and of themselves. The play of colour, light, and shadow in these moments is truly inspiring, and offers some poetic grace amidst the urban hustle, in the same way that stopping and sitting on a park bench in Nathan Phillips Square -or any piazza – might.

Director Marton, together with designer Ken Mackenzie, gracefully make use of the small square in the middle of the stage, utilizing all manner of colour, texture, light, and shape. Faces, bodies, and various objects (except, interestingly, food or money) are placed in and around the frame, offering us a small peek at the world. White gloves pop up in one vignette, with thumbs and forefingers acting as hungry mouths. Eyes peek from around the top sides. What’s shown is every bit as interesting as what isn’t; bikes go by, people rollerblade, there are shouts and laughs and various bits of drama that remind us about all the untold stories in any given urban area. With one small window, Mackenzie effectively conveys the vast expanse of the space around City Hall through one heck of a great design that incorporates a number of different elements. For instance, when a piano is (mistakenly) delivered to the vendor, it’s conveniently used in that particular vignette, and in subsequent scenes, both within and without the frame proper. Its music echoes past the walls of the set, going past a visual experience of theatre and embracing an intimate aural one. Never has the music of the city seemed so obvious or lovely.

Along with noise and energy, there are moments of quiet and contemplation. There’s something enchanting in these moments -past the comedy, the chaos, and the bustle. It’s like a reminder to all of us who rush between emails, Starbucks, meetings, and bars: just stop, sit, listen, and look at the world around you. Maybe you’ll chomp on a hot dog. Listen, look, feel. It’s so simple. That is the magic of Window On Toronto, and indeed, of urban life everywhere.

What She Wore

By Catherine Kustanczy

On July 24, 2010

In movies

Clothing is a personal thing for many women. That material intimacy is something the Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron understand very well.

The award-winning duo, who’ve penned some of my favorite movies (including Nora’s “When Harry Met Sally“), have brought their award-winning play Love, Loss, And What I Wore to Toronto. It runs at the cozy Panasonic Theatre through the end of the summer. A portion of ticket sales will, appropriately, benefit Dress For Success, a fantastic charity that provides professional services (including attire) to disadvantaged women. What a perfect fit.

The Ephrons’ monologue-style play features a collection of stories that connect certain outfits with special, significant life moments. There’s the story of wedding dresses, sexy boots, and the joys (or not) of purses, the challenges of mothers, the pangs of body types, and the perfection that is “BLLAAACK!”. It’s all melded together with happy/sad/bittersweet/funny flavours. Performers Andrea Martin, Mary Walsh, Louise Pitre, Sharron Matthews and Paula Brancati do a truly fantastic job of combining the happy and the sad with equal dollops of grace, charm, wit, and sensitivity.

I asked the Toronto-based actor and performer Sharron Matthews about her thoughts around clothing, creativity, and cabaret recently. She has a long history of performance, with everything from Les Miserables to Mean Girls on her resume, and is a positively radiant stage presence. Her responses are very enlightening and refreshingly honest. Enjoy.

Which aspects of Love, Loss, And What I Wore do you most relate to?

That is a hard question. Not because I don’t feel like I relate, but because the things that I seem to relate to are a bit challenging for me to acknowledge. My first monologue is about a child losing a parent and when the material assignments were sent out I was hoping and dreading that I might get this piece. I lost my dad when I was very young and it had a huge impact on my family. I also talk a lot about my weight, now it fluctuates and how hard being a big girl can be. I was a bit nervous about doing these pieces as well but the more I read them the more I thought, “Well, these are truthful and this a group of women that needs to be represented in fabulousness as well as in hardship.”

Why do you think so many women associate clothing with other things? Do you think women are more prone to association (& connection) than men?

I think that women are more ‘collectors’ then men are: (of) shoes, jackets, purses. Men don’t have as many accessories as we do, as a rule. Some of us have closets that are like art galleries… I know I do… featuring shoe boxes with pictures of the shoes on them. And yes, I do think we are more prone to association and connection. We are also, for the most part, more sentimental. We see “a shirt that a wore on my first job interview, the day I was hired to begin my career”…and men see a shirt. I think that it can be a sensual thing, the feel of a fabric or the smell but is also a sense-memory thing… we feel something and we sometimes be in that place again… recalling our emotions.

How much has your other work, specifically in TV and film, has been useful in doing the Ephrons’ work?

Though I have worked in TV and film -of course not as much as Paula, Mary and Andrea -I think that my work in cabaret, as a storyteller has been my greatest asset with the stories in Love, Loss And What I Wore. I feel right at home in this piece. The audience is present and a part of the piece and the stories are brief… like a song.

Define ‘cabaret’ as it is, now. What does it mean to you? What do you think it means to audiences of the 21st century?

I went online to look for some definitions of cabaret. They are all very dry and general: “a form of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue.” I recently did a cabaret that was a part of the Young Centre’s Saturday Night Cabaret Series and (their) description is one of my favourites: ”Cabaret is a combination of intimacy, personality, and social contact.”

So my definition of cabaret is a evening of musical storytelling including themes that are universal and accessible, but challenging at the same time. I love cabaret. It is the way I best feel (able to) express myself and really explore my creativity and my artistic voice.

I also think that cabaret can be performed “intimately” in a huge theatre. (It) is an art form that is not fully recognized in Canada.

To some, the word ‘cabaret’ conjures up images of singers belting out “My Way” in gold lame outfits . I am slowly trying to change that perception. I believe that cabaret is a journey, not the picture I just described. It is a form of storytelling to me. A way of breaking down the fourth wall an reaching out to people.

Stage or screen -what’s your favorite?

Having done screen work, I have a huge respect for people who work in film and TV day in and day out. Film acting is a true skill and the people who do it well are artists as well as technicians. I enjoy the spontaneity that is the stage. It is so live in front of an audience and you can never be totally sure what is going to happen. I like to feel an immediate response to what I do… it fuels me to move forwards. I love the stage.

Mixing Past and Present

By Catherine Kustanczy

On April 11, 2010

In opera

As regular Play Anon readers know, I really love theatre, though I must confess, much of it doesn’t touch me, way, way down in that murky sub-world of real, lived experiences and ghost-like memory very often. Where The Blood Mixes is different. The work, penned by Kevin Loring and on now at Toronto’s Factory Theatre through April 18th, is the story of a native Indian community and the memories that haunt its inhabitants. Set during the salmon run at the meeting point of the Fraser and Thompson Rivers, the work offers a riveting look at one community’s attempts to come to grips with its tragic past. Alternately funny, sad, irreverent and thought-provoking, it’s one work you won’t easily forget, particularly if you have a lot of ghosts wafting around the dusty parlour of a forlorn past.

Floyd (Billy Merasty) and Mooch (Ben Cardinal) are longtime friends who are also native survivors of the horrific residential school system. Director Glynis Leyshon cleverly uses the long Factory stage to transfer between time, memories places, and character experiences. Robert Lewis’ clever stage design is wonderful in conveying easy locale shifts between the outdoors and indoors, and the outer and inner lives of the characters. Live guitarist Jason Burnstick sits to one side, offering musical counterpoint to to the action; he’s a deeply gifted player and intuitive artist, though his additions occasionally muddle or make maudlin scenes that are better left in silence. Still, Burnstick’s music is a compelling complement to Loring’s beautiful writing; each works in harmony to render the tender hurts of past and present with careful precision and delicate feeling.

I’m not native, but I definitely, deeply related to twin themes of abandonment and reunion in Where The Blood Mixes. Loring uses contemporary native history in tandem with family drama to devastating, moving effect. I caught myself sighing wistfully during the scene in which Floyd’s wide-eyed, city-dwelling daughter Christine (Kim Harvey) confronts her father after years of separation. It was all so familiar: I made a journey myself years ago to see a father I was estranged from, with a similarly curious attitude. Floyd’s embarrassment, shame, guilt, and halting awkwardness were eerily, painfully familiar to me, as was Christine’s eagerness, vulnerability, courage, hurt, and longing. Actors Merasty and Harvey beautifully capture the ties that bind, the wounds that separate, and the blood that inevitably mixes between generations, cultures, histories, and experiences. This is theatre at its most powerful, honest, and cathartic.

Beyond the personal sphere however, Where The Blood Mixes is an important piece of theatre for many reasons: its questions around the quality and future of contemporary native life ring as true as ever, and its exploration of Canadian native history as it relates to the present is grippingly, tragically real. Loring’s writing, together with Leyshon’s masterful direction and a uniformly strong cast, makes this work one of the must-sees of the 2010 Toronto theatre season. Just make sure you bring lots of tissues.

Where the Blood Mixes runs to April 18th as part of Performance Spring 2010 at Toronto’s Factory Theatre.

walk good, children

By Catherine Kustanczy

On March 27, 2010

In poetry

Director/Playwright ahdri zini mandiela‘s moving theatre work who knew grannie? a dub aria is currently on at Toronto’s Factory Theatre. I went to the show unsure of what to expect; I had seen mandiela’s other work (notably her inspired direction of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the 25th anniversary of the Canadian Stage Company) and I was also aware she’d founded the ground-breaking b current Performing Arts Company.

Now, I’d been told grannie is “more of a song” than a formal play. Well, what a beautiful song -and what a delightful, wholly satisfying, of theatre it is! Exploring ideas around family, community, loss, and black identity in the 21st century, the work carefully, masterfully incorporates musical elements into its rich, poetic dialogue; it reminded me of Beat poetry, of jazz, of Caribana, of church, of things intimate and epic and singularly, defiantly boundary-crossing -all elements that, to my mind, should be playing a part in humming the tune of contemporary Canadian theatre.

Characters like the bespecled likklebit (Miranda Edwards), the cellphone-addicted vilma (Andrea Scott), yuppie kris (Marcel Stewart), and rebel tyetye (Joseph Pierre), as well as grannie herself (Ordena) are all well-drawn and eagerly performed. Despite their different journeys, mandiela has created a vital thread of connection running between them, a thread that’s given physical manifestation in the form of multi-coloured lines of cord running across the Factory’s wide stage expanse. Used alternately as clothing lines, cages, lines of demarcation and nationality, Julia Tribe’s inspired design is a beautiful compliment to mandiela’s writing and direction, demonstrating the twin notions of separation and connection, distance and intimacy, past and present (and even future) all at once.

Combined with the live percusison of Amina Alfred, who knew grannie: a dub aria is masterful, moving theatre that salutes the past (be it conventions, generations, people or places) while moving boldly into new, exciting realms of performance possibility and the outer reaches of the human heart. I had the opportunity of interview ahdri zhina mandiela about the work; her answers are, unsurprisingly, every bit as poetic as her show.

What inspired who knew grannie: a dub aria? Was it a specific person, or situation?

the aria is inspired by my mother, who is the eldest daughter of her mother, the grannie on whom the central character is based. my mother is in her mid-80’s and may pass on soon; this is my way of facing that impending loss.

How did you decide on the show’s format? Was music always a major part of it?

as a performance poet, most, if not all, of my writing is poetry, and the musicality of language has always been present in my work. this piece demanded that the music be highlighted in the telling of who knew grannie; hence the coining of the term ‘dub aria’.

How does the language inform and shape the narrative and characters?

verbal language is just one of the communication principles in the narrative. emotional language, language of space & movement are others; each contribut(es) to shaping the characters’ personalities, journeys, and interactions.

Why did you include drums?

the ‘languages’ needed to have their music highlighted/enhanced/embellished.

plus, the drum is a primal musical instrument, and very much represents grannie’s voice: that’s the musical instrument she would play if she was a ‘musician’.

Who is this for?

everyone: we all have a grannie still living or on the other side. and we all have some memories of relating to a grannie or grandmother figure.

who knew grannie: a dub aria runs at the Factory Theatre in Toronto through April 4th.

A Toe-Tapping War

By Catherine Kustanczy

On March 23, 2010

In music

“WAR! HUH! WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? ABSOLUTELY NUTHIN’!”

So sang Edwin Starr, and later Bruce Springsteen. War is hell, yes, but how do you translate that onstage without pummeling your audience with a pile of sloganeering and agitprop? British playwright Joan Littlewood confronted this question when she set out to write a work about World War One. Back in 1963, memories of “the Great War” -to say nothing of WW2 -were still fresh, and there were plenty of veterans about to share tales. Littlewood was never exactly a conformist; determined to go to America as a young woman, she tried to walk from Liverpool to the sea dock, but collapsed after 130 miles. Having already directed and starred in the well-received British premiere of Brecht‘s Mother Courage and Her Children, Littlewood, like many theatre artists of her time, was sick of the chest-strutting proud model of British military excellence in the First World War, but seeking a creative way of staging her ideas.

Working with longtime love Gerry Raffles, radio producer Charles Chilton, and the rest of her theatre company, Oh, What A Lovely War made its debut in March 1963. The work, carefully monitored by government officials, was a huge hit and opened on Broadway the following year, where it garnered four Tony nominations. It’s unique for the ways it combines dance, song, drama, clowning, and vaudeville. Yes, you read that right: clowns are in a war drama. What starts out as an innocent celebration turns into something considerably darker by the piece’s end. Deeply theatrical and unrepentantly musical, generations of directors have longed to staged it, and now Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre gives it a go, using current members of their Academy to flesh out Littlewood & Co’s vision. Soulpepper Artistic Director Albert Schultz has staged the piece with an eye to times past and present, using white Pierrot-like costumes and the Academy’s considerably musical talents to create a heightened world that seems strangely familiar.

I had the chance to interview cast and Academy members Raquel Duffy and Brendan Wall about the challenges of the production, as well as the play’s incredible staying power.

What was the hardest part of Oh, What A Lovely War? It isn’t ‘realistic’ in any sense and yet you have to bring a lot of truth to the roles you play.

Brendan: One of the most difficult things for me to embrace with this play is the fact that we all play very particular –and sometimes isolated -pieces of an elaborate puzzle. The whole picture and its effect on the audience is something that I’m not ever fully aware of. This is a show, perhaps more so than any other, where I have no idea what it’s like to sit in the audience and experience from beginning to end. I’d love to watch this show.

Raquel: The most challenging part of the piece for me was working out the technical aspects of transitions – both on a physical level and mentally. Jumping from scene to scene, all of which carry very specific and varying energies or, for lack of a better word, ‘moods’, and not letting the effect of one spill into the other. The convention of us all being a group of “performers” helped me deal with the fact that we aren’t attempting to make the piece realistic as much as we are attempting to tell the story as clearly as possible.

What sort of direction did Albert Schultz give you in terms of balancing the music with the work’s other elements?

Brendan: Albert and Marek Norman (the show’s Musical Director) had a beautiful working dynamic. Both aspects of the storytelling -the music and scenes –influenced each other. I always felt like I was in good hands. I think I play a half a dozen characters and a half a dozen instruments in this show, and I certainly don’t stop moving once the curtain goes up. There are moments where a scene is being played out and a single chord is struck and it crystallizes the whole essence of what’s going on. The play grew out of these songs.

Raquel: Both (Albert and Marek) wanted the songs sung by the soldiers to be less ‘musical’ -by that I guess I mean the songs still have historical context or a sense of the period. We did a lot of research regarding how these songs came about. It was very common for the soldiers to sing while spending endless hours in the trenches; for example, the song set to “Auld Lang Syne” only has the lyrics “we’re here because we’re here because we’re here, because we’re here.”

How timely a piece did you think this is? Littlewood’s work feels very tame by today’s standards, even quaint. How did you give the work immediacy?

Brendan: I have two young sons and I’d like them to live in a world where the notion of war is something that is only seen on a stage as a quaint piece of theatre from bygone days. I can’t think of a timelier piece. As for the show being tame or quaint, yes it is at times -that’s an important part of the show. A play that screams at the top of its lungs about how war’s is bad is not telling us anything new. I think we always have to be mindful in the theatre that we’re here to entertain first and that only by doing that can’t we hope to have any effect on our audience.

Raquel: In my head I hear the phrase, ‘Lest We Forget’. It was very different from the war we are presently engaged in and yet there are a number of parallels that I believe the audience will recognize. The piece was formed through a collective and we’ve embraced that through all of us playing various instruments, making the gunshot noises, moving the set…I think the idea of a group of players trying to tell the story of that war through the convention of a music hall lends itself to being as present as possible.

Who is this for in the 21st century?

Brendan: First and foremost, this play is for anyone who wants to see a great ensemble of artists working and playing together to create an entertaining evening of theatre. This play is also for my two little boys who, at the age of five and two, know too much about war in that they know anything at all.

Raquel: We lost our last Canadian World War I Vet while we were rehearsing this project. He spent his life trying to keep the history of that War alive. I feel this piece carries his legacy forward.

Oh, What A Lovely War runs through April 2nd. Check the Soulpepper website for details.

Boldly Going…

By Catherine Kustanczy

On March 16, 2010

In opera

The Canadian Stage Company announced its 2010-2011 season this morning. Its Artistic and General Director, Matthew Jocelyn, is embracing a new approach for the company, one he hopes will help to re-define the company and its mandate over the 21t century; one might even suppose Jocelyn, Canadian-born but mainly French-employed, is trying to re-define the Canadian theatrical landscape with his bold, unique choices. In looking over the release , there’s something undeniably refreshing about this kind of vision: worldly, unapologetic, broad and arty. It remains to be seen whether Toronto audiences will embrace this vision, but it’s nonetheless heartening to see this kind of chutzpah within the cliquey world of Toronto theatre.

Jocelyn aims to “redefine Canadian Stage as a home not only for great Canadian and international plays, but also for trans-disciplinary theatre that pushes the boundaries of convention and reflects a resolutely 21st century aesthetic.” That aesthetic includes featuring the work of Quebec native -and theatre visionary – Robert LePage in the 2010-2011 season. LePage’s The Andersen Project will be making its Toronto debut in October; according to the release, it’s “a modern-day multimedia fairytale” that is based on the work of Hans Christian Andersen. LePage? Andersen? Sounds like all kinds of mad, manic magic. I was bowled over by the artistry LePage brought to The Nightingale at the Canadian Opera Company last October, and though The Andersen Project isn’t new (it was commissioned by Denmark in 2005 to mark the 200th anniversary of the famous writer’s birth), there’s always something so inspiring and fresh about seeing LePage’s work in Toronto. It feels as if he’s bringing a European sensibility that Toronto, for all its talk of being a “world-class city”, is still deathly afraid of truly embracing.

Come November is the multimedia production Studies in Motion: The Hauntings of Eadweard Muybridge by the Electric Company Theatre, featuring the poetic choreography of accomplished Canadian dancer Crystal Pite. Quebecois dancer Edouard Locke will also be part of the Canadian Stage season with his grond-breaking La La La Human Steps company in as-yet-untitled work set to premiere in May 2011. (You might recall La La La worked with David Bowie in the 1980s.) I love the fearless combination of dance and drama here; again, it’s a European approach to theatre (and its integration of other artforms) that is indicative of the kind of worldly thinking Jocelyn’s experience (mainly with Atelier du Rhin) entails.

That experience also lends itself to reaching out to Canada’s national arts organization. Thus, the National Arts Centre‘s English Theatre head honcho Peter Hinton arrives in 2011 to direct Saint Carmen of the Main by Michel Tremblay; the work is a co-production with the NAC and runs February 7th to March 5th. Canadian dynamo Jennifer Tarver will also be directing for Canadian Stage. She might be best-known outside of Canadian theatre circles for her celebrated production of Beckett’s craggily moving work Krapp’s Last Tape featuring Brian Dennehy that ran in Stratford and then Chicago. Come April 2011, she’ll be helming the Canadian premiere of The cosmonaut’s last message to the woman he once loved in the former Soviet Union, by David Greig. The work was first produced at the Edinburgh Festival in 1999 and went on to run at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego and the Donmar Warehouse in London. Now there’s a play with passport cred to burn.

Along with smaller productions at the Berkeley Street Theatre (the smaller stage used by the Canadian Stage Company) involving local companies like Nightwood and Studio 180, the Berkeley will also host a Spotlight On Italy series March 15th through 26th, 2011. Programming is totally intriguing, and includes many works that won’t be familiar to Canadian theatre audiences. Nunzio and La Festa, two award-winning plays from Sicily’s Compagnia Scimone Sframeli will see productions, along with the dance theatre of la natura delle cose by Florence’s Compagnia Virgilio Sieni, whose Artistic Director, Virgilio Sieni, has twice received the UBU prize, Italy’s top theatre award.

“The Spotlight Festival,” notes Jocelyn, “demonstrates (the Canadian Stage Company’s) commitment to showcasing some of the most extraordinary international companies that challenge the classical notions of theatre.” I can hear some Canadian arts types moaning that we already have companies that do that -but how much more can they -and we -learn by including the works of others within our own diaspora? Culturally, they inform our “Canadian-ness” every bit as much as works by Michel Tremblay, David French, Judith Thompson, Florence Gibson, George F. Walker, and the myriad of other playwrights who are studied and produced across this country. If the 1960s and 70s were all about establishing a distinctly Canadian voice, the 21st century is about seeing how much that voice can sing with other voices -in harmony, or not. Will audiences go for it? That remains to be seen. But it’s surely good to see Jocelyn’s vision of the Canadian Stage Company going above and beyond the predictable, the safe, and the well-worn. It’s time for something new. Welcome to the world, Toronto. I think you’re going to like it.

Eternal Factory

By Catherine Kustanczy

On March 15, 2010

In video

Toronto’s Factory Theatre announced their 41st season today, with works by puppeteer Ronnie Burkett, playwrights Anusree Roy and Adam Pettle, and the Factory’s Ken Gass featured as part of the program.

Also included is the incredible Eternal Hydra by Anton Piatigorsky. I loved this Crow’s Theatre piece when it premiered in Toronto last spring. As the video piece I hosted and co-produced (for Lucid Media) demonstrates, Piatigorsky’s play is challenging, but it doesn’t abandon emotional interaction entirely, either. Rather, it nicely balances the head and the heart within a fascinating, Borges-esque piece of existential drama that touches on questions of creativity, authenticity, and identity. Eternal Hydra won a bevy of Dora Awards (Toronto’s equivalent to the Tonys) back in June, and for those who didn’t get the chance to see it at Buddies In Bad Times Theatre last year… well, get thee to Factory. It’s going to be a great season.

Think, Do, Talk

By Catherine Kustanczy

On March 9, 2010

In opera

So many things can drive friends apart: time, maturity, distance. Sometimes people grow apart gradually; other times, they are driven apart, taking refuge in their respective intransigent poles. Either way, it’s always sad. Canadian playwright Michael Nathanson has dramatized this split with his 2007 play, Talk, currently running in Toronto at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts. The production is a thoughtful, insightful piece of theatre that is deceptive for its naturalistic style and chatty structure. Produced by the Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company, the work is both confrontational (in that you’ll be forced to re-examine your own beliefs) and inspirational (in so far as you may want to call up long-lost friends). In Nathanson’s work, it’s not so much circumstance but politics that drives a wedge between two men who’ve been friends for 18 years. A simple -or not-so-simple, depending on your viewpoint –word used by Gordon’s new girlfriend causes a rift that leads to a wide, seemingly insurmountable chasm. The varying reactions of the pair to the word’s use proves to be the unraveling of the friendship. Was it inevitable? Was the political situation of the Middle East the sleeping leviathan lying between the pair, awaiting its summons in the form of a (never-seen) woman?

Nathanson doesn’t answer these questions, but he does give us clues. Talk, for all its talking, is not merely a tough examination of Mid-East politics; it’s a close exploration of the ebbs and tides of the relationship between two men, of ways hidden currents move and shift through time and experience. The playwright muses on what might’ve occurred had Josh, the Jewish character, chosen not to express his concerns when he was able to, at the pair’s initial reuniting following Gordon introducing his lady love. As we see in small, simple gestures, even if Josh had decided to hold his tongue, the friendship would still come apart, albeit in a more pernicious, painfully slow way.

Director Ted Dykstra inherently understands the heart that beats behind the angry, passionate political arguments; it’s a heart that the two men share, but which is destined to crack in two. With carefully considered blocking, a simple, elegant design and dramatic, clear lighting (both by Steve Lucas), the characters’ various feelings and reactions (expressed both inwardly and outwardly) are expressed as the two try to hammer out common ground while, on some level, knowingly smashing the continental coastlines of difference. Performers Kevin Bundy (as Gordon) and Michael Rubenfeld (as Josh) give genuinely passionate, moving performances as the two longtime buddies whose conflicts are both personal and political in nature.

Nathanson, who is also a producer with the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre Company, spoke about the writing of the play in the post-performance discussion I attended, and while he shied away from admitting the play is based on actual experience, he did say its events were inspired by the fall-out he and a friend had over an email that he’d been sent after 9/11. The incident forced him to consider what comes to be a major thematic motif of the play: “At what point, as a Jew, do I say, ‘You can’t do this’?” The choice that faces Josh -to speak or not to speak -is one that haunts the entire work, and it gives Talk a certain bittersweet flavor that’s similarly reflected in the choice to leave Gordon’s new girlfriend unseen. This technique renders the character (and her perceived influence over Gordon) all the more powerful, if equally mysterious; how much is Josh’s outrage political, and how much is pure jealousy? As Nathanson reminded us in the discussion, director Dykstra approached the work as a love story, which it unquestionably is: the deep vein of friendship that binds, however, also divides. It’s a line neither man seems willing to step across by the work’s end. You’ll leave thinking not only about the world politics that can -and do -divide people, but about personal politics that leave terrible scars.

Talk runs at the Jane Mallett Theatre / St. Lawrence Centre in Toronto through March 20th.