Goblin:Oedipus At The Stratford Festival – A Review
Goblin:Oedipus At The Stratford Festival There once was a king named Oedipus Rex. You may have heard about his odd complex. His name appears in Freud’s index ’Cause he looooved his mother. The late Tom […]
Bright Star At CAA Theatre – A Review
Bright Star At CAA Theatre Bright Star, the Steve Martin/Edie Brickell musical, was apparently not a hit on Broadway in 2016, running a mere 109 performances. In the hands of Garner Theatre Productions and their co-producers it is a substantial success at the Mirvish Company’s CAA theatre. Unfortunately, as part of Mirvish’s subscription season, it […]
Octet At Crow’s Theatre – A Review
Octet at Crow’s Theatre Octet, the a capella musical by Dave Malloy, now at Crow’s Theatre in Toronto under Chris Abraham’s direction, has received ecstatic reviews from all the critics. So why do I find myself neither shaken nor stirred? Octet is set in your typical church basement (nicely evoked by set designer Joshua Quinlan), […]
Misery At Drayton Entertainment – A Review
Misery At St Jacobs Country Playhouse I once described the fare offered by Drayton Entertainment as a welcome palate cleanser to the hoity-toity fare served up by august institutions like the Shaw and Stratford Festivals. Misery by William Goldman, adapting Steven King’s novel and movie of the same name, is the perfect case in point. […]
Tell Tale Harbour At The Royal Alexandra – A Review
Tell Tale Harbour At The Royal Alexandra I think it’s fair to say that many people in Canada hoped that Tell Tale Harbour, the new musical featuring songs by Alan Doyle, co-founder and lead singer of the Newfoundland folk-rock group Great Big Sea would prove to be the next Come From Away. Sorry to be […]
Here On The Flight Path At The Lighthouse Festival – A Review
Here On The Flight Path At The Lighthouse Festival The Lighthouse Festival in Port Dover has another hit on its hands with the revival of Norm Foster’s 1997 comedy, Here on the Flight Path. John Cummings (Reid Janisse), a 40-something divorcé who writes a newspaper column called “Cummings and Goings,” lives on the top floor […]
Ransacking Troy At The Stratford Festival – A Review
Ransacking Troy At The Stratford Festival In Ransacking Troy, a lengthy retelling of the tales told by Homer in The Iliad and The Odyssey, feminist playwright Erin Shields imagines the women of the ancient epic, frustrated by the ten-year war, taking matters into their own hands. Ransacking Troy begins with an enthusiastic Penelope (Maev Beaty) […]
Apples In Winter At Here For Now Theatre – A Review
Apples In Winter At Here For Now Theatre Apples in Winter, Jennifer Fawcett’s taut one-hour monologue now at Here For Now Theatre is not for the faint of heart. Miriam (Birgitte Solem) is making a pie for her son, Robert, which would seem to be a fairly jolly thing to be doing, until we learn […]
Radio Town At The Blyth Festival – A Review
Radio Town At The Blyth Festival Radio Town: The Doc Cruickshank Story by Nathan Howe, the last show of the Blyth Festival’s 2025 season, is a perfect example of what Blyth does best and what makes the place a Canadian national treasure. It was the dead of winter 1926 in Wingham, Ontario, just up the […]
Dangerous Liaisons At The Stratford Festival – A Review
Dangerous Liaisons At The Stratford Festival Dangerous Liaisons was a big hit for English playwright Christopher Hampton in 1985 (it won an Olivier). It has been revived regularly ever since, most recently at the Stratford Festival in 2010. Now Dangerous Liaisons once more graces the Festival Theatre stage in a somewhat uneven production under the […]