The Team on the Hill at The Blyth Festival – A Review
The Team on the Hill at The Blyth Festival The Blyth Festival scores another hit with their production of The Team On The Hill by Canada’s beloved Dan Needles. When it comes to life on the farm, Needles knows whereof he speaks. Needles, the scion of Canadian theatre royalty and something of a national treasure, […]
Twelve Angry Men at Drayton Entertainment – A Review
Twelve Angry Men, is receiving a stunning, Broadway-quality production from Drayton Entertainment under the direction of Marti Maraden.
The Ladykillers at The Shaw Festival – A Review
The Ladykillers at The Shaw Festival The original “mandate” of The Shaw Festival was to produce the work of the eponymous playwright. That was broadened to include any work written in his lifetime, which conveniently enough was quite long (he died in 1950). Eventually, that was tweaked to allow new Canadian plays to be showcased. […]
The Russian Play at The Shaw Festival – A Review
The Russian Play at The Shaw Festival A “like-a-joke” is a dismissive term of art in the world of TV sitcoms. It denotes a snippet of dialog that is structured like a joke, that is recognized as a joke, that triggers the laugh track, but that is not actually funny. To my way of thinking […]
Hilda’s Yard at The Foster Festival – A Review
Hilda’s Yard at The Foster Festival After mounting The Writer, Norm Foster’s newest play and something of a departure for the prolific playwright, The Foster Festival returns to more familiar ground with its revival of his cockeyed comedy, Hilda’s Yard. Set in 1956, in the backyard of the Hilda […]
Sex at The Shaw Festival – A Review
Sex at The Shaw Festival I have wanted to see the 1926 play Sex ever since, as a Mae West-besotted undergraduate, I first became aware of its existence. Mae wrote, produced, directed, and starred in it and went to the slammer because of it. Who wouldn’t want to see it? Thanks to Peter Hinton-Davis and […]
The Glass Menagerie at The Shaw Festival – A Review
The Glass Menagerie at The Shaw Festival The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee William’s 1944 memory play (and the one that established him as a major playwright) is receiving a thrilling production at The Shaw Festival. Directed by Hungarian director László Bérczes in the intimate Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre, it features four nearly flawless performances that may […]
Jumbo At The Blyth Festival – A Review
Jumbo At The Blyth Festival Few people associate P. T. Barnum with southern Ontario. Yet one of the most traumatic events of his storied career occurred in St Thomas, a city not far from the shores of Lake Erie. There, in 1885, during a Canadian tour, his circus’s prize African elephant, Jumbo, was killed by […]
The Writer At The Foster Festival – A Review
The Writer At The Foster Festival Norm Foster, Canada’s most prolific and most produced playwright, is known primarily for light comedies that often have a tinge of sadness running just beneath the surface, as was the case with Jonas and Barry In The Home, which I saw last year. The Writer, his latest play now […]
Cakewalk at The Blyth Festival – A Review
Cakewalk at The Blyth Festival The mission of the Blyth Festival in tiny Blyth, Ontario, is to produce new Canadian work on rural themes. That might seem a tough nut to crack, but they’ve been at it successfully for 45 years now and the quality of the plays I’ve seen has been remarkable. Not everything […]