Ontario

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf At Canadian Stage I’m not a big fan of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and the new production at Canadian Stage’s Bluma Appel Theatre in Toronto did nothing to change my mind. Perhaps when it debuted in 1962 this three hour plus exercise in concentrated bitchiness seemed envelope-pushing.…

Wights at Crow’s Theatre Wights, a noble failure of a play by Liz Appel, is getting the high-tech, razzle-dazzle treatment from director Chris Abraham that’s fast becoming his signature style at Crow’s Theatre in Toronto. Despite its drawbacks, I found it well worth the schlep into T-Town. In a house in New Haven, Connecticut, a…

Heist At The Grand Theatre Playwright Arun Lakra, whose Heist is enjoying an exuberant production at the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario, is a self-confessed fan of heist movies. His favourite and the apparent inspiration for Heist is Ocean’s Eleven, the star studded caper flick of 2001. Heist, the stage play, follows the Hollywood formula:…

Dinner With The Duchess At Here For Now Theatre Playwright Nick Green made quite a splash last season at the Stratford Festival with his powerful and touching Casey and Diana. He has returned to Stratford, not to the Festival stages but to the intimate confines of Here For Now Theatre’s sylvan tent on the western…

Hedda Gabler At The Stratford Festival Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler from 1891 is one of the masterpieces of early modern theatre. It was quite shocking back then. In the production now playing at the Stratford Festival’s Tom Patterson Theatre it is more puzzling than anything else. The title role is sought after by most serious…

The Diviners At The Stratford Festival The Diviners, a classic of Canadian literature by Margaret Laurence, is being brought to grand and glorious life in a sinuous adaptation by Vern Thiessen and Yvette Nolan on the stage of the Stratford Festival’s Tom Patterson Theatre. The Diviners is a sprawling work that tells the story of…

Salesman In China At The Stratford Festival The Stratford Festival has a major hit on its hands with the transcendent, Broadway-worthy world premiere of Salesman in China, by Leanna Brodie and Jovanni Sy, directed by Sy. Now playing to full houses at the Avon Theatre, it is an imagined recreation of the events surrounding the…

London Assurance At The Stratford Festival Antoni Cimolino is perhaps the most gifted interpreter of William Shakespeare in North America. So when I saw that he was directing none of the Bard’s works this season at the Stratford Festival, I consoled myself with the knowledge that at least he would be directing London Assurance, the…

Lakefront At The Lighthouse Theatre With Lakefront, now enjoying it’s world premiere at Port Dover’s Lighthouse Festival Theatre, the prolific Norm Foster is proving that oldsters can be just as romantic – and funny – as the younger couples he has been writing about for decades. “Write what you know” is timeless advice for writers,…

With Love And A Major Organ At Here For Now Theatre Have you ever given your heart to someone? Most of us have been in love at least once in our lives, but no one gives their heart quite like the heroine of With Love and a Major Organ by Julia Lederer, the surreal, witty,…

Snow In Midsummer At The Shaw Festival The programme for Snow In Midsummer by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, now showing at the Shaw Festival’s Studio Theatre, tells me that the play is “based on the classical Chinese drama The Injustice to Dou E that Moved Heaven and Earth by Guan Hanqing.” The distinguished scholar and critic…

Sherlock Holmes And The Mystery Of The Human Heart At The Shaw Festival It is with heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these last words in which I shall ever record the singularly entertaining piffle that is Sherlock Holmes And The Mystery Of The Human Heart by Reginald Candy, now playing…

Candida At The Shaw Festival The works of George Bernard Shaw seem to be almost an afterthought these days at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, which was founded precisely to honor his considerable output. Severn Thompson’s smashing production of Candida is a bracing reminder that the Festival ignores the master at its peril. The Candida…

The Melville Boys At The Foster Festival The Melville Boys, an early play by Norm Foster, is marking its 40th anniversary with a sterling revival at The Foster Festival in St. Catherines, Ontario. The Melville Boys was Foster’s second published play and according to the Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia the one that put him on the…

Onion Skins And Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes At The Blyth Festival The Blyth Festival is capping its 50th anniversary season with Onion Skins And Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes, a vibrant and moving story of the thousands of young women who volunteered to work the fields of Ontario during the Second World War, while the farm…

Kiss Me Kate At St. Jacobs Country Playhouse I grabbed a ticket for Kiss Me Kate at Drayton Entertainment’s St. Jacobs Country Playhouse when I saw that the cast included that fabulous farceur Eddie Glen and that immense talent Neil Barclay as the gangsters. And indeed their rendition of “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” was was…

Get That Hope At The Stratford Festival Toronto’s Little Jamaica is coming apart – quite literally in Get That Hope, Andrea Scott’s earnest if somewhat shambolic play now receiving its world premiere at the Stratford Festival’s Studio Theatre. As nearby gentrification-fueled demolition causes plaster to shower down from the ceiling of their flat, the Whyte…

The Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia? At The Stratford Festival In the spirit of full disclosure let me say at the outset that I am not an Edward Albee fan. I did not expect to like The Goat Or, Who is Sylvia? now playing at the Stratford Festival’s Studio Theatre. Honesty compels me to record…

Naked Radio At Drayton Entertainment Naked Radio, the genial comedy with music enjoying a first-rate production at the Drayton Festival Theatre chronicles the travails of station WHLO (“Well, Hello!) in Middletown, a fictitious town somewhere in Ontario. Bart Dunwood (Jeff Culbert), a third-generation DJ, welcomes eager-beaver DJ wannabe Mike Young (Kaden Forsberg) to his new…

The Saviour At Here For Now Theatre Here For Now Theatre marks yet another artistic triumph with a searing production of Deirdre Kinahan’s The Saviour, featuring a tour-de-force performance by Rosemary Dunsmore. Before The Saviour begins, we see the elements of Fiona Mongillo’s simple but ingenious set grouped together and covered by a sheet. A…