Village Wooing At The Shaw Festival Each season, at the Royal George Theatre, the Shaw Festival presents a short one-act play at lunchtime. This year it’s George Bernard Shaw’s rather slight two-hander, Village Wooing. Village Wooing is a trifling piece – Shaw called it a “comedietta.” It is receiving a
Myth Of The Ostrich at Here For Now Theatre When I saw Liars at a Funeral at the Blyth Festival, I thought I had seen the funniest show of the 2023 season. Matt Murray’s 2014 comedy Myth of the Ostrich, in a dream of a production at Stratford’s Here For
Outlaw at the Foster Festival Norm Foster’s Outlaw, is not a new play, but its setting and subject matter were new to me, quite unlike any Foster play I have previously seen. Instead of contemporary middle-class suburban Canadians, Outlaw gives us three pistol-packing Americans in Kansas in the years after
Sticks and Stones at the Blyth Festival The Blyth Festival’s ambitious plan to stage all three installments of James Reaney’s so-called Donnelly Trilogy is off to an impressive start with Sticks and Stones. It is artfully abridged, adapted, and directed by artistic director Gil Garratt, and presented at the magical
Richard II At The Stratford Festival For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings. Before I get to Jillian Keiley’s and Brad Fraser’s Frankenstein monster of an adaptation – a “revolutionary” adaptation no less – of William Shakespeare’s Richard II,
Wizard of Oz: The Panto at Drayton Wizard of Oz: The Panto at Drayton Entertainment’s Huron Country Playhouse in Grand Bend, Ontario, is keeping a beloved tradition alive. When impresario Ross Petty announced his retirement in 2019 after Peter’s Final Flight, there was a danger that pantomime might fade from
Tootsie on Broadway Tootsie, currently playing at Broadway’s Marquis Theatre, is a musical comedy that’s strong on the comedy and surprisingly weak on the musical side of the equation. Based on the 1982 film starring Dustin Hoffman, Tootsie tells the tale of Michael Dorsey (Santino Fontana), a forty-ish actor who,
Angels in America at KC Rep Tony Kushner’s two-part Angels in America is receiving a sturdy revival at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s downtown Copaken Stage. This sprawling two-part epic, subtitled A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, is at turns surreal, whimsical, hallucinatory, bitchily funny, poetic, brutally blunt, and ultimately
Absinthe in Las Vegas LAS VEGAS, NV – Everyone loves acrobats but not everyone will have a tolerance for the non-stop, filthy, vile, obscene, and often very funny patter that accompanies them in this sui generis offering on the Vegas Strip. Absinthe is housed in what looks like a temporary
‘Love,’ Cirque du Soleil’s Beatles Show LAS VEGAS, NV – I entered with high expectations but, alas, I found myself merely in like with Love, Cirque du Soleil’s Beatles show. Cirque du Soleil’s high-powered homage to the Fab Four is chock full of Cirque’s trademark glitz and over-the-top surreal creativity
Craving For Travel Off Broadway There are plenty of laughs for everyone in Craving For Travel, the delightful comedy at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater on New York’s Theater Row, but travel agents will take special delight in the savvy inside jokes that lay bare the hidden aspects of the
Richard III and Twelfth Night on Broadway At the Belasco Theatre, New Yorkers are being treated to an all-too-rare opportunity to see William Shakespeare’s Richard III and Twelfth Night performed under the “original practices” rubric favored at the reconstructed Globe Theatre in London. All costumes are authentically Elizabethan, meaning no
Billy Bishop On Demand If you missed Drayton Entertainment’s excellent production of Billy Bishop Goes to War earlier this year, you’ve been granted a second chance. In honour of Remembrance Day, November 11th, Drayton is presenting “Billy Bishop On Demand” for a limited time, from November 7 to 11. And
Three Tall Women Streaming on Stratford@Home Edward Albee has legions of devoted fans. I am not among them. But I soldiered through the Stratford Festival’s nicely observed production of Three Tall Women, now streaming on its Stratford@Home platform, to savour Martha Henry’s final performance. What a performance it was! Henry
Toward Beauty Book Review I’ve been a fan of Dennis Garnhum ever since I saw his masterful take on A Christmas Carol at the Grand Theatre in 2017. I even had a chance to chat with him briefly when he was workshopping Grow at Goodspeed in Connecticut. So when I
Want To Become A Canadian Citizen? Well join the club. I know a lot of Americans who would love to become a Canadian citizen. The same holds true for folks from a lot of other countries. But if you’ve given any thought to what it takes to move to Canada
I Am William At The Stratford Festival [I was unable to attend the Stratford Festival’s truncated 2021 season because the border was closed to “non-essential travel” during the pandemic. However, the plays presented that season were filmed and are currently available on Stratfest@Home, the Festival’s very own streaming service. This
I recently took in two British imports at Mirvish theatres, Singin’ In The Rain and The Shark Is Broken. I was intrigued to note that my reactions to both shows were somewhat at odds with those of the reviewers for the major papers. Singin’ In The Rain received generally positive
