Lynn

I’m interviewing the brilliant Rick Miller tomorrow, (Saturday, May 27) at 9:00 am on CRITICS CIRCLE, CIUT FM, 89.5, about BOOM X his latest show at CROW’S and all things theatre. Please listen.

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Live and in person at the CAA Theatre, Toronto, Ont. Produced by the Toronto Stage Company in association with Mad Resilience Films, Playing With Fire Productions and Angelica Alejandro.  Plays until May 28, 2023.

www.mirvish.com

Written by Yasmina Reza

Translated by Christopher Hampton

Directed by Mark Datuin

Production designed by Jon Chaters

Costumes by Nola Chaters

Lighting by Mikael Kangas

Cast: Angelica Alejandro

Jarrod W. Clegg

Luke Marty

Amy Slattery

Dreadful.

The Story. Two couples meet to discuss what to do about an altercation between their two 11-year-old sons.  Alan and Annette’s son Benjamin hit Veronica and Michael’s son Henry in the mouth with a branch causing Henry’s two front teeth to be bashed out—swelling, damage, orthodontistry. Benjamin apparently did it because Henry wouldn’t let him join his gang.

The couples meet at Veronica and Michael’s house as accommodating, respectful adults who want a fair outcome. Coffee and clafouti are served. Alan calls his son a thug and a savage and appreciates the laws of the jungle….and the God of Carnage who seems to work with no mercy. Alan, a lawyer, is also pre-occupied with a client and constantly interrupts the conversation to answer his vibrating cell phone. His wife Annette starts off as calm but as the play goes on she becomes more hardnosed and infuriated with her husband’s phone calls.

Michael is mild-mannered initially. He wants the whole matter solved so he can go back to his life.  His wife Veronica is the protective mother who is fierce with anyone she perceives as doing her family harm.  She wants an apology from her son’s attacker. She wants her husband to stand-up for their kid. So gradually we see the subtle shifts in the relationships and how easily something that is polite and balanced can turn ugly and totally off kilter.

Where do bully children come from? From bullying, passive-aggressive, whiny parents, like these.

The Production.  Playwright Yazmina Reza has written a play of subtlety, wit and perception at the folly of people/parents who are well-off and overprotective. Reza has laser vision to dissect this kind of behaviour. The play reveals itself pretty quickly as each character reacts to the situation.

One can talk about the furnishings (fine); the lighting (bright) the costumes (dandy) but it all goes for naught if the cast is not up to the task, and for the most part, they aren’t. They are obviously microphoned to be heard but even that is not helpful to Amy Slattery who plays Veronica and Angelica Alejandro who plays Annette. Alejandro in particular is inaudible because she talks so quietly or garbles her words. (Did no one sit in the audience to actually ‘hear’ this show during rehearsal?)  For the most part the acting is laboured, without nuance or any kind of subtlety and the humour for this funny comedy, is almost non-existent. Only Luke Marty as Alan has a sense of the character and the play. It is soon obvious why—he is a classically trained actor. One can’t find anything even close to professional stage work in the bios of the others.

The direction by Mark Datuin is pedestrian at best.

Comment. Writing this negative review gives me no pleasure. When the producer invited me to the opening I had to ask if this was an Equity production—that’s what I review, not non-equity work. The producer assured me that every member of the cast was either an Equity Member or an ACTRA Member/Apprentice. That does not mean that they are trained actors. But one lives in hope every time one goes to the theatre, that this will be a good production. We go with optimism. This production is dispiriting. My initial thought was not to review it, but as a wise friend said, “they have to be told.” And it’s true.

Theatre actors slug their guts out getting training, taking classes, honing their craft—and theatre acting is a craft—auditioning for projects, delving deep into the heart and soul of the work, coping with disappointment. They invest their lives in the art of theatre. They don’t dabble in it.

Everything about this production of God of Carnage struck me as a vanity production for dabblers. Not good enough.

The Toronto Stage Company in association with Mad Resilience Films, Playing With Fire Productions and Angelica Alejandro present:

Plays until May 28, 2023.

Running time: 90 minutes.

www.mirvish.com

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Live and in person two festivals for children:  

JUNIOR INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL for children 5 to 12 years old.

May 20-22, 2023.

At Harbourfront Centre

Home

PINOCCHIO

Teater Patrasket

From Denmark.

60 minutes (no intermission)

Based on the Carlo Collodi story.

Directed by Alex Byrne

Composer, Bastian Popp

Cast: Dirck Backer

Signe Kærup Dahl

Maria Myrgård

Bastian Popp

Teater Patrasket from Denmark gives this classic story a contemporary interpretation, about a puppet named Pinocchio who wanted to be a boy, but first he must learn to be human. You know the story, right? A poor woodcarver name Geppetto is lonely, so he creates a puppet for company,  out of bits and pieces of things. Miraculously during the night, the puppet comes alive, but is a bit miffed that one of his feet is in fact a wheel. “Why did you make me different?” he asks of the incredulous Geppetto? So one of life’s lessons for the audience—to this puppet, being different was not advantageous.

Geppetto so loves the puppet as if he was real that he sells his only coat for the money needed to buy Pinocchio a school book. But Pinocchio wants to sell the school book for a ticket to the circus. The audience was told there would be dilemmas. It was told that the first dilemma is what Pinocchio should do: go to school or to the circus?  It sounded like the wise, young audience thought ‘school’ was the best choice. Life lessons for both the audience and Pinocchio. Then the audience was asked: “What do you think Pinocchio did?” Hands down, the wise kids (they obviously read the book), said, “went to the circus.” There were other dilemma with more and more offers of what should he do and what did he do.

The craft of Teater Patrasket is stunning. The whimsy of the costumes, the collaborative acting of the story, the puppetry and not just Pinocchio, there were many others, the thorny issue of teaching a person to act with conscience is all there in this wonderful piece of theatre.

ZOOM

Patch Theatre

Australia

45 minutes running time.

Created by Geoff Cobham

Dave Brown

Roz Hervey

Temeka Lawlor

Angus Leighton

Composer, Jason Sweeney

Designer, Michelle ‘Maddog’ Delaney

Technical designers, Jason Sweeney

Designer, Chris Petridis

Alexander Hatchard

Animation, Luku

Cast: Temeka Lawlor

Angus Leighton

Before we go into the theatre, we are asked to give up ‘a bit of darkness’ and throw it in a black bag held by a welcoming man wearing a black hat with an iridescent band of blue around the circumference of it. When we go into the theatre, we are given a disk with several lights in it glowing white.

A kid is told good night by an unseen parent. That means ‘lights out.’ But she has a box with all sorts of stuff that produces light. Light pours in from the sides, from the top, from small flashlights and what look like glowing beams. Figures of light create patters and forms in the dark. Light shoots out to the audience. Patterns get more and more complex. Then we are asked to shake the lighted disk we were given. The lights change on everyone’s disk. The young audience whoops. Then it changes again, and again. Jason Sweeney’s throbbing music invites people to rise and dance if they want. Or not.

The show is a delight of light. It’s imaginative, wild, witty and creative.

WEE FESTIVAL for children 0-6 years old.

Various times and days, until June 11 2023.

Venues city wide.

The 2023 WeeFestival will launch a month-long citywide celebration of unforgettable artistic encounters for early childhood from May 16- June 11. The four- week dynamic and diverse program of performances and events for children newborn to six years olds features music, dance, puppetry performances in English, French, or with no words at all.

www.weefestival.ca

STRING

At the Redwood Theatre, 1300 Gerrard St. E.

Le Mouton carré (France)

 

Puppetry, Live Music2.5 years +Wordless

The Redwood Theatre – Sat 21 and Sunday 22 May | 11h – 30 minutes

While this has closed (it only played two days) there are more events that will be perfect for young members of the family.

“Pods” populate the stage. They look like mushrooms without the stems. Or bowls turned upside down. A man plays the ‘finger-harp” and whistles or sings or creates percussion on the pods. A woman who could use a laugh is approached by him playing and singing. Sand flows down. Later there is water from a pipe that flows down from the flies. A tiny puppet appears, as if born from under a pod. The puppet begins his journey of discovery. Objects on string float down.

The imagery, puppetry, light and creativity of this show captured the imagination of this young audience.

At the talkback a forthright kid asked what it was about. A younger voice said, “life.” Sounds about right to me. Looking forward to more productions next weekend.  

Both The Junior International Children’s Festival and The Wee Festival always happen around this time of year—Junior over the Victoria Day Weekend and Wee for a longer time in May. The age group for each festival overlaps with the other. It seems a no-brainer that they would be a perfect collaboration—pooling resources, sharing venues, spaces, timetabling etc. But they don’t. For some bizarre reason these two festivals, happening at the same time, catering to our most valuable and precious audience, young people, who represent THE FUTURE, do not collaborate. They have collaborated in the past for a terrific result. Please try again. It’s important.   

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Live and in person at the Coal Mine Theatre, 2076 Danforth Ave, Toronto, Ont. Plays until June 3, 2023.

www.coalminetheatre.com

Written by Adam Rapp

Director Leora Morris

Set, lighting and props by Wes Babcock

Costumes by Laura Delchiaro

Sound and music composition by Chris Ross-Ewart

Cast: Aidan Correia

Moya O’Connell

And intriguing play about writing, language, meeting a soul-mate and getting a second chance.

The Story. Bella is a professor of creative writing at Yale University. She’s written one book of fiction years before that was politely received and she has not published since. She is funny, self-deprecating, lonely, and might be ill but has to get it checked.  She’s in a rut in a way, until she meets one of her students who challenges her in many ways.    

The Production and comment. The stage is raised and there is only a desk and chair on it,  facing upstage. These will be moved around according to the scene. Bella (Moya O’Connell at her usual compelling best) fills us in as she tells us of her life, her writing, her concerns with her health and she does it in a self-deprecating manner that tries to veil the rut she’s in and her concerns with her health. Her humour aside, Bella is isolated in her mid-life, there is no mention of others.

It soon becomes clear that when Bella addresses the unknown listener—us—she is talking in an almost florid, contrived way, a way she warns her students against in their writing. And it’s clear she is really ‘auditioning’ her thoughts and ideas to us for a book.  Indeed, at times she stops to write down a line or thought. She writes with gusto, energy, a spark.  

Christopher (Aidan Correia) is one of Bella’s students. He shows up at Bella’s office outside office hours—a bit entitled is Christopher that he doesn’t think he needs an appointment. Christopher appears with a start out of a chair in which he has been sitting, in a darkened space off from the rise of the stage. He bounds on stage and effortlessly lifts the chair after him. He slumps in the chair. As Christopher, Aidan Correia is irreverent, smarmy, cheeky and challenging to get a rise out of Bella. Moya O’Connell as Bella, is watchful of this challenging young man and tries not to be unsettled by him. She reminds him of her office hours. He brushes it off. Christopher is articulate, brash, supremely confident about his abilities and dismissive of his classmates. And he’s written a novel. Bella is intrigued.

Bella can talk technically to him about writing and language. And Christopher can talk technically to her too and appreciate what she’s saying. He’s read her book and praises it with conviction. I don’t think he’s calculating to get her on his side. He’s too confident for that. I sense he feels he can charm her with his intellect and abilities. He feels he is far and away better than any student in the class. Moya O’Connell as Bella and Aidan Correia as Christopher play the scene with gusto, an exchange between writing-loving equals not between teacher and student. A bond forms between them. It looks like the situation can sink into cliché with the two of them having a sexual relationship. But playwright Adam Rapp and the careful direction of Leora Morris go in a different direction.

When Bella meets Christopher, she comes up with thoughts that she will soon write down. So aha, she’s just really preparing a book that will result after the play.

I think the production is dandy, directed with care by Leora Morris, but perhaps with a bit too much moving of the desk and chairs to change the scene. Moya O’Connell brings such a fragility, a wistfulness and yearning to Bella. Often, she suggests that this brash young man is unsettling her world. This is a beautifully paced performance.

As Christopher, Aidan Correia is intense, challenging and brash. When he goes on a tear about writing I think the speed at which Correia speaks makes it seem contrived and not a natural observation. More nuance and a more aware pacing would strengthen the performance and not make it seem as if Correia has rehearsed all of Christopher’s exuberance, which of course he has.

Adam Rapp has written an interesting character study of the creative writing professor and her arrogant and perhaps gifted student.  Bella is a professor who warns her students against florid writing but uses that exact kind of dialogue when describing her life, etc.  Bella is a woman who reads great books, but can’t write them. Can she do it when she gets a second chance?  Can she help Christopher write his ‘great novel’? Her enthusiasm for his work is infectious. It buoys him.  Christopher is a mystery, there are a lot of gaps that might explain who he really is. Is he intentionally underwritten to keep us intrigued?

Interesting play with a luminous performance by Moya O’Connell.

Coal Mine Theatre presents:

Running until: June 3.

Running time: 90 minutes (no intermission)

www.coalminetheatre.com

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Live and in person at the Capitol Theatre, Port Hope, Ont. Playing until May 28, 2023.

www.capitoltheatre.com

Written by Willy Russell

Directed by Karen Ancheta

Set and costumes by Jackie Chau

Lighting by Daniele Guevara

Sound by Lyon Smith

Cast: Deborah Drakeford

Charming and heart-squeezing in every way.

The Story. Willy Russell wrote Shirley Valentine in 1986.  Shirley is 42 years old and lives in Liverpool with her husband Joe.  She’s devoted her life to Joe and their children who are now grown and out of the house, but not settled.  In the process, she’s lost herself.  Her marriage is stale. She’s lonely in it because she misses her ‘self’. She talks to the wall for comfort.  Joe expects dinner on the table as soon as he comes home from work. He is very set in his ways. If it’s Wednesday he expects to get steak and chips. If it’s Thursday he expects egg and chips. I might be mixing up the meals for the days, but you get my meaning. Shirley plans to shaking things up. She is serving Joe egg and chips and it’s not the right day for it.

The cause for this whimsy is that Shirley has a free-spirited friend named Jane who has decided to take Shirley with her on a vacation to Greece. The thought of going off without Joe to a place she’s always wanted to go, makes Shirley lightheaded. She accepts. And waits for the fallout and not just because she’s serving the wrong food on the wrong day.

The marriage was not always stale. Shirley and Joe were happy at the beginning of their marriage. They had fun. They painted the kitchen of their house together and teased each other. But then work and life and kids got in the way. This trip represents a change.

It’s the kind of trip that Joe would not do and Shirley always did what he wanted. She doesn’t even have the courage to tell him she’s going. She leaves a note on the cupboard with enough frozen dinners to tide him over for two weeks.  When she lands in Greece she is able to sit quietly in a chair by the sea, drinking a glass of wine. She’s always dreamed of that.  

She has an adventure and is sexually awakened by Costas, a taverna owner. But the play doesn’t go into cliché. Shirley is content there and finds that she is more confident than she expected.

The Production. It’s terrific. Jackie Chau has designed an interesting kitchen. The cupboards are suspended between rods that hold them up. There is no wall even though Shirley talks to it.  The result is that the cupboards look like they are floating in air. There is a simple table and chairs, a refrigerator and a working stove.

Shirley (Deborah Drakeford) arrives home from shopping, carrying a bag of groceries in her arms. Before she enters her house she pauses outside, takes a deep breath and lets it out in a sigh. Together with director Karen Ancheta, Deborah Drakeford as Shirley, lets us know in one stunning moment, of the sameness and drudgery of Shirley’s life. The routine of it is depressing, upbeat though Shirley tries to be.

She unpacks the groceries and puts them away, while telling us of her life, her husband, the sameness of it, and occasionally asking for confirmation from the wall. She talks about the spark that has gone out of their marriage. She tells us of a popular girl in school who made her feel inadequate only to meet her and find out the now grown ‘successful’ woman envied Shirley all those years ago. She talks of the trip and how she is giddy with excitement. All the while she is actually making Joe his egg and chips. The timing is meticulous of when to cut the potatoes into ‘chip’ size, when to put the oil on to fry them, when to add the butter to another pan for the eggs and when to add the beans in a pot to heat them up. It’s all done with detailed care, making it look effortless, because it is when you have to make the same things on the same days, in ‘like’, forever.  

I’ve seen Deborah Drakeford play Shirley Valentine in another production a few years ago, and now she is playing her again, in a different production. Deborah Drakeford gives a performance as Shirley that is always fresh, deeply thought and wise. She conveys a resigned humour when she is telling us of her life. The scenes in Greece reveal a woman at peace with herself because she’s found her self. She is aware of her strengths, her abilities, her confidence, her sexuality and her new ease with life. She has developed into this vibrant woman who is buoyant, alluring, intriguing and not stale or boring.    

It’s directed with smarts and humour by Karen Ancheta resulting in one terrific, thoughtful production.

Comment. The play was written by Willy Russell, a man!! A man is writing sensitively, thoughtfully and wisely about a woman, in 1986 (and before that in 1980 he wrote Educating Rita about another unhappy woman who discovers her love of learning in later life). So much for appropriation and thinking that only women should write about women, gays can only write about gays, and all the myriad concerns of today. Talent and imagination can conjure a believable world outside one’s experience.

Capitol Theatre Presents:

Plays until May 28, 2023.

Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes (1 intermission)

www.capitoltheatre.com

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Live and in person at the Theatre Center, Franco Boni Theatre, 1115 Queen Street W, Toronto, Ont. Plays: May 18, 19, 20, 21.

www.theatercentre.org

Choreographer, Sara Porter

Creative collaborator, Katherine Duncanson

Sound by Jeremy Mimnagh, after Phil Strong

Lighting by Rebecca Picherack

Video design by Linnea Swann and Jeremy Mimnagh in collaboration with Sara Porter

Costume design, Sarah Doucet, after Sara Porter

Seagull Dress, Sara Torrie

Performers: Jessie Garon

Sara Porter

Whimsical, thoughtful, witty and provocative. A love-letter to the ocean and perhaps all things pertaining to water that l-e-a-k.

In the words of dancer/choreographer/creator Sara Porter:

“What if I fell in love with the ocean? What would you wear to the wedding?”

And from the press information just to be as accurate for the artists as possible:  

“Sara Porter Productions is proud to announce L-E-A-K, a fresh new dance work that explores the ecosexual notions of falling in love with the ocean, inspired by the Bay of Fundy, home to the highest tides in the world. Choreographed by Sara Porter and performed by Sara Porter and Jessie Garon.

“In L-E-A-K, Sara Porter portrays her experience of the Bay of Fundy through dance, image, and costume, blending her singular style of absurdist stagecraft with serious research about the origin of the ocean, the sex life of seagulls, and the theory of horizons. Delving into the notion that all categories leak, Porter takes an interdisciplinary approach to performance: presenting an interplay between monologue, dance, projected image, text, philosophy, and sound, she evokes deeper considerations of life’s most profound questions.” 

“Sara Porter Productions believes that art is a universal language that should be accessible to all. The organization specializes in creating performance, creative, and educational projects that celebrate play and exploration, with a focus on personal storytelling.”

Sara Porter and her colleagues have provided an intriguing framework in which to view L-E-A-K at the Theatre. I’m not a dancer or know the specific vocabulary in order to describe the work. I do know theatre and its vocabulary and those terms apply nicely to this production. It is a love-letter specifically to the ocean but generally all things to do with water.

We enter the theatre and Sara Porter is lounging there in the centre of the empty stage, sitting on a suitcase it turns out. She wears a blue top with a pattern that looks like shimmering water. Her skirt is light blue. Her legs are stretched out in front and she wears flip-flops. We can hear the faint sound of waves splashing/crashing on a shore. Another character (Jessie Garon) in an illuminated skirt and top pushes a suitcase slowly around the circumference of the space. She is bent over the suitcase (the four-wheel kind) and her movements are slow. Her legs pick up and drop in long, deliberate steps. Is the movement to suggest a tide? Don’t know. Interesting thought.

Eventually Sara Porter gets up and talks about being born in Nova Scotia. She describes how her heavily pregnant mother (she was pregnant with Sara Porter) at the beach, reading a newspaper but it flew away and her mother chased it. This brough on labour but her water didn’t break. That happened at the hospital. Sara Porter describes the breaking of that water in vivid language both linguistic and physical. The breaking of the water was not a gush, but a torrent that sprayed around the room. The force made one think of fierce waves breaking on a rock/beach/shore. It was violent, powerful and eventually lead to the birth of Sara Porter.

Sara Porter and Jessie Garon then create various scenes of wonderful humour, imagination, and whimsy. There is a projection of seagulls gathering on rocks as the waves crash over them. Both Porter and Garon dance on wearing a head piece of a seagull.

When Sara Porter muses: “What if I fell in love with the ocean? What would you wear to the wedding?” She wears a voluminous white wedding dress and Jessie Garon wears a frilly dress with flippers.

There is a video of the two from the shoulders up, in a shower. They tell each other what they love about the other but the sound is not good and one is often in the dark about what is being said. That’s unfortunate. The two then punctuate their comments by squirting the other with a water gun. The scene is sweet, loving, gentle and funny. Wish I knew what they were saying clearly instead of muddled.

Sara Porter describes how one must deal with the tide in the Bay of Fundy. If one wants to swim there are instructions on doing it depending on whether the tide is coming in or going out. Fascinating. The final image is of the two dancing independently, perhaps trying to negotiate the powerful tide.

L-E-A-K is indeed Sara Porter’s love letter to the ocean, water, imagination and dance.  

Sara Porter Productions Presents:

Plays: May 19, 20, 21

Running time: 1 hour and 15 minutes (no intermission)

www.theatrecentre.org 

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Live and in person at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto, Ont. Produced by the Canadian Opera Company. Playing May 17, 20, 2023.

www.coc.ca

By Giuseppe Verdi

Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave (with additions by Andrea Maffei)

Based on the “tragedy” (really?) of William Shakespeare

Conductor, Speranza Scappucci

Director, Sir David McVicar

Set by John Macfarlane

Costumes by Moritz Junge

Lighting by David Finn

Choreographer, Andrew George

Cast: Matthew Cairns

Tracy Cantin

Clarence Frazer

Vartan Gabrielian

Alex Halliday

Quinn Kelsey

Őnay Kőse

Adam Luther

Midori Marsh

Liudmyla Monastyrska (May 17, 20)

Alexandrina Pendatchanska

Roland Piers

Charlotte Siegel

Giles Tomkins

Stunning in every way.

NOTE: Opera is not my forte so I won’t be discussing the music, orchestra, playing or the technicalities of singing. I will be discussing the theatricality of the piece.

The story is basically the same with a few trims and edits here and there. Macbeth is a violent soldier in battle. On his way home he sees ‘three’ witches who prophecy that he will become king, a prospect that never occurred to him. Not patient to wait things out, he kills his way to the crown, aided by his supportive, equally strong-willed wife. But things turn sideways for both of them and it ends badly.

I question that it’s a tragedy because neither Shakespeare nor Verdi’s opera has an ‘uh-oh’ scene. It’s that scene, when the protagonist realizes too late (uh-oh), that he’s made a mistake and things can’t really be righted. King Lear realizes that Cordelia really loved him (uh-oh) and he regrets banishing her. Oedipus puts a curse on the person responsible for his kingdom’s bad luck, only to realize (uh-oh) he’s the one responsible. It was prophesied that he would kill his father and marry his mother, and without realizing it (uh-oh) it came to pass. Without that uh-oh scene you have ‘merely’ a drama, and in the case or Macbeth, a bloody good one.  

Director Sir David McVicar has the guts and daring of a bandit. Rather than set the opera in the wilds of the Scottish countryside, he’s set it inside a church. Designer John Macfarlane has a forbidding church with it’s unmistakable cross on the top painted on the scrim. When the curtain rises we are in the dark sanctuary with a cross up at the back. The pews are full of women in black long dresses, holding their bibles, swaying back and forth, as if in a frenzied trance. There are three ever-present children, who could be symbolically the witches—they stare demonically. But it’s really the women who are the witches. One thinks of the Salem witch hunts in Massachusetts, or Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.  

In the scene where Banquo is murdered, it happens in the church and he’s bludgeoned with the cross. As I said, director Sir David McVicar has the guts of a bandit to place the murder there and by the means that it happens. Is McVicar commenting on the hold of the church on people’s lives, to do damage, to control how they think and act? Interesting.

David Finn’s moody lighting is stunning. Shafts of silver light sharply illuminate areas of the black set, and in other areas there is shadow and gloom. The shafts of light are so vivid and stark that in their way there is a sense of terror and doom.

As I said I’m not qualified to comment on the music, conducting or the singing. But….Quinn Kelsey is an imposing Macbeth. He is an actor who can inhabit this killing machine, but also reveal his cold-blooded ambition and his hesitation and horror when he kills the king to get closer to the crown. As the mistakes pile up in his quest to keep the crown, a desperation takes over.

No one can deny the explosion of crystalline sound that is produced by Alexandrina Pendatchanska as lady Macbeth. She is fearless, imposing and commanding when she is plotting her husband’s rise. As the opera goes on she is haunted by so many things, notably the blood she still sees on her hands. In the sleepwalking scene, hair wildly down her back, she is a sad soul, diminished and possessed. The acting is superb throughout.

While there is no Lady McDuff in the opera, there is McDuff sung by Matthew Cairns—heartbreaking and soul squeezing. McDuff is the grieving husband and father. He’s lost everything because of Macbeth and he will get revenge.

Macbeth is a triumph.

The Canadian Opera Company presents:

Playing May 20, 2023.

Running time: 3 hours (1 intermisson)

www.coc.ca

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Live and in person at the Studio Theatre, Streetcar Crowsnest, Toronto, Ont. Produced by Studio 180 Theatre and fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre Company in association with Crow’s Theatre. Plays until May 21, 2023.

www.crowstheatre

Written by Lloyd Suh

Directed by Marjorie Chan

Set by Echo Zhou

Costumes by Jun-Hye Kim

Lighting by Kimberly Purtell

Sound by Gloria Mok

Cast: John Ng

Rosie Simon

A stylish production of a play that subtly illuminates blinkered perceptions of people from the West about people from China as seen through the eyes of two people. But of course the play’s scope is wider than that.

The Story. It’s 1834 in New York City and Afong Moy is believed to be the first female Chinese immigrant to the United States. She is 14-years-old. Two American entrepreneurs, Nathaniel and Frederick Carne, did a deal with Afong Moy’s father in Guangzhou, to bring her to New York City to be an ‘exhibit’ in a museum, to demonstrate Chinese clothing, food, culture, language and foot-binding. Afong Moy was supposed to be in America for two years and then return to China. It didn’t work out that way. She travelled from coast to coast of America; met President Andrew Jackson who fetishized her; and learned about American ways.  

The Production.  As the audience files into the Studio Theatre at the Streetcar Crowsnest we are ushered into the space by Atung (John Ng), dressed in black traditional Chinese shirt, pants and ‘slippers’.

Sitting on an ornate chair on an ornate raised platform is Afong Moy (Rosie Simon). Kudos to designer Echo Zhou for the beautiful and simple set that exemplifies how the Carne brothers displayed Afong Moy. It suggests exoticism, which is how Afong Moy would probably have been regarded by anyone who went to a museum to see a living exhibit.  

Afong Moy is dressed in an exquisite traditional formal Chinese costume that flows down to the ground as she sits. She is still, observant and smiling.

Atung is Afong Moy’s interpreter and aid in the exhibit. A protector of sorts. He is almost always at her side. As Atung, John Ng is reverential to Afong Moy, formal in his respect, not familiar. He whispers something to her as the audience fills the room. When they are ready to begin the play, John Ng gives the land acknowledgement in Cantonese and English. I think that is wonderful. Just perfect.

The positions of the two characters are clear: she is the star and he is her attendant. She says at the beginning “he is irrelevant.” He echoes that, head bowed slightly, playing the part. Ng brings out the sadness, loneliness and watchfulness of Atung.

Afong Moy gives the date and her age. She recounts how she came to the United States, brought by the Carne brothers. She is buoyant, excited at her future and prospects of traveling in the country. She explains how having small feet were advantageous in her culture. And she goes on to detail and explain the process of foot binding. Director Marjorie Chan directs this telling with breathtaking care. As Afong Moy, Rosie Simon’s hands flutter close to each other as the fingers curl down and into the palm as Afong Moy describes something that was acceptable to an insider’s view and horrifying to an outsider’s view. Foot binding began on Afong Moy when she was four years old to attain the smallest feet. Her feet were broken as were the toes and folded under and bound and the process continued until she was older and the feet were set. The gracefulness of the hands juxtaposed with the calm explanation of what might be called a brutal practice only emphasizes what Afong Moy in particular, and other Chinese (to use her word) women in general, went through to attain small feet. The image of Afong Moy standing and walking in halting steps only added to the emphasis.

The play chronicles the passing years in which Afong Moy was still an ‘exotic object for observation in the museum.’ Both Rosie Simon and John Ng mature in subtle ways, body language, shifting poses, ‘aging’ magically. Beautifully done. Afong Moy revels in the travel across America. She slowly acquires a maturity to observe and reflect on the racism she experienced, both subtle and overt. President Andrew Jackson treated her with creepy attention, wanting to touch her feet. He fetishized and objectified her. As the years went on Afong Moy noted the generally terrible treatment of her fellow Chinese people; vilified, forced into labour to build a railroad, subjected to restrictive immigration laws. Rosie Simon as Afong Moy is a cool observer.

Over time she and Atung grew apart. He has a stunning speech, delivered beautifully by John Ng, in which he reveals he is totally alone. All that singular attention and care of Afong Moy has left him friendless and alone. He thinks wistfully of her. Could there have been a romantic relationship. Here Marjorie Chan directs Ng to imagine a closeness. He reaches out and almost touches Afong Moy. It’s both sensual and wistful. Again, beautifully done.

Comment.  Afong Moy’s observation of the year she is in and her age go into the modern times, making her at least 180. In fact she disappeared from any museum/exhibit/or notice in 1850. In other words, in The Chinese Lady Lloyd Suh has not so much written a biography of Afong Moy, as he as written a metaphor for anti-Chinese racism in America. (I would also include North America there). I would offer that this could apply to any visible and invisible minority.

In a larger sense the play is applicable to society’s obsession, revulsion, objectification, demonizing and judgement of anyone who looks different, who is ‘other’. There is Afong Moy who was on display in New York City as an ‘exotic’ exhibit in a museum in New York. There is Sarah Baartman, a Black woman from what is now South Africa, put on display in Paris and then Europe in the 1800s. There is Joseph (John) Merrick (The Elephant Man), born with a debilitating disease, put on display across Europe in the 1880s and in London, England where he finally found sanctuary at the London Hospital. There are the ‘freak’ shows that ‘display’ the bearded lady or the tallest man in the world etc. Society’s fascination with people who are different, ‘other’ and their terrible behaviour regarding them is a larger theme of The Chinese Lady.

Fine production. Worth your time.       

Studio 180 Theatre and fu-Gen Asian Canadian Theatre Company in association with Crow’s Theatre presents:

Plays until May 21, 2023.

Running time: 90 minutes (no intermission).

www.crowstheatre.com

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Really live and in person at the Streetcar Crow’s Nest, produced by Kidoons and WYRD Productions in association with Crow’s Theatre, Theatre Calgary and The 20K Collective. Plays until May 28, 2023.

www.crowstheatre.com

Writer, director and performer, Rick Miller

Video & projection co-designer, Nicolas Dostie

Video & projection co-designer, Irina Litvinenko

Lighting by Bruno Matte

Costume and props by Virginie Leclerc

Set, sound and composer, Rick Miller

Sébastien Heins appears as “Brandon” on video

Boom X is wild and Rick Miller leaves you breathless.

Boom X is a blast of a show. Rick Miller is an explosion of talent. He has written, directed and performs the piece. BOOM X is one play of a trilogy. In that trilogy Rick Miller chronicles 75 years of history using the politics, events and especially the music, to tell the story.

BOOM was Part 1 and is comprised of the stories and music of his parents. BOOM YZ covers his daughters’ segment of the history. And in the middle is BOOM X that covers Rick Miller’s own stories, the historical events and the music between 1970 to 1995. Miller says that BOOM Xis a search for identity, namely his own—who is he? What is his path in life?  What has formed him? And it’s a wild ride?

BOOM X is definitely not a dry history lesson. In this tight show of 100 minutes, Rick Miller plays 100 characters. He performs some of the defining music of the day that effected or impressed him. He sings and plays the guitar in the style of many of the musicians who were game changers and who he was listening to growing up. For example: “American Woman” sung in the strong high notes of Burton Commings, “Proud Mary” sung with the hip swaying and hair flipping of Tina Turner, “One Love” sung in the style of Bob Marley. The musical segments go like the wind. But you get the flavour of the song and the singing by the way Rick Miller nails the performance style of the artist.

Rick Miller performs on a platform surrounded by various guitars and a stand microphone. In front is a scrim or curtain and depending on the lighting, (kudos to lighting designer, Bruno Matte) we can see Rick Miller behind the scrim performing.

While he’s singing, projected on the scrim in a ticker-tape format, are headlines about the important news of the day. Each year is projected on the scrim and headlines stream across the scrim: telling of various wars, the bombing of Cambodia, the Kent State riots, the election of presidents, the deposing of dictators in Europe etc., the shooting in Montreal of the 24 women and the death of 14 of them at École Polytechnique, Gloria Steinem giving a speech—the emerging of the women’s movement; Prince Charles marrying Lady Diana Spencer, Marlon Brando refusing his Oscar and having activist Sacheen Littlefeather explain that he was refusing it because of the way American natives were depicted in American films, and on and on. This being a multi-media age, and we are used to being bombarded media.  

BOOM X is really Rick Miller’s awakening, politically, socially, emotionally and psychologically. It’s his search for meaning in life. It’s about his parents and how they met. He also has videos of four people he interviewed for this show. Initially he plays the video and we see the body language and the voice of these people—two men and two women. After that first viewing Rick Miller then takes on the persona, the voice and the body language of each person as he references them through the span of the show. We know who Miller is ‘voicing’ because the name is projected.

Rick Miller is a master of creation and writing. Gradually we realize that these people are connected in more ways than just interview sources. One turns out to be his long-time life partner after many efforts to win her over.  Another is his step sister. I love the subtle way Rick Miller weaves a story, connects it with video film and home movies in a sense and music. Sobering news is projected on the scrim while Miller performs wild music in the background. He often comes out from behind the scrim to put the events in context. He tells us what he was thinking at the time?

He thought he would be an architect and did earn two degrees but then changed direction to find his true path—theatre. For much of the journey he is a dutiful kid, not making waves, then spreading his wings and conscience to embrace a wider world.

BOOM X is masterful.  I say that Rick Miller is a wild man of creativity because he flits from song to song doing quick costume and wig changes along the way. He throws himself into the frenzy of the various performance styles. And he is also meticulous. He is meticulous in being able to stand aloof and observe the events of a time period and how it factors into how we shift and flow from changes in our lives etc. He is meticulous in picking events that changed the world, not just were noteworthy for their own sake. The same thing can apply to the bands and music that he re-enacts.He is meticulous in weaving the dialogue of the four people who guided him through this segment of his life.

Rick Miller is open-hearted, thoughtful, joyful, observant and exuberant in the telling. He took the audience through a raucous segment playing bits of music of bands that changed the musical world and asked the audience to name the group while he played. They were right there with him. His enthusiasm is infectious. And so is his thoughtfulness. He certainly stops us in our tracks with some of the events that changed our world: the FLQ crisis; the death of those women in Montreal. Sobering. But the overall effect of BOOM Xis breathlessness.

You watch and listen to Rick Miller, his observations; musical prowess and sheer energy to tell this complex story, and you wonder how he does it. He does it through huge talent.  The show is wonderful.

Produced by Kidoons and WYRD Productions in association with Crow’s Theatre, Theatre Calgary and The 20K Collective.

Plays until May 28, 2023.

Running Time: 100 breathless minutes.

www.crowstheatre.com

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