Lynn

Live and in person at the Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto, Ont. Produced by Canadian Stage Company. Playing until Feb. 16.

www.canadianstage.com

Written by Edward Albee

Directed by Brendan Healy

Set and costumes by Julie Fox

Lighting by Kimberly Purtell

Sound by Thomas Ryder Payne

Choreographer, Alyssa Martin

Cast: Martha Burns

Hailey Gillis

Paul Gross

Rylan Wilkie

Almost every creative associated with this production of Edward Albee’s 1962 classic has done wonderful work—elsewhere. This production is plagued with weird amplification, a set too large for the play, direction that dissipates the tension and uneven acting. A disappointment.

The Story. Some folks might erroneously describe the play as a three-and a half hour verbal slug-fest between warring married couple, George and Martha. In fact, the wrangling is deliberate. This is how George and Martha show each other love and affection—they argue and insult each other with equal vigor. But to raise the sport of it, they do this arguing, wrangling, insulting and games playing in front of a younger couple, Nick and Honey, who have been invited over to George and Martha’s house. I know it’s odd, but this is Edward Albee writing here and he knows his way around the ins and outs of combative, wounded people, how they lash out to be noticed and taken into account.

The Production. The curtain slowly rises on Julie Fox’s startling set of George and Martha’s living room. A high staircase goes up along the stage right wall and a large illuminated hallway is stage left. The stage left wall of the room is mirrored and the reflection is distorted. There is a glass case along the stage left wall with figurines? Liquor bottles? Can’t make it out clearly from my seat across the theatre. There is a small drinks trolly loaded with bottles of liquor. The back of a long darkish mustard coloured couch faces the audience. The front door is rather small for such a huge room, and by extension, the house.

Questions arise immediately. The stage of the Bluma Appel Theatre is huge across and deep. Julie Fox has envisioned a set as mammoth as the stage. Why? Where is the claustrophobia in the play? The mirrored side wall of the room distorts the reflection of those people in the room? Is this symbolic? Why? Isn’t the play enough for us to figure this out?

It’s 1 am in the morning. George (Paul Gross) and Martha (Martha Burns), a middle-aged couple, have just returned from a boozy faculty party at the house of the president of the university, to introduce new faculty to everybody. George is an associate professor of history at the university. Martha, his wife, is the daughter of the president of the university. So, there is a lot of subtext.

When they enter the house, Martha says with contempt “What a dump.” She is both expressing her disgust with the surroundings and quoting a line from a Bette Davis film. She is also setting up her control of the situation, establishing the baiting of George, and her coarse demeanor at home.

Then any focus we have on these two is dissipated as the set turns on a revolve and the back of the couch is turned to face the audience from upstage. The revolve will be used again during an emotional scene later in the production with the same results: confusion of who is talking, what is being said and focus being distracted.  Brendan Healy is a wonderful director. What was he thinking here with all this distraction?

Julie Fox’s costumes are terrific in establishing the attitudes and dress sense of the characters. Upon entering Martha initially wears an auburn coloured wig and an appropriate dark coloured dress, synched at the waist. George, shaggy haired, wears baggy pants a rumpled shirt and a sweater that can button up. George hates these faculty ordeals and let’s that be known at the casual, even shabby way he dresses. Martha wants to make a good impression so she dresses in an ungaudy way. She leaves the gaudiness for home and company when she changes into gold slim pants and a green top.

Unbeknownst to George, Martha has invited a younger couple, Nick (Rylan Wilkie) and his wife Honey (Hailey Gillis) over that night/morning for drinks. Nick is in the biology department—although Martha keeps thinking it’s the math department. Honey is Nick’s mouse of a wife—as Martha describes her. Again, Julie Fox’s costumes reflect the characters. Nick is in a light-coloured suit and tie. Honey is in a dress.

George is exhausted and aghast—it’s 1 am in the morning and he finds it inappropriate to invite anybody over for drinks at this hour. Martha says: “Daddy said to be nice to them.” When she keeps repeating that phrase, we get the sense that Martha has no boundaries and is desperate to please her father and do what he says, no matter how inappropriate.

As the production unfolds, we realize that both are true—Martha is reckless with boundaries and is determined to do anything for her father to get his stingy favour.

The actors are microphoned and the resultant sound makes everyone sound either muffled or underwater. This very odd, since Thomas Ryder Payne, who is listed as the sound designer, has done fine work, elsewhere.  

George and Martha wrangle with equal vigor—Paul Gross as George, laid-back, watchful and calculating when to thrust and parry, Martha Burns as Martha, braying, loud, vulgar and committed fully.

We also see how fragile the marriage of Nick (Rylan Wilkie) and Honey (Hailey Gillis) is. Nick is ambitious. He wants to get ahead and will use any means to do it. Honey comes from money and seems to have tricked Nick into marriage. She’s both physically and emotionally fragile. Nick is protective of her and a bit exasperated. Nick and Honey are not just passive observers in this evening, they participate in their own way. Rylan Wilkie is a last minute replacement as Nick. I didn’t believe him as the buff, ambitious man ready to use any means to rise up in the faculty. As Honey, Hailey Gillis plays the obvious; simpering, easily drunk, always getting sick—there is more to Honey than surface.

It would appear that Martha is the leader.  She is loud, abrasive, caustic and targets George for her invective in front of the guests. She craves attention and this is how she gets it. She wants to make George jealous, so she comes on to Nick—it seems to be a pattern with Martha—to come on to the younger men on faculty. Even here the staging seems almost polite rather than erotic.  This games playing is how George and Martha wrangle with each other. But then Martha does something that George finds unforgivable—Martha tells Honey of their son. This was something George forbad her to do. So now George goes from being deceptively passive, to subtly taking over to teach Martha a lesson.

That said, this is a love story between George and Martha. This is the murky world of Edward Albee. Both George and Martha get their jollies from the games playing and the slinging of darts and barbs. They are equally matched until George gains the advantage.  Confiding to Nick we learn of Martha’s desperation to be noticed and loved by her father. We learn how George was the only person who made her happy; who made her laugh; who played the games with her but made up the rules; for all her invective to him, she loves him and he cares for her. All one has to do is listen to the play.

Comment. As I said, almost every single creative person here has done wonderful work—elsewhere. I found this production to be a profound disappointment. The set was too large for what should be a claustrophobic. Where is it written that the set has to fill a vast stage? The result is that Brendan Healy staged it in such a way that characters would bellow across this expanse to other characters and the sense of danger was dissipated because of the distance. So, I found the production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a disappointment of a play I really like.

Canadian Stage Presents:

Plays until February 16, 2025.

Running time: 3 hours, 30 minute (2 intermissions)

www.canadianstage.com

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Live and in person at the CAA Theatre, David and Hannah Mirvish present the Crow’s Theatre and Segal Centre for the Performing Arts Production, Toronto, Ont. Playing until February 16, 2025.

www.mirivish.com

Adapted and directed by Marie Farsi

Based on the novel by André Alexis

Set, props and costumes by Julie Fox

Lighting by Imogen Wilson

Composer and sound by David Mesiha

Cast: Dan Chameroy

Laura Condlln

Stephen Jackman-Torkoff

Tom Rooney

Tyrone Savage

Mirabella Sundar Singh

Adaptor-director Marie Farsi and her gifted cast, have re-created their classy, nuanced, compelling production of this award-winning novel that first played at Crow’s Theatre in 2023.

NOTE: The production first played at Crow’s Theatre in the round in 2023. This production has one cast change and a different configuration of the playing space. The production is rich in nuance and philosophy on happiness.

The Story and Production. Two Greek gods, Apollo (Tyrone Savage) and Hermes (Mirabella Sundar Singh) go into a bar (The Wheat Sheaf Tavern in Toronto)….and while they are drinking their beer, they make a wager. One wagers the other…what would happen if dogs were given human traits, would they die happy? The winner of the wager gives the other two years of servitude.

Hermes and Apollo go to a vet’s office in downtown Toronto and open the cages and let about 15 dogs free. The dogs are given a conscience, language and the ability to reason. Three dogs don’t want to leave so they remain in their cages. That decision also has consequences.  The rest of the pack of dogs go to High Park.

From that point on the dogs reason, wrangle and maneuver so that eventually one dog leads and the rest follow. In this case the dog named Atticus (a confident, almost imperious Tyrone Savage) becomes the leader.

He’s described in the programme this way: “Atticus: an imposing Neapolitan Mastiff with cascading jowls.” In fact, it’s interesting to note how the dogs are described: Benjy (Dan Chameroy), a resourceful and conniving Beagle. Lydia (Dan Chameroy): a Whippet and Weimaraner cross, tormented and nervous. Prince (Stephen Jackman-Torkoff): A mutt who composes poetry. Max (Laura Condlln): a mutt who detests poetry. And Majnoun (Tom Rooney): a black Poodle, briefly referred to as Lord Jim. While he’s not described this way in the programme, Majnoun also does not trust other dogs.

The dogs are described with their likes, dislikes and other esoteric attitudes, just like humans. The dogs have their own language of which they are very protective. Jealousies are formed and signs of aggression appear. There are also questions of individuality and personal freedom.

In director Marie Farsi’s elegant, exuberant production, the cast wear conventional clothes to convey the kind of dog they are but no fur.

For Atticus and his imposing jowls Tyrone Savage, who plays him, wears pants, a loose t-shirt and a big, grey cowl around his neck, voilà, the jowls. Bravo to designer Julie Fox for this impish, clever solution in conveying what Atticus should look like. Indeed Julie Fox is masterful in her costuming so we see what all the dogs should ‘look’ like. Tyrone Savage’s Atticus sparingly gives a flick of his head, as a dog might do, just to make us always aware that we are watching dogs, but with human traits.

Majnoun played by Tom Rooney, is thoughtful, proud, intellectual and smart. Tom Rooney wears black pants, a black t-shirt, a black leather jacket and his arms hang down in front of him with his hands forming gentle fists to suggest paws. Tom Rooney’s poise conveys Majnoun’s stature, confidence and a watchfulness. Majnoun also learns English and how to speak it.

Tom Rooney is giving a wonderful, performance. It’s nuanced, has these little moments of quiet listening, but like a dog, not a human. He transforms; standing a bit forward, arms hanging down with slightly clenched fists suggesting paws.  Wonderful.

Two of his owners are a literary couple, Nira (a caring, sensitive Laura Condlln) and Miguel (an accommodating Stephen Jackman-Torkoff) who find him and take him in.  He so likes Nira that he indicates his secret to her—he can speak English. Laura Condlln as Nira is at first incredulous, but then accommodating at this wonder, and enters into that world of belief and trust. Nira and Majnoun have esoteric conversations about philosophy, life, relationships etc. He is protective of her. He doesn’t like Miguel.

One day the couple go away for a short weekend. But something seems to have happened and they don’t come back. Majnoun waits there patiently, determinedly, like a dog would do. He has this unconditional love for the humans—I think that is a dog thing.  Or perhaps it’s reciprocal.

The dogs have jealousies, which is human and there is aggression and death, which could be a human trait or a canine trait. I won’t split fur trying to decide. There are several deaths in the play—there would have to be for the wager to proceed. Some are moving.

André Alexis has written a dense, complex book about a provocative situation—how will dogs deal with having human traits—will that make them happy or unhappy, if they have the learning and dealing with the human traits to allow them to go one way or another. In his book there are existential ideas to consider. Marie Farsi has adapted the book into this play with efficiency and thought.

Her production is as inventive and clever as it was when it played at Crow’s theatre. But this is not a comparison of the two productions. That serves no purpose. This production at the CAA Theatre is done on a proscenium stage and if anything seems more energetic in this configuration. Marie Farsi  she uses the space well—there are rocks, a fire hydrant and electric poles—again, kudos to Julie Fox for her design.

The cast is terrific and committed.  There are hints of the movement and activity of dogs in the actors’ performances. There are flips of the head, or a woof here or a bark and a kind of prancing walk like a dog, but not overtly, just the hint of that to keep us aware. Stephen Jackman-Torkoff is exuberantly flamboyant as Zeus (the god), Prince (the dog who loves poetry) and any dog he plays, with Miguel (a person) being a bit subdued. The joy of Stephen Jackman-Torkoff as Prince and his love of language and poetry, is a thing of beauty. Dan Chameroy as Benjy might be playing a conniving Beagle, but he has disarming charm. And there is a visual joke when the strapping Dan Chameroy as Benjy (I assume a small Beagle) stands behind the diminutive Mirabella Sundar Singh who plays various large dogs—a Labradoodle, Labrador Retriever and a Schnauzer.    

Marie Farsi is a smart director. She stages the action with graceful fluidity and frisky energy.  Marie Farsi is also a sensitive adapter of  André Alexis’ novel of “Fifteen Dogs.” She has a keen eye for the detail in the characters, their philosophies of life and the story.  Just like humans, the dogs at various times, and certainly Majnoun, muse and philosophies on the vagaries of life, ideas, language and living. However, the production seemed a bit long at 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Still, Fifteen Dogs as a theatrical production is a worthy time in the theatre. And one will ponder the ideas of life and living, expressed by these many and various individual dogs, long after the play is over.

David and Hannah Mirvish present the Crow’s Theatre and Segal Centre for the Performing Arts Production:

Plays until Feb. 16, 2025.

Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes (1 intermission)

www.mirvish.com

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Live and in person at 388 Carlaw Ave. second floor, Toronto, Ont. Produced by Talk Is Free Theatre, playing until Jan. 31, 2025. Returning April 5-20.

www.tift.ca

Written by Mike Bartlett

Directed by Dylan Trowbridge

Production designer, Kathleen Black

Sound Designer, Nolan Moberly

Cast: Jakob Ehman

Michael Torontow

Tess Benger

Kevin Bundy

NOTE: this is mainly a repeat of the review I wrote when this play first played in Barrie, Ont. last year, but with updates and observations of the deeper dive into performances and interpretations of the play.

A gripping, powerful play and production about love—the obsession of it; the desperation of wanting it; the many variations of it. Beautifully acted and directed.

The Story. NOTE: about the title—According to Dylan Trowbridge’s Directors Note, playwright Mike Bartlett began writing COCK while participating in a writer’s residency in Mexico City. The inspiration for the play came when he saw a cockfight—close quarters for the two fighting cocks—and a group of ‘rabid?’ people surrounding the small fighting space cheering on the cocks who were tearing each other to pieces. Ah humanity.

Cock is not about vicious animals tearing each other to bits in anger. Cock is a love story between four people, each with a different perspective on love who are as demanding and brutal as any fighting cock.

John is at the center of the story. He is in love and been living with M for several years. (“M” can stand for “male” or “man).  But recently John has met “W” (that can stand for “woman”) and become besotted with her. They have had sex and now John is confused as to whom he wants to be with. Perhaps it’s easier than that—he wants both “M” and “W” and of course they want him to choose. There is also “F” who is “M’s” Father (so “F” can stand for Father) and wants the best for his son—another kind of love here.   

The Production. Director Dylan Trowbridge decided that because of the intimate, spare nature of the production it should be presented in a non-traditional space—small, tight, almost claustrophobic—so that the sense of the characters being stripped bare to their emotions is clear.

The production takes place on the second floor of an arts complex on Carlaw Ave. in Toronto. The audience follows a red line on the floor, along wide, rather deserted corridors, to a small waiting area, outside a closed corrugated ‘door’ like a garage door. When the production begins, the door folds up noisily and we are ‘welcomed’ into the space by Jakob Ehman as John. Kathleen Black has designed the production and it’s spare, efficient, and enveloping. Dylan Trowbridge has tweaked this production and staging to reflect the new space. The taut results are still the same only deeper.

There are opaque sheets as curtains along the walls. The audience sits on opposite sides of the space.  There are no fancy set, lights or costumes. A character steps on a switch on the floor and a light comes on or off. The action happens in the middle of the space and often on benches right beside audience members. To say this is intimate is an understatement. The audience is both watching, perhaps as voyeurs, and in a way participating—deciding whom to side with, whom to consider, how to decide how this should end. Characters change positions in the space, perhaps standing in the middle talking or sitting on a side bench facing another character when addressing each other—it’s less a cockfight and more maneuvering.

The production begins with M (a commanding, confident Michael Torontow) and John (a more subdued, introspective Jakob Ehman) reviewing how John could have had his head turned by a woman. John tries to suggest the woman was stalking him. We learn later W (Tess Benger, giving a compelling performance) and John often took the same bus to work. There was an attraction there and they took it from there. John was intrigued by W and W was attracted to John, certainly when he tells her that his recent relationship has ended. John is coy about the pronoun about his former partner. When he lets it slip that his former partner was a man, Tess Benger as W reacted with a crease of her face in concern, but she soon recovered and continued as if pursuing John. She knows he’s interested. She’s smart enough to know how to play the situation and make him further interested in her. In a wonderfully erotic scene played as John and W face each other with the space of the room between them, each tells the other what they need for pleasure. It’s directed with exquisite care and detail by Dylan Trowbridge and played with growing gasping eroticism by Tess Benger as W and Jakob Ehman as John.

W is invited to M’s house for dinner so that the three characters can meet and talk about the situation. This is when M’s father, F (Kevin Bundy) is invited as well to support M. Kevin Bundy plays F with an almost tight, raised jaw. He is fighting for his son’s honour. F’s sexism comes out in his condescending dialogue. And it sounds dangerous.  

The stranger in the room is W and Tess Benger plays her with controlled intelligence and grace. She is quietly fierce in her arguments and in defending herself. As M, Michael Torontow is angry, exasperated, demanding and desperate to keep John as his lover. Naturally both lovers want John to choose with whom he will remain. Will it be the forceful, take-charge M? Or will it be the quietly resourceful W? It’s obvious who John wants and it’s wonderful how Jakob Ehman as John plays the scene and both lovers. It’s not that John is passive aggressive when asked to make a decision. Jakob Ehman is much subtler than that in the playing—and in Dylan Trowbridge’s direction. One can imagine one’s heart is beating faster in anticipation of an answer that is taking its time. And the answer is obvious in the playing, although not to the lovers.

Comment. Cock is a terrific play of nimble thinking characters in a fraught situation of love and all its tangles. The performances have grown deeper and richer since I first saw it in Barrie, Ont. last year.     

Talk is Free Theatre presents:

Playing until Jan. 31, 2025. Returning April 5-20.

Running Time: 90 minutes (no intermission)

www.tift.ca

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Live and in person at the Berkeley Street Theatre, Toronto, Ont, produced by Necessary Angel in association with Canadian Stage Company and Birdland Theatre. Playing until Feb. 2, 2025.

www.canadianstage.com

Written by Roland Schimmelpfennig

Translated by David Tushingham

Directed Alan Dilworth

Set and lighting by Lorenzo Savoini

Costumes by Ming Wong

Composer and sound by Debashis Sinha

Cast: Frank Cox-O’Connell

Kira Guloien

Cyrus Lane

Diego Matamoros

Nancy Palk

Playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig writes about the insidious banality of evil and how it creeps up on the trusting and gullible. The playwright doesn’t know if he wants it to be a bracing play or a novel with too much narrative, as if the audience is not bright enough to get the message, what with all the history available for information. The production is stylish and the acting is fine.

From the Programme note: Playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig says of Winter Solstice: “My focus was always  on the method of the ‘fascist’ seduction…It’s not new. I works every time and it’s horrible.” 

The Story. It’s Christmas Eve. Albert and his wife Bettina are having a spat. Albert chastises Bettina because she never greets her mother, Corinna, when she arrives, saying that is rude. Bettina in turn is angry at her mother because she has invited a stranger to celebrate Christmas Eve. Corinna was on the train that day and was engaged in conversation with Rudolph who was also on the train. The train was stuck. Rudolph was a courtly, charming older man who helped Corinna pass the time so she invited him for the family festivities, because Rudolph was alone for the holiday. Albert was a little put out by this but he tried to be gracious.

They were also joined by Konrad, Albert’s long-time friend. Konrad was a painter who was doing a painting for Albert and Bettina.

As the play unfolds, we learn that the characters have secrets. They exchange ideas, conversations and gradually we perceive the unsettling effect that Rudolph has on the others: some are charmed others are wary.

The Production, Comment. Director Alan Dilworth has conceived a spare production.  Set and lighting designer, Lorenzo Savoini, has created a playing area that takes place in a large ledged rectangle around shiny wood floor. Characters sit on the ledge of the rectangle. Part of the rectangle is illuminated which adds another idea of stylishness and a moneyed environment. There are few props except a Christmas tree and some wine glasses. Wine is imagined being poured into the glasses. 

The production starts with a bang as Albert (a lively Cyrus Lane) and Bettina (an irritated Kira Guloien) sit on the ledge and Albert rails at Bettina’s rudeness toward her mother, Corinna (an accommodating Nancy Palk). The back and forth bickering is intense, full throttle and illuminates the cracks in this marriage. 

Corinna has brought Rudolph (a smooth-talking Diego Matamoros), a well-dressed stranger to celebrate. He is accommodating, charming, courtly and gracious almost to a fault to everyone as he tries to feel at home. Corinna and Rudolph met on the train as Corinna was coming to her daughter’s for the holiday. Where Rudolph was going is never explained. Both husband and wife are not happy that this stranger is there. 

Then instead of letting the play and these battling characters speak for themselves, for some reason playwright, Roland Schimmelpfennig changes the style of the play into an over-narrated ‘novel’ with Frank Cox-O’Connell (who also plays the artist friend Konrad) explaining in great detail the attitudes, reactions, perceptions and thoughts of the characters, as they react to each other. The initial argument is bristling. The endless narration, with Cox-O’Connell skirting the playing area earnestly following the action, meticulously explaining every reaction, weighs the play down and makes the whole thing tiresome. One gets the sense that Schimmelfennig doesn’t trust the audience to ‘get it’, unless they are spoon-fed every nuance in the dialogue.

One’s eyebrows start to knit when Rudolph gradually poses philosophical questions about purity, both in music and in the world. He believes in order and not chaos. He believes in tradition. He is judgmental about various nationalities and what they can and cannot accomplish. He’s a doctor, from Paraguay. Schimmelpfennig illuminates in neon, his winks and nudges to the audience that reference recent history. 

Debashis Sinha has created a soundscape of subtle rumbling that foreshadows the coming of extremism.  It tries to create skin-tingling as we listened to Rudolph sound off on his theories of purity and watched others just remain silent. Even this technique seems familiar and not surprising. 

The ensemble is terrific and the production is almost reverential in trying to make this 2007 play prescient.  But the play in this form is ponderous and even dated. The world has turned upside down since 2007, with more extremists coming to the fore. Real life has diminished the punch of the play (if it ever had it). 

A Necessary Angel Theatre Company production in association with Canadian Stage and Birdland Theatre.

Plays until Feb. 2, 2025.

Running Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes (no intermission)

www.canadianstage.com

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I interviewed Gideon Arthurs, the intrepid Executive Director of Soulpepper Theatre Company this morning on CRITICS CIRCLE, CIUT.fm 89.f about all things Soulpepper and a fascinating initiative he’s created with four other companies. Give a listen: https://ciutcriticscircle.podbean.com/e/critics-circle-january-18-2025/

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Live and in person at a private residence in Toronto, Ont. produced by Talk is Free Theatre. Playing until Jan. 31, 2025.

www.tift.ca

Written by Adam Meisner

Directed by Maja Ardal

Costume design by Laura Delchiaro

Cast: Maja Ardal

Amy Keating

Richard Lam

Jamie McRoberts

Alexander Thomas

And fascinating play about the future and the past, given a beautiful production in a gorgeous private home.

In the year 2150, humans have become gender neutral and use the pronoun ‘Ish’ to identify themselves. This story centres around two historians, ISH56 and ISH62, who want to transform an old residence for the upcoming sesquicentennial. As the museum is being created, members of the group become too enamored with their gendered counterparts and eventually start to re-enact the dangerous behaviours of their ancestors.

The Story. We are in 2150 years and it’s a world in which humans are gender-neutral.  The pronouns are rarely used (except for “We” etc. “I” almost never begins a sentence. Contractions are not used either.  People are not referred to by name but by the word “ISH” if it’s about a third person. The only particular identifier in the program of a character’s name is the word “ISH” followed by a number such as ISH62, ISH34 etc., although no character calls any other character by that full designation.  ISH62 seems to be the person in charge. ISH40 is their colleague who offers advice and ideas. ISH34 is an engineer who inspects the house. ISH 20 is a young person working on the project and ISH84 is an elder of the group. The number in the ‘name’ seems to suggest an age.

This ISH group of people is restoring the last house built in 1999. They are meticulous in recreating the furniture, props and other aspects of that time. The purpose is to create the house as a museum. But then things happen and the group dynamic changes when the group spends time in the house restoring it, and they begin identifying with their ancestors.

The Production. The play was first produced by Talk is Free Theatre in Barrie, Ont. in 2018 in a theatre. This time Talk is Free Theatre is producing the play in Toronto, Ont. in a beautiful private home, with the audience sitting around the space. Perhaps setting the play in a house so exquisite in its design as this one is, in which going to the bathroom is an adventure in exquisite décor, is another wink of Artistic Producer, Arkady Spivak, which in turn illuminates the misguided efforts of the ISH group. The audience is compelled to look and think about everything.

Laura Delchiaro has designed costumes for the ‘ISH-group’ who are all dressed in the same coloured jump-suits, wearing the same kind of toque and the same coloured shoes that does not differentiate them. Gender has been abolished during the ‘erasure’, the time when the pronouns were lost; as was gender differentiation; names etc. They all look androgynous.

Maya Ardal directs the production with precision, attention to detail and compassion. There is a greeting the characters give each other that involves a gentle breath in, arms held back creating an openness. It’s a gentle sense of the human beings hiding in that androgyny. It’s a lovely gesture.

Because there are no contractions in the speech, the results sound stilted and artificial, which is the intent. The voices are soft, almost uninflected, perhaps sounding like computer-generated voices, but never dull sounding.

While the characters have no identifiable gender, the actors playing them do, so that will be the best way of describing the various performances.

ISH62 (Maja Ardal) is a commanding leader of the project. ISH62’s comments are direct and to the point with a touch of being officious. Maja Ardal’s body language is brisk as well, movements are quick and matter of fact. As ISH40, Richard Lam, is gentle in his quietness, mindful of the rules of his time and curious about what went on in 1999. ISH20, a curious Jamie McRoberts, has gender yearnings to be a girl. ISH34 is an engineer, and as played by Amy Keating, begins by being timid about anything out of her realm, but then gets bolder. Alexander Thomas plays ISH84 with sweet grace. Here is a character who wants to reimagine his late grandmother, without actually knowing what that entails.

Time spent in the 1999 house changes things, as the group brings in what they consider to be artifacts from 1999. The subtle change in the characters because of the house in that time, is fascinating, heartbreaking and uplifting.

 Comment.  In his play, For Both Resting and Breeding, Adam Meisner has written an intriguing, imaginative look into the future with a wink to the present. He doesn’t explain the change from going from ‘today’ when we are sex crazed and perhaps keenly aware of the shifting focus in gender fluidity, to 150 years in the future to a world without gender or the defining pronouns. Language, attitudes, individuality and history are examined. Adam Meisner has a compelling imagination and a smart facility with language that in turn gets us to think about our world and the future he has created.

Produced by Talk is Free Theatre

Runs until Jan. 31, 2025.

Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes (1 intermission)

www.tift.ca

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Live and in person at the Streetcar Crowsnest Theatre, Produced by Crow’s Theatre, 345 Carlaw Ave. at Dundas, Toronto, Ont. Plays until February 9.

www.crowstheatre.com

Written by Liz Appel

Directed by Chris Abraham

Set and props by Joshua Quinlan

Costumes by Ming Wong

Lighting by Imogen Wilson

Sound by Thomas Ryder Payne

Video designer, Nathan Bruce

Cast: Ari Cohen

Sochi Fried

Richard Lee

Rachel Leslie

A bold, bracing play about language, race, identity, being a flawed human and consequences when they screw-up. The play is vibrant with all sorts of surprises. Most work, some don’t but the effort is remarkable.  Liz Appel is a playwright whose voice I want to hear again.

Definition of “wight”: wight is derived from Old English wiht, meaning “living being, creature”. The related Old Saxon wiht means “thing, demon”.

A synonym for wight: “a human being; `wight’ is an archaic term. synonyms: creature. individual, mortal, person, somebody, someone, soul.”

Pronounced as “White” which in the context of the play can be tricky and apt.

The Story. I’m going to use the theatre’s synopsis of the show with some of my own input:

“It’s Halloween 2024, (in Connecticut), one week before the U.S. election. Anita Knight, a brilliant and ambitious Yale academic, has gathered her closest friends to help her prepare for the job interview of a lifetime. Her husband arrives, late to the party, setting off a chain of events no one sees coming.

In this biting social satire, two couples confront each other and themselves, and no one will ever be the same. As their carefully constructed stories unravel, dark forces threaten friendships, marriages, and perhaps even the fate of humanity itself.”

The Production. The audience sits on the four sides of the theatre with the playing area in the middle. Joshua Quinlan’s set of Anita (Rachel Leslie) and Danny’s (Ari Cohen) stylish kitchen has an island in the middle with a sink, running water, lots of counter space and a shiny floor. Quinlan has also created private pockets of the set—an alcove for the fridge over there, another one on the other side of the stage for a chair by a window. These secret pockets worked a treat in Quinlan’s set of Uncle Vanya for Crow’s Theatre, not so much for Rosmersholm. One is primed to appreciate these secret pockets on a Quinlan set—they are deliberately created to suggest a mystery.

Director Chris Abraham begins the production with a boom, literally and figuratively. A booming sound effect announces the beginning and we better brace ourselves. Kudos to sound designer Thomas Ryder Payne for choosing the right sound to grab one’s attention. The lighting by Imogen Wilson illuminates the floor as startlingly as the sound effect. With each ‘boom’ there is a lighting effect until the production ‘eases’ into the easy, quick banter of Anita and her two guests.

Celine (Sochi Fried) and her husband Bing (Richard Lee) have come over to prepare dinner and to help prepare Anita for the interview. Bing can’t find the pepper and no matter where he’s told to look, they never find it.

Bing and Celine are bickering. Celine is pointed in her comments to him. Bing is easy going to a point. Bing is a colleague of Anita’s at Yale. He’s bright, knows how to read a room and finesse a conversation. He arrived in the U.S from China when he was 17 to study at prestigious schools. Celine, his wife, is white.

Anita wants Bing and Celine to be brutal in their challenging of her presentation to the selection committee. She wants them to draw blood. The salad is made, the dressing poured and tossed. Danny arrives home from court-he’s a lawyer defending a man wrongfully accused and jailed for 22 years.

Initially Danny watches and listens to the conversations of the others, and eats—he didn’t have lunch and he’s hungry. His questions are astute. It’s clear that of all of the characters, Danny’s work as a lawyer does something while the others philosophize and theorize about issues.

In Act I each character does something, unbeknownst to the others, that will have consequences in Act II. As information is revealed, ideas and attitudes expressed, it’s clear these characters are at odds with who knows then, mainly because they don’t listen to each other. They are flawed and human. In the words of Lillian Hellman: “People change and forget to tell each other.” And when the characters discover how much their friend/partner has changed, it’s startling.

Director Chris Abraham puts the characters and the audience through a bracing theatrical exercise as we watch from a distance, sizing up each character, weighing what they say; noting the truth or not, and where our allegiances lay. And it’s to Liz Appel’s keen abilities as a playwright, that we keep up with her observations and arguments.

Liz Appel has written a biting satire that skewers the woke, land acknowledgements, the court system, the academic world and its inequities, personal agendas in relationships and the tyranny of language and how it’s been misused. Her language and arguments for all her characters are laser sharp. She is a playwright who is white, who has written full-bodied characters who are not white with their own issues of race and class. Liz Appel turns the notion of voice appropriation on its head when she writes as clearly about Anita as a black woman of mixed race, as she does about Danny who is perceived as white but does not identify as that, who has his own angst with identity. And she writes as clearly of Bing’s issues as an Asian man with his own inner turmoil.  Rather than ‘voice appropriation’ I quote Tomson Highway who called it ‘voice illumination.’ Liz Appel puts us in the heart and mind of all her characters, not just the ones who look like me. The acting from the cast of four is exceptional, emotional, committed, energetic and compelling. The arguments are offered intensely and with rigor.

One might quibble that ‘people don’t talk like that’ as they listen to Danny give a very long monologue that grips you by the throat, about the system, his inner turmoil as a white man with other issues. The arguments from other characters might also be described as “people don’t talk like that.” Well, these characters do.  We’ve heard them in our theatres/life as they spill their guts at the many slights they endure; as they try and be as politically correct as possible; as they make language into a vice that can’t express ideas anymore because they are terrified of hurting someone’s feelings. I also crinkled my eyebrows at Danny’s revelation and the timing of it. Perhaps it seemed a bit too contrived and his unravelling in Act II a bit messy. Still lots to chew on.

 Comment. Wights is Liz Appel’s professional debut as a playwright. It’s astonishing. She takes no prisoners with her focus on the phoniness in institutions, justice systems, race relations, human relations, communications and language. This is an astonishing debut. More please, soon.  

Crow’s Theatre Presents:

Plays until February 9, 2025

Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.www.crowstheatre.com

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When I’m in New York I love going to Lincoln Center Theater. André Bishop, the Producing Artistic Director of Lincoln Center Theater, programs a consistently bracing, artful list of plays and musicals at the theatre since he began there more than 30 years ago. André Bishop has nurtured and encouraged a who’s who of playwrights from Tom Stoppard, David Hare, Wendy Wasserstein, Ayad Akhtar and Sarah Ruhl to name a tiny few. I get an education in the artform when I go to that theatre. It’s also afforded me some “stories from the audience”. Here are two to begin the new year with a laugh and a touch of a furrowed brow.

Uncle Vanya.

Written by Anton Chekhov

A new version by Heidi Schreck

Directed by Lila Neugebauer

Starring Steve Carell

I saw a production of Uncle Vanya with Steve Carell as Uncle Vanya; modern dress; starry cast certainly with Steve Carell. It was a Saturday matinee audience. They are different from an evening audience.

I had a great seat, four seats in from the center aisle about 5 rows from the front. Three stylish women of a certain age sat beside me from the aisle in. They sat and settled, sort of. The woman to my right had a malleable plastic bag of nuts she bought in the lobby. She ate the nuts one at a time. Such discipline-not a handful of nuts, but one at a time.  Her hand slowly burrowed into the bag, pulled out one nut and ate it slowly. This continued beyond the show starting. Slowly the hand burrowed deeper and deeper into the bag, making a bit of noise—crunch etc. Until I had to lean towards her and whisper: “Are you almost finished?” She immediately put the bag away without comment.

The show progressed. Uncle Vanya railed against the Professor (a wonderful Alfred Molina) about his lot in life. Dr. Astrov (William Jackson Harper) lamented how tired he was, but never sat down to talk to Marina (Mia Katigbak) the housekeeper to indicated he was tired. Sonia (Alison Pill) pined for the Astrov. I always get heartsick for her. The woman on the end fussed in her purse. She fussed so much in her purse that the two people in front of her kept turning around to try and get her attention to STOP!!

At intermission, the woman in front of the fusser turned and asked in an annoyed voice, “What were you doing for the whole act. You disturbed people with your fussing.” The ‘fusser’ said in a hurt/annoyed voice: “I was looking for my medication!” Hmm I didn’t think the production was that stressful.  She was looking for her medication? Yikes.

At Intermission the trio of women left to buy more snacks. When they returned the woman in the middle tried and failed to open her bottle of water. She fussed about that. The woman on the aisle opened it for her.

Act II began.  All quiet for a little while. Astrov brought his maps to impress the beautiful Elena (Anika Noni Rose). There were lots of bells and whistles with the production: rainfall, Sonia laid down in a puddle on the stage. Stunning.

The woman on the aisle, however, was pre-occupied with her purse, or rather something in the purse. This was a purse of many zippered compartments and she carefully, slowly opened every one individually, rummaged in the depths of each compartment, couldn’t find what she wanted, slowly, carefully zipped up each compartment and then moved to the next compartment. The couple in front of her moved to two seats in front of them, to get away from the noise of the rummaging. 

Elena and Sonia confide in each other. Sonia is disappointed Astrov has no feelings for her because he’s smitten by Elena. Vanya is disappointed at the turn of events in his life—all his doing. I’m gritting my teeth because the woman on the aisle began looking in each compartment again, for something desperately needed: her meds? A Kleenex? The Rosetta Stone? No. She finally found it; her compact. In the middle of Act II of Uncle Vanya in a dark theatre, this woman needed to open her compact to look in the mirror, to put on lipstick and freshen her face-powder. I wonder if she has to practice being this stupid, ill-mannered, self-absorbed and witless. There was not enough light for her to see, so she leaned into the aisle, hoping to catch the light of the aisle lighting. I’m wondering for whom this makeup touch-up was for: the nut muncher beside me? The weak-woman-who-could-not-unscrew-her-water-bottle-cap beside her? Uncle Vanya? The make-up applied, the woman carefully put everything back in its proper compartment, the zipper slowly zipped, the purse carefully laid in the lap and the hands neatly folded on top of the purse. This ‘performance’ was almost as good as on stage—almost.

When the show was over and the bows were to begin, the woman on the aisle hauled her body slowly out of the seat (not applauding anyone) as she slowly beat a lurching retreat up the aisle. The other two women stayed, applauded weakly and then slowly left, leaving behind a mess of programs, inserts exhorting, half-filled water bottles, empty nut bags on the floor over which the rest us slid and trampled through as we left.

Civilization as we know it, is doomed.

McNeal   

Written by Ayad Akhtar

Directed by Bartlett Sher

Starring Robert Downey Jr.

It seems this need to cast celebrities that has infected Broadway has finally caught up to Lincoln Center Theater. Steve Carell in Uncle Vanya and Robert Downey Jr. in McNeal.

McNeal is about a celebrated author, Jacob McNeal, who has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He’s prickly, a bad friend, bad husband and bad father. Is he based on Saul Bellow? Bellow is referenced.

It’s also about Artificial Intelligence. Jacob McNeal asks his ‘devices’ to re-write two classic works “in the style of Jacob McNeal” and the result is a book that is published. I thought Robert Downey Jr. gave a performance created by Artificial Intelligence, only without the ‘intelligence.’ I thought it was mannered, full of ticks and idiosyncrasies. Andrea Martin played McNeal’s literary agent. I had no idea what she was doing in that part either, except it seemed a send-up of anything that resembled a real person—earnest and phony.

However, again, it was a guy in the audience that got my eyebrows raised. He sat on the aisle baseball cap, windbreaker, comfy shoes and pants. And he bought about $100 worth of snacks from the bar/concession area in the lobby, which he distributed to some of the people in his row and the row behind him: licorice, Jr. Mints, M & Ms a bag of nuts, bottles of water.

On stage was a huge cell phone with the date (Oct. 10) and the time—both did not reflect the actual date and time of the performance. “Snack-man” called the usher over.  He wanted to know the significance of the date and time on the huge cell phone. The usher, smart, knowledgeable about audiences, told him that all would be revealed in the play—that the date and time played a part of the story. The usher went back to her post at the back of the theatre. “Snack-man” began eating the snacks.

Now close to show time. “Snack-man” calls the usher over again, this time he’s showing he’s learned a thing or two since his last encounter with the usher. He says: I’ve paid $250 for the seats, indicating a few people beside him. What’s this story about?” I sucked air. I wonder, ‘why would you even attend if you haven’t done any homework? Found out about the story/play? The usher leaned in and quietly answered him….I assume she sized him up and did give him a short precis. He was a guy who bought the tickets because of the celebrity playing the lead.

The house lights dimmed. The play began. The audience became quiet except for the noise, “forest-fire” of crackling of cellophane from the wrappers, munching of the snacks and gurgling of drinking coming from “Snack-Man” on the aisle. It lasted the whole show. People turned and looked at him as the noise continued. No one told him to be quiet. At the end he left a pile of garbage that was ankle deep in the row.

Every program has an insert that is longer than the program so that the first word of the insert is prominent. The word is PLEASE in bold and in a huge font. That gets our attention. The rest of the message urges us pointedly to PLEASE turn off our cell phones to ensure they don’t go off in the play and disturb the actors and your fellow patrons.

Here is my question: Why should we turn off our damned cell phones when every theatre encourages the cacophony caused by the snacks we buy in the lobby and take into the theatre, to go undeterred during the play? Do they think a cell phone going off suddenly and stopped (if we are lucky) just as quickly, is worse than the consistent crinkle, rustling, chomping, gurgling and munching during the play? Nope.

Open the bar and concessions at 9 am and have the folks gorge until showtime and then, nothing is allowed in that theatre except water—in a carton. How about that? Do ya think folks would stamp their feet and leave if they can’t graze as if they are at the movies (where the sound is 10 times louder than needed) or at a sporting event where silence doesn’t matter. Huh?

Civilization, as we know it, is doomed.

Happy New Year.

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A fascinating piece by Jenifer Toksvig from The Stage (London, Eng.) Nov. 4, 2024.

Everyone is welcome at the theatre, unless…

Opinion Nov 4, 2024 by Jenifer Toksvig

Jenifer Toksvig

theatremaker

Jenifer Toksvig is a neurodivergent theatremaker who challenges traditional theatre models, advocating for greater accessibility and inclusivity through her process, The Copenhagen Interpretation

Theatre: Everyone is Welcome
Summarised by Jenifer Toksvig

Everyone is welcome at the theatre, unless you cannot see yourself in the social group ‘theatregoers’ because of assumptions around:
• audience identity, eg ‘highbrow’;
• theatre experience, eg ‘boring’;
• subject relatability, eg ‘sanctimonious’.

Everyone is welcome, unless you cannot, in general and/or in the moment:
• attend at one of the limited available dates and times;
• afford the costs, time and energy necessary for attendance;
• physically leave your house and travel;
• be confident of your own personal safety, eg when travelling, or at the venue;
• tolerate possible security searches;
• physically access all public areas of the venue, eg performance space, toilets;
• comfortably be in public, potentially in a crowd;
• be punctual (note: late access, where permissible/possible, may not be acceptable);
• be confident that you will be able to stay for the duration;
• manage unexpected occurrences.

Everyone is welcome, unless you cannot:
• find anything that appeals to you in the limited productions available to you;
• make provision for your own access support needs and those of any dependants with you, including anything expected (eg regulating temperature) and unexpected (eg first aid);
• risk potential harm from performance content – psychological/emotional (eg subject matter or non-consensual participation) or physical (eg allergens).

Everyone is welcome, unless you cannot purchase a ticket for a seat or space:
• that can accommodate you, your belongings and/or mobility aids, and any required companions, comfortably enough to stay for the duration;
• that will afford you an accessible experience, eg a clear view of sign language interpretation;
• at a performance where any access support needs (eg audio description) can be met, if that provision meets your specific needs (eg variations of ‘relaxed’ performance).

Everyone is welcome, unless you cannot attend because of issues with any items or mobility aids you would need to bring with you, including:
• transportation, safety and/or security of your belongings;
• impact of being able, or required, to store items in a cloakroom;
• accessibility in good time within the building, eg to use the toilet or attend to any dependants;
• need to efficiently move anything blocking the passage of others, including yourself/any dependants;
• suitability of items, eg things that make no noise.

Everyone is welcome, unless you cannot remember in good time:
• that you are going to the theatre;
• the arrangements made;
• what to bring, eg tickets, and where to find them.

Note: terms such as ‘acceptable’ and ‘reasonable’ are typically defined by common understanding (of which everyone may not be aware), policed by audience members (which could include anyone) and enforced accordingly by venue staff. There is no opportunity for explanation or reasoning at the moment of policing or enforcement. The consequences of being deemed to be in breach are immediate tacit or overt shaming in situ, and may also include untimely ejection from the venue and further public shaming on social media.

Everyone is welcome, unless you cannot, for the duration of the performance, be comfortable enough to remain:
• seated (note: early exit may or may not be possible/acceptable);
• focused on the performance;
• motionless, except for typically sanctioned movements (eg applause) and reasonable momentary self-care adjustments;
• silent, except for typically sanctioned noises (eg applause) and reasonable noises (eg a momentary cough).

Everyone is welcome, unless you cannot optimally:
• see and hear the performance, or engage with replacements, eg audio description or sign language interpretation;
• tolerate sensory experience of the performance as designed.

Everyone is welcome, unless you cannot avoid disrupting the experience of others who are involved in or attending the performance, by methods including:
• taking up more than the allotted space;
• causing any sensory distraction;
• behaviour that might be interpreted as disrespectful;
• preventing the performance from being delivered exactly as prepared.

Everyone is welcome, unless you cannot avoid apparently or actually:
• capturing the performance using technology;
• using technology for reasons unconnected to the performance;
• being indifferent to unreasonable disruptions of which you are the cause.

Everyone is welcome, unless you cannot, in response to the performance:
• applaud as anticipated for an acceptable duration;
• limit spontaneous expressions of emotion to reasonable, momentary utterances at acceptable times, ideally only where collective expression is premeditated by design;
• stand up if it is necessary to continue your own experience, or noteworthy that you are not standing, when others do;
• cause only acceptable, momentary disruption where symptoms of, for example, a mental health condition are triggered.

Everyone is welcome to experience sparks of creativity and thought. This welcome is limited to:
• experiencing only this specifically crafted telling of the story;
• engaging only one time per ticket, regardless of your situation at that time;
• typically having a predominantly unaccompanied experience.

This welcome does not include the right, during the experience, to:
• seek clarification, eg have something repeated or get more information;
• comment on your experience, or explore other versions/perspectives with those who are present (audience or company) or absent; 
• contribute to the creation of the work, except by limited invitation, eg invited audience suggestions;
• contribute to the performance, except by limited invitation, eg defined audience responses (of which you may not be aware/informed);
• join in with, for example, songs, unless by clearly defined invitation, whether or not the production intentionally uses known works to trigger familiarity;
• gain any experience, knowledge or understanding of the process of bringing this specific work to performance, outside limited highlights, eg in a programme.

All welcome terminates at the end of the performance, when you are expected to leave the building as quickly and efficiently as possible, including:
• retrieving any belongings;
• making adequate preparations for yourself, and any dependants with you, for your onward journey.

Many theatres receive public funding, and everyone is welcome to donate money, so we can continue to welcome everyone.

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