Live and in person at Theatre Orangeville, Orangeville, Ont. until May 15, 2022.

www.theatreorangeville.ca

LiveStream on May 7th at 2pm. Pre-Order NOW ⬇ 

Created and performed by Leisa Way

The Wayward Wind Band:

Tyler Check

Adam Koopmans

Bruce Ley

Bobby Prochaska

Don Reid

Starring Leisa Way and the Wayward Wind Band.

The name, “Wayward Wind Band” does not mean that there are a lot of players of wind instruments meandering around the stage, although this band is so agile, instrumentally, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if these folks can play the piccolo, clarinet, flute, saxophone and penny whistle.

Nope, it generally means capricious, erratic and unpredictable. “Unpredictable” would be the best definition for the group because they and their lead singer, Leisa Way take the audience to places, they might not have expected.

Not to worry, Rock n Roll Is Here To Stay is a raucous, joyous homage to Rock n Roll through the ages with historical tidbits, observations, many little known facts and lots and lots of songs that show the progression and development of Rock n Roll from its early days.

We are told that Rock n Roll probably began in the 1930s emanating from jazz. From there it developed its own music and those who developed it. The great Chuck Berry burst on the scene with “Johnny Be Good” who lead the way for Little Richard and “Tutti Fruiti”, that lead to Elvis and his swivel hips on the Ed Sullivan Show. Ike and Tina Turner sang of “Proud Mary” before Tina left the abusive Ike and went blazing on her own. Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones are cited of course. Stevie Nicks sang “Rhiannon”, Grace Slick sang whatever she wanted and did it with commanding style. Canada’s own Bachman-Turner-Overdrive was represented with “Born to be Wild.”

Leisa Way has created a packed, comprehensive show that illustrates the shifts and changes of Rock n Roll. She represents every major female mover in Rock n Roll wearing a new costume and wig to represent the person the time and the fashion. And she sings wonderfully and adds charm.

The Wayward Wind Band plays the music with gusto, often enacting the movements of the original singer of the song, hips swiveled, musicians jumped in the air and almost did the splits when they landed, there was virtuosic guitar work and mighty drum work. The three women sitting in front of me knew all the songs, bopped in their seats and raised their arms in the air in time to every song.  

Rock n Roll Is Here To Stay is a dandy way of ending a packed theatre season at Theatre Orangeville and to ease people back into the theatre, if they have been reluctant to go before this.

Theatre Orangeville presents:

Plays until: May 15, 2022.

Live stream is available May 7 at 2:00 pm.

Running Time: about 2 hours with one intermission.

www.theatreorangeville.ca

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Live and in person at Factory Theatre, Toronto, Ont. until May 15. 2022.

www.factorytheatre.ca

Written by David Yee

Directed by Nina Lee Aquino

Set and costumes designed by Joanna Yu

Lighting by Michelle Ramsay

Sound design and composer, Christopher Stanton

Cast: Ryan Hollyman

Carlos Gonzalez Vio

An explosion of stunning language, poetry and a deep dive into the intoxicating, desperate world of being a poet and needing to write poems. Wonderfully directed and acted.

The Story. 1957, Roblin Lake, Ameliasburgh, Prince Edward County. Canadian poets, Al Purdy and Milton Acorn are building Purdy’s A-frame house where Purdy will live with his wife Eurithe. The house will become a celebrated writer’s retreat after Purdy dies, but for the purposes of the play, Purdy and Acorn are building it. Acorn is a trained carpenter. Purdy makes the coffee and eggs and muses on the hierarchy of the different kinds of cooked eggs in the process. Neither man has achieved their revered place in Canadian poetry at the time, but the need to write poetry is there, burning in their bellies. They bolster each other when they faulter or feel insecure; they know each other’s weak spots and they are each other’s champion.

The Production. Joanna Yu’s set of the vaulting outline of the A-frame house dominates the Factory Theatre stage. There is a big comfortable chair that has seen better days, a table and some chairs and a back wall that is set off with a flimsy covering. A wood stove of sorts provides heat. There are a few ‘mobiles’ with crumpled paper attached. These are discarded poems. The whole place suggests this is a work in progress. There is no running water. Al Purdy (Ryan Hollyman) gets the water for coffee from a bucket he ladles into the pot. Milton Acorn, (Carlos Gonzalez Vio) smokes cigars, gives order for coffee etc. and does little to help with the domestic arrangements. He does know his way around a hammer. Purdy seems almost fastidious in his shirt and pants, at least he doesn’t wear them to bed. Acorn in his grubby pants and shirt looks like he sleeps in his clothes and perhaps hasn’t taken them off in a rather long time.

Al Purdy, as played by Ryan Hollyman, is the more passionate, excitable of the two. His linguistic dexterity is dazzling. He finds Milton Acorn to be lacking as a person and exasperating—selfish, rude, insensitive to others in his behaviour, a clod. Acorn neglects to give Purdy a letter he was expecting from the CBC regarding a submitted play,  because Acorn just forgot. But Acorn makes up for it with his vibrant, passionate, heart-felt poetry and that’s what Purdy respects more than anything about him.

As Milton Acorn, Carlos Gonzalez Vio is morose, insecure about his place in poetry, his poverty and that he never fits in anywhere, not even with other poets. His language is equally as expressive but in a more vulgar, muscular way than Purdy’s.  But Acorn respects and supports Purdy’s work. They are the other’s support. Carlos Gonzalez Vio plays Acorn with an off-handed disdain about most things—it’s a performance that nicely hides a wounded soul.

The two men drink liquor prodigiously, insult the other, complain about the establishment and their lack of being recognized for their work but always at the heart of any conversation is the poetry that drives them.

Director Nina Lee Aquino has beautifully established the bonding of men who are not embarrassed to show their uncertainty or insecurity about their feelings, their yearning, or their attractions. Milton Acorn was smitten with the much younger Gwendolyn MacEwen but was too shy to tell her (he lost his shyness one assumed when they eventually married). Purdy, deeply in love with his wife Eurithe, urged Acorn to make a move to approach MacEwen. Acorn suffered shellshock in the war and in one of the production’s startling moments, Purdy is caring enough to hold Acorn tightly to get him through it. Again, Nina Lee Aquino’s deft hand beautifully establishes Purdy’s and Acorn’s intense masculinity, without any toxicity.  

At the heart of among men is the poetry of Milton Acorn and Al Purdy. It’s declared on a chair (“I Shout Love”); popped off in between drinks of liquor, tapped on an old typewriter, and remembered because it’s good and it’s not necessary to write it down.

Comment. David Yee has written a stunner of a play about two giants in Canadian poetry before they were successful and celebrated. The dialogue is rich, muscular, vibrant complex and the words float through the air like darting butterflies. Dazzling for all the right reasons. Yee has created a work of art that captures the obsessive, emotional, moving need to write poetry. In its way, among men is a play that celebrates the need to make art in the hardest, most debilitating of times, to not give up or lose hope. The play is a beautiful gift.

Produced by Factory Theatre.

Runs until May 15.

Running time: 100 minutes, no intermission.

www.factorytheatre.ca

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Live and in person at Tarragon Theatre, Extraspace until May 20, 2022.

Digital Tarragon Chez Vous run of Three Women of Swatow will be May 15 – 25. 

www.tarragontheatre.com

Written by Chloé Hung

Directed by Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster

Set and lighting designed by Jareth Li

Costumes designed by Shannon Lea Doyle

Composition and sound designed by Deanna H. Choi

Cast: Carolyn Fe

Diana Luong

Chantria Tram

The humour in Chloé Hung’s play is certainly cutting, but there is a hole in the narrative and an elephant in the room that should have been addressed. Stalwart performances.

The Story. Grandmother is a tough woman trying to pass on her life lessons and knife skills to her daughter and her granddaughter. They all have issues. Grandmother is a butcher with a drinking problem. Her daughter is a vegetarian, much to her mother’s chagrin, and is also a woman physically abused by her husband but refuses to leave him. The granddaughter is a tough, opinionated young woman who lives with her grandmother because she refuses to live with her mother and abusive father. Generational trauma lives in these three women. How does one deal with it all and come to a meeting of the minds?

The Production. To clarify who the characters are the program lists them as: Grandmother (Carolyn Fe), Mother (Chantria Tram) and Daughter (Diana Luong) even though we will realize they are Grandmother, daughter and granddaughter (for clarity Grandmother gets the capital “G” as in the program).

The Grandmother grew up in a village in Swatow, China. She had no choice in who she married in that village and we find out why late in the play. Grandmother’s husband was abusive Grandmother grows into a fierce woman to protect herself. She tries to pass that fierceness to her Daughter when she marries a man who turns out to be abusive as well.  Grandmother has asked her daughter to leave him and come and live with her, but she won’t and tries to placate him instead.

At the beginning of the play the Grandmother is drinking gin, flicking her handheld electric fan for cool air, and reading the bible about a wife who gets revenge on her husband. It’s a scene that goes on a bit too long in establishing the obvious, Grandmother drinks, fans, reads the bible and takes off her clothes to her underwear because she’s hot. She gets a gets a tearful phone message from her daughter about how long to marinate the chicken for drunken chicken, that she plays again and again. Because we have no context at this point, the intention of the extended scene seems to stop the play before it even begins.

The daughter is going to try an appease her abusive husband with food. When we see the daughter there are bruises on her neck and arms. At one point she raises her hand to her face and it’s bloody. We are told that there will be lots of blood in the production. Grandmother knows that her daughter needs help as does her granddaughter. Fierceness sets in. Accusations fly between the three women. The Grandmother is accused by her daughter of being cold and unfeeling. The granddaughter accuses both of them of meddling in her life. They talk around the issue of the abusive husband. The daughter excuses her husband’s behaviour because of gambling debts. She says that he wasn’t always that way and feels she can’t leave him, that he does love her.

The hole in the story and the elephant in the room is the absent abusive husband. We are told so little about him except he had gambling debts. When did he become abusive in that marriage? We aren’t told. The daughter wouldn’t leave him and gave the reasons that have kept many women in abusive relationships—“he really loved her.” The physical evidence of violence  suggests otherwise.  The granddaughter chose to live with her Grandmother and not with her mother and father and was clear she ‘would not go back there’—to her parents’ house. That seems pretty certain that something was wrong, but then matters get muddy when the granddaughter waffles about her father’s violence.

The Grandmother has a solution that is pretty drastic, and again, we are not given a lot of information as to why that point was reached. It seemed more effort went into creating the humour between the bickering women than a clear path forward regarding the abuse.

As Grandmother, Carolyn Fe is fierce. She is matter of fact, takes control when solving an obvious problem and has no time for sentiment when dealing with her daughter and granddaughter except to improve a bad situation. Chantria Tram as Mother (actually Grandmother’s daughter) illuminates a fragile woman trying to deal with a violent husband, a commanding mother, and an irritated daughter. Diana Luong as Daughter (actually Grandmother’s granddaughter) is feisty, quixotic and emotional with all that is going on around her. Director, Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster has created a cohesive unite with the three characters and an impressive use for blood.

Comment. As with many plays over the last two years, Three Women of Swatow had been programmed and then postponed because of COVID. The delay of course was heartbreaking to playwright Chloé Hung and all the people who worked on it. I just wish more time was spent dealing with the person who was affecting all three women—the abusive husband. We needed more information about him and what lead them to do what they did.  

Tarragon Theater Presents:

Plays, live until May 20, 2022.

Digital Tarragon Chez Vous run is May 15-25.

Running Time: 80 minutes.

www.tarragontheatre.com

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Wednesday, April 27—May 15, 2022

Factory Theatre, Toronto, Ont.

among men

By David Yee

Factory Theatre

Poets Milton Acorn and Al Purdy talk life, art and poetry as they build an A-frame house in Prince Edward Country. Nina Lee Aquino directs.

www.factorytheatre.ca

Wednesday, April 27- May 7, 2022.

Theatre Aquarius, Hamilton, Ont.

The Hours that Remain

By Keith Barker

Directed By Mary Francis Moore, Artistic Director, Theatre Aquarius

Denise has spent the last five years investigating the disappearance of her sister Michelle. Haunted by visions of her sister, Denise must come to terms with what she has so desperately been avoiding.

BUY TICKETS

Wednesday, April 27-May 15, 2022.

Tarragon Theatre, Toronto, Ont.

Three Women of Swatow

by Chloé Hung

directed by Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster

Buy In-Person Tickets

“Swatow women are supposed to be fierce.”

 

That’s what Grandmother tells her daughter. Grandmother’s a butcher and to her disappointment, her daughter’s a vegetarian. But to her satisfaction, her granddaughter killed her first chicken at the age of three. In this ferocious comedy, the three generations of women grapple with their dark history, emotional inheritance and the legacy of mothers’ life lessons and daughters’ love lives.

 

And there’s blood. Lots of blood.

Friday, April 29-May 15, 2022

Theater Orangeville, Orangeville, Ont.

Rock ‘n’ Roll is Here to Stay

Starring Leisa Way and the Wayward Wind Band

Leisa Way and the Wayward Wind Band keeps the classic rock flame burning in this high energy show that is mesmerizing audiences with the electrifying sounds of the hottest rock stars and bands in history.

 BUY TICKETS

Friday, April 29, 2022

Playwrights Canada Press Spring Launch Friday, April 29 at 7pm EDT free to attend in Gather Featuring readings from: Amy Rutherford – Mortified Jeff Ho – Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land) & Antigone: 方 Michelle MacArthur and Erin Shields with Sophie Bouey – Voices of a Generation Michaela Di Cesare – Successions Susanna Fournier – The Empire Hosted by José Teodoro! A written document of the excerpts to be read and instructions on how to access Gather will be sent out the day of the event. Please send us an email if you have any other access needs (ASL interpretation, captioning, audio description, etc.) in order to attend.

More info + register to attend

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Live and in person at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton, Ont. Until May 7, 2022.

www.theatreaquarius.org

Written by Keith Barker

Directed by Mary Francis Moore

Set and costumes designed by Jackie Chau

Lighting designed by Jareth Li

Sound designed by Sergey Kublanovskiy

Cast: Cherish Violet Blood

Ryan Cunningham

Cheri Maracle

Damn COVID! The Hours That Remain, Keith Barker’s compelling play of hope and loss, was supposed to open at Theatre Aquarius last week. Then COVID struck and the opening was postponed to today and then postponed again to Friday, April 29. Today, Tuesday, April 26 was in fact the first preview. One must never, ever, review the first preview, ever. The production is still finding its way and connecting with an audience.

So I am not reviewing this first preview. I’m just commenting on this compelling story. Denise has been investigating the disappearance of her sister Michelle for the last five years. She will not allow her sister to be another statistic of missing Indigenous women and girls. We learn from Denise’s partner Daniel that she has been struggling with visions of her sister. Gradually we learn what happened.

The cast of Cherish Violet Blood as Michelle, Cheri Maracle as Denise and Ryan Cunningham as Daniel are each engaging in their own way. The story is hard hitting and moving. Bravo to director Mary Francis Moore for bringing this play to Hamilton and welcoming the city’s multi-cultural communities to the theatre.

Theatre Aquarius in association with New Harlem Productions.

Plays until May 7, 2022.

Running time, 70 minutes (no intermission)

www.theatreaquarius.org

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Live and in person at the Theatre Centre, Toronto, Ont. until May 1, 2022.

www.theatrecentre.org

Directed by Adam Paolozza and Kari Pederson

Text by Adam Paolozza

Original music by Arif Mirabdolbaghi

Performed by SlowPitchSound (Cheldon Paterson)

Lighting designed by Andre Du Toit

Costumes, set and projections by Evgenia Mikhaylova

(based on original designs by Allie Marshal (costumes) and Anahita Dehbonehie (set and projections)

Cast: Nicholas Eddie

Rob Feetham

Ericka Leobrera

Adam Paolozza

The set is simple. A white sheet/screen is suspended at the back. A large round white form is on the floor. To the side is a table with a turntable and a sound-board (?) with lots of buttons and nobs to push.

Songs in Italian play the audience into the space which seems appropriate considering the title. A character enters in a Pierrot costume wearing a white paper crown  and walks to the desk. This is SlowPitchSound. He does an extended riff with a record and the turntable tapping the buttons, pushing the nobs and producing various sounds and rhythms. Complex, dexterous, joyful. Then the actual show begins and SlowPitchSound provides sound effects for the mime portion that is not intrusive or distracting.

A character (Rob Feetham) enters bent over with a straight back, slowly ‘chasing’ a large, inflated ball. Is the ball the moon or some other unattainable thing? The character just misses catching the ball but does flip over it in various ways of elegant clumsiness. And leaves, kicking the ball.

Other characters, (Ericka Leobrera and Nicholas Eddie) enter also, enacting silently. Philosophical musings on art and life are voiced in Italian by an unseen Adam Paolozza, with the English translation projected on the screen/sheet at the back. Some of the musings express the futility of the exercise to do mime or even theatre. Indeed, the inspiration of the piece is the 2003 suicide of an Italian mime who felt that his craft was no longer respected or even relevant.

Adam Paolozza enters, wearing the Pierrot costume, black tights and ‘ballet’ slippers, sits in a chair and applies white makeup to his face. He seems despondent, sad, resigned in his activity. One segment of the show is a planned talk-back with the other performers with Nicholas Eddie asking Adam Paolozza the lamest, most insensitive questions about his art. Later Paolozza will be asked ‘to do the box’, the enactment of miming being in an imaginary box, a fundamental exercise in mime. He does it, beautifully but again, with a kind of resignation.

While the inspiration for Italian Mime Suicide is an actual suicide, no such despair suffuses this artful, thoughtful, deeply thought production. Paolozza has been perfecting his art in mime for years and the audience is the beneficiary of this gift. He and his fellow ‘albatrosses’ take this artform and communicate their message in the purist of ways—with silence, movement and gesture. It’s full of wit, humour, purity and art. And it’s never irrelevant.

While I appreciate the soundscape of SlowPitchSound for the actual show, the showy segment at the very beginning of the show is totally out of place and distracting. The point of Italian Mime Suicide is the pure form of the art of mime, not the showy, showoffy form of making sounds and noise seem clever.  

Produced by Bad New Days

Plays until May 1, 2022

Running time: one hour

www.theatrecentre.org

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Live and in person at the Grand Theatre, London, Ont. until April 30, 2022.

www.grandtheatre.com

Book by Matt Murray

Music by Colleen Dauncey

Lyrics by Akiva Romer-Segal

Directed by Dennis Garnhum

Music Supervisor, music arrangement and orchestrations by Wayne Gwillim

Choreographer, Linda Garneau

Music director, Andrew Petrasiunas

Set and costumes designed by Bretta Gerecke

Lighting designed by Kevin Fraser

Projections designed by Jamie Nesbitt

Sound by Brian Kenny

A coming-of-age story, a celebration of community and the importance of a green thumb when nurturing plants, especially weed.

Note: I first saw this musical comedy in an earlier iteration in 2018 at Next Stage when the show was called Rumspringa Break! Amish teenagers often decide to take Rumspringa Break which allows them to experience the world outside the confines of their close-knit rural community. This experience happens before they are Baptized, usually at 19 years of age. The show has been expanded and developed and is now called Grow.

The Story. Hannah is a 19-year-old Amish woman who is close to being Baptized and after that, is expected to marry Samuel, her childhood sweetheart. As an Amish woman that is what is expected of her. But first she haltingly announces to her father, the religious leader of their community, that she wants to go on Rumspringa Break. She has written to an uncle in Toronto and has arranged to stay with him. Her father is not happy but will allow it if Hannah goes with her twin sister Ruth. This unsettles Ruth who wants nothing more than to stay in her small community tending the crops and plants. She has a special gift with them and can make anything grow. Asking Ruth to go with Hannah to the ‘big city’ takes Ruth out of her comfort zone. But Ruth is devoted to her sister and vice versa, and so Ruth reluctantly agrees.    

When the two sisters get to Toronto and the address where their uncle lives, they find out that the uncle moved to Florida. Hannah realizes that that must be the reason he never replied to her.  The sisters plan to make this into a positive move and depend on the kindness of the strangers in that run-down area to take them in.

A young man named Skor agrees when he learns that Ruth is good with plants. Skor has some plants that are not doing well and he needs them to be healthy or he can’t make a living. Yes, Skor grows marijuana plants (illegally) and sells the resultant ‘weed’ to his community but the stuff is not good. For the good stuff one has to go next door to “Bliss” a licensed Cannabis store owed by Alexis.

Ruth’s success with Skor’s plants blossom (sorry). Her relationship with Skor blooms (uh, sorry again).  However, the relationship between the sisters seems to wilt on the vine (ok, enough!).

The Production.  The first scene takes place in the rural Amish community. The people have come home from church to a sit-down dinner. The action takes place on Bretta Gerecke’s circular raked wood platform. Many panels hang down from the flies and rise up as the scenes change. Jamie Nesbitt’s projections flash on each panel suggesting where the scene takes place (different locations in the country/city/indoors etc.)

In the first scene, Gerecke’s costumes are traditional Amish wear: long dresses, over which are crisp, white aprons and white caps for the women; work shirts and pants and wide brimmed hats for protection from the sun for the men. In the city scenes, the clothes are contemporary: jeans, deliberately torn, funky etc. Initially Hannah and Ruth look out of place in their traditional Amish clothes when they come to the city. They eventually change and fit in.

The rise on the circular platform looks steep when a character steps onto or down from the platform. The constant rising and lowering of the many panels above the stage and the endless flashing of projections on them to suggest a change in location, is annoying, distracting and unnecessary. Surely there is a more efficient and economical way of suggesting location changes for the audience than this constant travelogue of ‘stuff’.

In the first scene director Dennis Garnhum’s quickly establishes where women fit into this Amish society. The men sit at the table, sprawled out, relaxed. Behind them, standing, are the women ready to wait on them. Only when all the food is on the table do the women sit at the table. Hannah (Arinea Hermans) frets because Ruth (Jenny Weisz) isn’t there. She’s off in the fields, singing to the corn. She finds the crops respond to it.

Quickly the relationship between the sisters is established. As Hannah, Arinea Hermans is quietly confident, in control, takes care of things, frets about her sister and ‘handles’ matters efficiently. As Ruth, Jenny Weisz seems a bit flaky (that bit about singing to the corn makes one’s eyebrows knit—but we soon unfurrow our brow when all that singing bears fruit).  Hannah is eager for her Rumspringa adventure, Ruth is hesitant, concerned. She worries about her plants and crops. She is easily convinced by Hannah to go on the adventure, perhaps because if she doesn’t go, neither can Hannah. Both Hermans and Weisz sing beautifully.

Matt Murray’s book is fresh, original and bursting with humour and insightful musings on the human condition, families, responsibility and love in the strangest places. Colleen Dauncey’s music is tuneful and melodic and Akiva Romer-Segal’s lyrics are fine in establishing the mood and world of that show. The lovely, lilting “Til the End of Days” again establishes what the women can expect. Samuel (an always expressive Izad Etemadi) joyfully sings of how he and Hannah will marry and she will cook and clean for him and give him seven sons. She is horrified. He is smiling and joyful.

When the sisters arrive in the bustling city, they are like fish out of water—from their garb to their innocent, trusting expectations. When they meet Skor, played by a physically and mentally nimble Adam Sanders, they are ‘taken in’, charmed because he appears to be a friend. And certainly when Ruth is told he has some plants needing her special touch, Ruth is won over.

Ruth’s special touch with plants has been talked about often to this point. An opportunity to prove her expertise is presented, but squandered. Ruth is shown a sickly plant in a pot. She immediately goes to it and delicately touches it and sings to it. I note that Dennis Garnhum stages people in front of the plant and around it, ignoring the plant after this moment. I thought that was a perfect opportunity to instantly show Ruth’s abilities initially with that sad plant by having it perk up and even grow a bit.  But nothing is done until a later scene with Skor’s other plants.  Why have a perfectly presented opportunity and do nothing with it? I think this moment should be rethought and addressed.

While Ruth is coming into her own in the city, where she is respected for her abilities and not laughed at because of how she gets the plants to grow, Hannah seems to be forgotten and resents it. She says that this is a recurrence from when she was in her Amish community. I think that needs to be solidified and strengthened. Perhaps when she wants to leave on her own for Rumspringa she can explain it’s because she wants to do things on her own rather than be overshadowed by her sister. The revelation coming as it does in Act II needs some shoring up in Act I.

Comment. I love the different worlds and communities of Grow and the melding of communities when one needs to be supported. The gentle message is welcome in this day and age. The music is lovely and buoyant. The lyrics conjure the world of the song and the play. The performances are strong and the characters charm. One embraces the strength of the sisterly love and how they both blossom in their own way and the paths they decide to follow. I have concerns that are noted, and I think the show will be stronger if those concerns are addressed. On the whole Grow is a smart, inventive story with a terrific score.

The Grand Theatre presents:

Playing until: April 30, 2022.

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

www.grandtheatre.com

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Live and in person at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Toronto, Ont. until May 29.

www.mirvish.com

Written and performed by Jake Epstein

Developed with and directed by Robert McQueen

Orchestrations, arrangements and musical supervision, by Daniel Abrahamson

Musical direction by David Atkinson

Set and prop design, by Brandon Kleiman

Lighting design by Amber Hood

Sound by William Fallon

Performed by: Jake Epstein

David Atkinson

Lauren Falls

Justin Han

Boy Falls From the Sky is a glorious heart-squeeze of a show.

Jake Epstein is blessed with supportive parents who nurtured his and his older sister Gabi’s love of musical theatre. Every summer he and his family made the 10-hour drive to New York City to see a Broadway show. In the back seat of the van, Jake and his sister sang duets from Broadway shows to get them prepared.

In Boy Falls From the Sky, Jake Epstein’s joyous, moving autobiographical show, he lets us know that his life changed when he saw Big—the Musical, his first show on Broadway. He realized that kids could be in a Broadway show and Epstein set about planning that for himself.

He auditioned for and was cast in the Soulpepper Theatre Company’s production of Our Town at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in 1999. It was his professional theatre debut. He was 12-years-old. This led to being cast as the cocky, confident Artful Dodger in a production of the musical, Oliver! for Mirvish Productions, also at the Princess of Wales Theatre.

Epstein also knew that training and education were equally important in his achieving his goals so he auditioned for and was accepted into the Claude Watson School for the Arts. His future wife said she fell in love with him when he played a hot dog going through the digestive system as one of his class exercises. That must have been one terrific performance.

Jake Epstein branched out from musical theatre and landed a role in Degrassi: The Next Generation about the trials and tribulations of teens in a high school. He stayed with the show for five years. He auditioned for Juilliard in New York City and didn’t get accepted. He describes this as ‘devastating. It wouldn’t be the last time he would experience this feeling. And yet as he was feeling despondent on the streets of New York, he was approached by some tourists who recognized him from Degrassi: The Next Generation who loved the show and him in it. It’s one of several moments in Boy Falls From the Sky that beautifully captures the heart-breaking lows and intoxicating highs of being in ‘show business.’

Epstein continued to audition for roles and often was successful. He moved to New York City to be closer to his dream of being in a Broadway musical and then it happened. He was cast as the  alternate lead in the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark. Never mind that the show had a reputation for being dangerous to actors—many were hurt because of the intense aerial work. Never mind that the show has a special place as a Broadway disaster. This was Jake Epstein’s Broadway debut. He had achieved his dream.

And then he was cast in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical originating the role of Gerry Goffin, Carole King’s ex-husband. Epstein had arrived. Or had he?

While Boy Falls From the Sky is packed with Jake Epstein’s many and various theatre credits it’s much more than a: “And then I was cast in…..” retelling. The show is loaded with Jake Epstein’s beautiful singing of songs from the various musicals he’s been in. It’s full of his endless charm, joy in performing, self-deprecating humour , perceptive observations and irony. This show is suffused with irony. The show’s title, Boy Falls From the Sky, gives a hint—it’s a song from Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark a doomed musical, and the song is about a man searching for himself, dignity in humanity etc.

Epstein begins Boy Falls From the Sky with “Razzle Dazzle” from Chicago about dazzling the audience etc. with flash and grandness. Irony. Epstein takes the audience behind the ‘razzle dazzle’ of the heady world of Broadway and show business and shows them another world. Brandon Kleiman’s set is of a rehearsal room with two guitars Epstein will play with his three band mates who accompany him; with a ladder leading to an upper area. The set is placed downstage in the Royal Alexandra Theatre, but the audience can also see the exposed backstage of the theatre. Epstein enters the space from upstage without fanfare, takes off his jacket begins to play (after his indicates we turn off our cellphones and wear our masks).  No razzle dazzle here.

Boy Falls From the Sky is full of intoxicating euphoria when you get your dream realized.  But there’s also the angst, uncertainty, loneliness of touring and needing to hide the truth about it all from a loving family who only want to be happy for you and with you. The show is seamlessly directed with subtlety by Robert McQueen.

Boy Falls From the Sky is Jake Epstein’s beautiful, heartfelt, funny buoyant show that comes to terms with realizing his dreams and perhaps learning bliss might be elsewhere in performing.  

If there is a quibble, it’s that often the band drowns out what Epstein is singing and that needs to be addressed. And there was a glitch with the amplification on opening night that was quickly solved, and handled with grace and aplomb by Epstein.

At its heart Boy Falls from the Sky is a wonderful show that lets actors know they are no alone in their hopes, dreams and disappointments, and lets audiences know that the hardest part about acting is not learning all those lines.

David Mirvish and Past Future Productions presents.

Plays until May 29, 2022.

Running time: 70 minutes, (no intermission)

www.mirvish.com

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Closed after a very short (three-day) streamed run at Theatre Passe Muraille. A Theatre Passe Muraille and lemonTree creations digital co-production. Closed as of April 23, 2022.

Written and choreographed by Indrit Kasapi

Directed by Cole Alvis

Set by Andjelija Djuric

Lighting by Melissa Joakim

Sound by Maddie Bautista

Composition, cinematography and editing by Kejd Kuqo

Co-composer for Mrs. Noka Song

Costumes by Rachel Forbes

Cast: Nicole Joy-Fraser

Indrit Kasapi

Kat Khan

Christopher Manousos

Riley Sims

William Yong

NOTE: “Toka” means ‘land’ in Albanian. “Gjakmarrjet” means ‘blood feud’ in Albanian.

Ermal Marashi is the youngest surviving member of his family invoking gjakmarrjet and seeking revenge “for the blood of his dead brother, Besnik Marashi.” He declares he will kill Mark Noka for killing Besnik. Only Ermal misses shooting Mark in the heart and hits him in the shoulder. Mark lives. The blood feud has lasted 27 years between the two families. Twenty-seven years before the state took everything from the Noka family (as Mrs. Noka says). “The state took everything away, our land, any gold” and gave it to Ermal ‘s grandfather. There was no way Anton Noka could feed his family without his land so he went to Ermal Marashi’s grandfather and pleaded for some of his land back. He was refused. A fight ensued and Anton Marashi killed the Noka grandfather. That set the feud in motion. Members of each family killed members of the other family to seek revenge and keep the feud going until Ermal wounds Mark Noka. Both Arjola Marashi, Ermal’s sister, and Mrs. Noka plead for the feud to strop, and offer a solution that seems unpalatable. But something must be done to stop it and so a possibility arises for an end to the feud.

In a production full of Indrit Kasapi’s energetic, muscular choreography, we watch as four men dance to Kejd Kugo’s pulsing music. We recognize Ermal, but who are the other three men? We learn who they are, deep into the 70 minute show.  It would have been good for context and getting the audience into the story quicker if the revelation came earlier.

 Andjelija Djuric’s set of a jagged slightly raked main space and a steep raked part is both impressive and daunting. While the steep rake looks impressive, one can’t help but wonder how the actors will negotiate something that looks so unsafe for them. The floor is black with streaks of red, to represent the spilled blood of the feud over the years. Mrs. Noka and Arjola bond over trying to find a permanent end to the feud. Mrs. Noka and Arjola’s late mother were once friends and Mrs. Noka promised to take care of Arjola when her mother died. There is a further suggestion for reconciliation and forgiveness but Ermal objects. The situation is fraught. The resultant solution is heartbreaking.

As Ermal Marashi, Christopher Manousos illuminates a young man who knows the honour he must put forward for his family, but he is timid, afraid, and really wants out of the arrangement. Kat Khan as Arjola Marashi is a forthright, clear-thinking woman who wants to protect her brother and help keep his honour. It’s tough. Nicole Joy-Fraser as Mrs. Noka gives a touching and strong performance of a mother fighting for her son’s life, aware of the blood feud and why it started, but also is aware it must stop, with forgiveness. Joy-Fraser gives a powerful performance and certainly in providing and singing Mrs. Noka’s song.

While the title of the play is translated as ‘land’ and playwright Indrit Kasapi and director Cole Alvis want the play to be about land, that’s not what the play suggests. It might have started with the state taking the land from one owner and giving it to another owner and the first murder started when the first owner was desperate for just a piece of his former land and killed the second owner in a fight, but the subsequent revenge killings were about the feud and not the land.

Indrit Kasapi and Cole Alvis try and make a case that this Albanian blood feud over land is comparable to the colonial appropriation of land from the Indigenous peoples in this country. I don’t think the play provides strong proof of such a thesis. In Indigenous teachings, writings and oral history note that the land does not belong or is owned by anyone. It’s something to be shared, cared for and tended. In various land acknowledgements one always notes that the Indigenous peoples are the original caretakers and stewards of the land, not the owners. “Mother Earth” does not belong to anyone people they repeatedly note.

The taking of land by one faction from another happens all through history, in wars and other conflicts. Occasionally the taking of land by the state from one owner and giving it to another owner happens: the British taking the land of the Palestinians and giving it to the Jews who survived the Holocaust is a case in point and a more applicable comparison to Toka. There are other examples unfortunately through history.

In any case, Toka is a powerful story, well told with lots to think about regarding feuds and forgiveness.

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