Tues. April 5, 2022 at 7:00

An IMM-Permanent Resident

As part of the RISER Festival from Why Not Theatre

If love travels the seven seas, who’s an immigration officer to disagree? 

Produced by Nautanki Bazaar
Presented as part of Why Not Theatre’s RISER Toronto

A comedy infused with Bollywood elements, An IMM-Permanent Resident is a hilarious take on the mundane and tiresome bureaucracy of the Canadian Immigration process, as experienced by playwrights and real-life couple, Himanshu and Neha.

The play explores the irreverent journey to obtain Neha’s PR status, including the couple’s trials and tribulations as they put their hopes and dreams on pause (indefinitely). Through wit and creative banter, this fast-paced roller coaster transports us between Mumbai and Toronto, as Neha and Himanshu navigate the immigration system and ask themselves – is love worth it all?

This project is part of Why Not’s PROVOKE stream of activities. PROVOKE projects are about creating change in our community, city and world.

SHOW INFO

VENUE

The Theatre Center, BMO Incubator
1115 Queen St W, Toronto

DATES

April 1 at 7pm (preview performance)
April 2 at 7pm
April 3 at 2pm (post-show talk-back)

April 5 at 7pm (relaxed performance)
April 6 at 7pm
April 7 at 7pm
April 8 at 7pm (post-show talk-back)
April 9 at 7pm
April 10 at 2pm

TICKETS

Available for purchase online
or via email at boxoffice@theatrecentre.org 

CAST & CREATIVE

ABOUT NAUTANKI BAZAAR

Tues. April 5—May  15^th , 2022 at 7:30 pm

The Antipodes

By Annie Baker

At the Coal Mine Theatre, Toronto, Ont.

“A room full of people trying to create a story is perhaps the best metaphor for theatre there is. And Annie Baker, without question one of the best playwrights alive today, examines it with her exceptional powers at their peak. She gives us real human beings and great stakes. She gives us humour that shocks and surprises. Keen intellect. Love of storytelling. Pathos. Sadness. Folly. Power dynamics. And she adds a magical realism to it all that is just tantalizingly beyond our grasp. This play comes to Toronto at exactly the right time. After two years of pandemic living, it’s time to gather and share what humans have been sharing since the first sapiens gathered around the fire – stories.“ Director Ted Dykstra on The Antipodes by Annie Baker

BUY NOW

The Antipodes Dates: Second Preview: Tuesday, April 5th, 2022 Opening Night: Wednesday, April 6th, 2022 Closing: Sunday, May 15th, 2022

Tue. April 5-May 8, 2022

ROOM

Written by Emma Donoghue

Mirvish Productions.

Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto, Ont.

Emma Donoghue’s bestselling novel Room has now been adapted as a new play with songs by Scottish songwriters Kathryn Joseph and Cora Bissett. Previously adapted by Donoghue for the screen, the film won Academy Awards^®, Golden Globes and BAFTAs.

Kidnapped as a teenage girl, Ma has been locked inside a purpose built room in her captor’s garden for seven years. Her five year old son, Jack, has no concept of the world outside and happily exists inside Room with the help of Ma’s games and his vivid imagination where objects like Rug, Lamp and TV are his only friends. But for Ma the time has come to escape and face their biggest challenge to date: the world outside Room.

You will not want to miss this “story that is in some ways a harrowing one, that brings many in the audience to tears. Yet is also a tremendously beautiful, vivid and uplifting show about the power of a mother’s love.” (The Scotsman)

A co-production with Covent Garden Productions and the Grand Theatre, London, Canada.

www.mirvish.com

Wednesday, April 6-24, 2022

The House of Bernarda Alba

Written by Federico Garcia Lorca
Translated by David Johnston

Directed by Soheil Parsa
featuring Rhoma Spencer, Lara Arabian, Soo Garay, Monica Rodriguez Knox, Nyiri Karakas, Elizabeth Der, Theresa Cutknife,  and Beatriz Pizano as Bernarda Alba

BUY TICKETS

AN ALUNA THEATRE + MODERN TIMES STAGE COMPANY PRODUCTION

Iron-willed matriarch Bernarda Alba decrees eight years of mourning following her husband’s death, enacting a domestic lockdown that cuts her five daughters off from the world outside the walls of their home; but her daughters are women, not children, each hungers for her own place in the world. Their repression only fuels their desires for a life beyond.

The House of Bernarda Alba is Federico Garcia Lorca’s last play. Completed in 1936, it was only months later, in the early days of the Spanish Civil War, that he would be assassinated by Franco’s Fascist militia for his homosexuality and socialist politics.

Lorca’s unique theatrical style confronts naturalism. His compelling female characters mark him as one of the most extraordinary playwrights of the 20th century.

In The House of Bernarda Alba, Lorca explores the force of oppression, the conflict between individual freedom, individual desires and societal conventions and conformity. Modernity and tradition clash, showing the destructive nature of decaying traditions.

CREATIVE TEAMHOUSE CAPACITYALUNA THEATRE

DATES & TIMES

Previews
April 6-8
7:30PM

Show run
April 10-24
Tue-Sat 7:30PM
Sun 2PM

Saturday/Sunday, April 9/10, 2022

From Theatre Direct.

FESTIVAL SHOWS: April 9 and April 10 Earlscourt Park INDUSTRY SERIES SIGN-UP NOW OPEN This year’s FORWARD MARCH FESTIVAL kicks off a three-part online Industry Series for emerging artists. THE DATE FOR OUR FESTIVAL SHOWS This year’s festival features five new outdoor, site-specific pieces for young audiences and special presentations in Earlscourt Park on April 9 and 10.  The incredible line-up includes: TITA COLLECTIVE’S KWENTO Based on the Tausug folktale, Ararabuntu In The Animal World, KWENTO follows the journey of Ara, a young Filipina, as she enters the Animal Kingdom and learns what it means to be a part of a community. COLOURING BOOK THEATRE’S The Labyrinth Assembly In this interactive theatre-meets-board game experience, you’re invited to join the Labyrinth Assembly and decide the fate of your community.  SEEKING GIANTS COLLECTIVE’S Thaw Together Now A theatrical circus promenade to exit our hibernation to rediscover home. PASSING THROUGH THEATRE’S Why the River Sings Through storytelling, puppetry, and choral music, audiences are invited into an immersive theatrical experience inspired and informed by the history of Toronto’s famous lost river, Garrison Creek. SIMAIYA SHIRLEY’S A Perspective on Humanity A selection of exciting new writing and original artwork created and performed by Theatre Direct’s dynamic Teen-in-Residence Simaiya Shirley www.theatredirect.ca

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Live and in person at the Tarragon Theatre, Mainspace, Toronto, Ont. Until April 24, 2022.

www.tarragontheatre.com

Written by Sean Dixon

Directed by Richard Rose

Set by Graeme S. Thomson

Costumes by Charlotte Dean

Music direction and sound design by Juliet Palmer

Puppet master and puppet designer, Kaitlin Morrow

Cast: Heather Marie Annis

Beau Dixon

Philippa Domville

Sophie Goulet

Phoebe Hu

Germaine Konji

Ahmed Moneka

Kaitlin Morrow

Kaitlyn Riordan

Terry Tweed

Daniel Williston

From the program information: “40,027 BCE (when the average human could count to five), a grief-stricken Homo-Sapien couple adopts a Neanderthal child. But language separates parents and child only to then separate mother and father – how do we love when we can’t communicate?

With that, a mythic journey of danger and sacrifice ensues to connect to the Neanderthals and to protect the child at all costs.

A heroic tale of clashing cultures and how the bonds of family are truly formed.”

Gorse (Beau Dixon) and his wife Mo (Sophie Goulet) have just lost their infant child and are naturally grieving. But Mo more than Gorse is feeling the pangs of losing the child. She wants and needs to be a mother. They find themselves in strange territory and witness a group of Neanderthals, that they refer to as “Pipers”, on their last legs. They seem to be dying in a group. The Pipers communicate in bird sounds of chirping, tweeting and other sounds. That is their language.

One of the Pipers is holding the hand of a young child (a girl I believe) and as the Piper dies, Gorse and Mo speak in a spare, rudimentary English and struggle to communicate with the child that they want to take her with them as their own. Gorse names the child ‘Chicky.’ Communication is difficult until they return home and Gorse’s mother, Gran (Terry Tweed), meets Chicky (Kaitlin Morrow) and immediately bonds with her and even seems to understand her sounds.

Communication for Gorse and Mo with Chicky is difficult. While Mo is maternal and eager to embrace and comfort Chicky, Chicky is wary and fearful. Gorse is just frustrated but so wants to do right by the child and be a good father. Gorse finds a challenging solution on what to do and in a bold move a kind of communication is created/discovered between differing groups to support, care for and love Chicky.

 Playwright Sean Dixon does not shy away from a challenge in his playwright. He has written about relationships and trees in The Orange Dot; carrying a painting over the Alps in A God In Need of Help; and a play about Jumbo the Elephant and his fraught life in Jumbo just to name three. But with Orphan Song he has created a herculean task of writing about adoption and parenting, communication when a common language is absent and co-operation between different peoples,  by setting it in pre-historic times and creating two separate languages. One language is nothing but sounds, noises, and what sounds like singing and chirping. The other language is rudimentary English and comes from an ancient set of just 200 words.  

From an essay written by playwright Sean Dixon for Intermission Magazine regarding Orphan Song: “I conceived of an idea for a play about adoption that would be set in prehistory, where the child was a Neanderthal and the parents were Early Modern Humans. I wanted to illustrate the challenge presented by the need to foster attachment, and then raise the stakes in a hostile environment. I then wanted to compound the problem by having my separate human species not share a common language, or even a language type. So I was giving myself the problem of creating two separate language types, whatever that meant. I wanted my humans to be easily understood by the audience, which meant using a form of English, but I wanted it to feel basic and ancient and elemental. I wanted them to be people of few words.”

While Dixon’s intentions are honourable in his setting himself such difficult challenges, I couldn’t help but wish that rather than dive so deeply into the language and communication of the characters, he also considered how the audience would perceive and contend withsuch a rudimentary language and not just be able to understand it.

Gorse and Mo and Gran are certainly people of few words. And while they are speaking rudimentary English and are easy to understand, their ‘sentence’ structure often seems a stilted jumble to our ears. While Dixon wanted this form of English to “feel basic, ancient and elemental,” one can’t ignore that often in popular culture English spoken by one whose native tongue is not English often makes them sound stilted and unfortunately objects of ridicule. And with only 200 words to work with, ideas and ‘thoughts’ become repetitive.

The cast performers with conviction and integrity. There is fierce passion and truth in the performances of Beau Dixon as Gorse, Sophie Goulet as Mo and Terry Tweed as Ma. The urgency in trying to communicate with Chicky, the frustration in not being able to and the tenacity to continue trying is so clear in these performances. The Neanderthal  (Piper) characters are created by life-sized white puppets attached to the actors manipulating them, either by tying them around their waists or attaching their feet to the feet of the actor. Kaitlin Morrow is the ‘Puppet Master and the designer for these brilliant puppets. And as Chicky, Kaitlin Morrow ‘played’ and manipulated the puppet with clarity and presence.

Richard Rose has directed this production certainly with a creative eye in establishing the simplicity of that time but also a time with a huge emotional sweep. Graeme S. Thomson’s set of three light brown cloth panels says everything about a desolate place. The creation of the mammoth at the end of Act I is inspired. Charlotte Dean’s costumes are functional suggesting that an animal was killed for its skin for warmth and protection. Juliet Palmer’s music/sound scape also established that danger could be in every corner.

A play about adoption, communication when language fails, and eventual co-operation for the care of a child set in pre-history times is certainly intriguing. I just wish that the whole thorny issue of how to communicate these deep ideas was not mired in ‘language’ that seemed to defeat the enterprise.  

Tarragon Theatre Presents:

Runs until April 24, 2022.

Running Time: 2 hours with an intermission.

www.tarragontheatre.com

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Live and in person at Crow’s Theatre, the Streetcar Crowsnest, Carlaw and Dundas, plays until April 24 2022. (held over).

www.crowstheatre.com

Written by George F. Walker

Suggested by the novel “The Life of a Useless Man” by Maxim Gorky

Directed by Tanja Jacobs

Set by Lorenzo Savoini

Costumes by Ming Wong

Lighting by Logan Raju Cracknell

Sound by Thomas Ryder Payne

Cast: Christopher Allen

Shayla Brown

Kyle Gatehouse

Patrick McManus

Michelle Mohammed

Eric Peterson

Paolo Santalucia

Shauna Thompson

A big-hearted play about disappointed people who prevail, by George F. Walker, a master of playwrighting if ever there was one. Beautifully created, acted and directed by artists who know the value and pacing of humour to overcome despair.

The Story. It’s 1905 in a small town in Russia. Vasley has been an orphan since he was seven-years-old (as per The Life of a Useless Man by Maxim Gorky, on which Orphans for the Czar is ‘suggested.’). His Uncle Piotr has taken him in to live. It’s not a happy existence for Vasley. He’s hungry because his aunt does not feed him properly. He’s regularly beaten by his ‘friend’ Yakov, of the village. One of Vasley’s few friends is Rayisha, a sweet young woman who is blind. He tries to describe the darkness of the world (so she won’t feel out of place in her own ‘dark’ world) and that gets the ire of Rayisha’s mother who says that Vasley scared her with his doom and gloom.  Life wears him down.

Piotr suggests that Vasley goes to St. Petersburg to live and work with his half-brother (or cousin—the relationship is murky) who owns a bookshop. Life is no better there. Vasley has to run the bookshop and decide how much to charge per book, feed his Uncle (referred to as Master) and provide him with accommodating young women who don’t mind that Master is riddled with syphilis. Vasley can read, but what use is that when every thought is gloomy.

One day, Vasley is visited by Makarov (Patrick McManus), a successful-looking man who wants Vasley to keep an eye on the bookstore customers and feed him the information who in turn will give the information to the Czar. Unrest is mounting. Revolution is bubbling. Vasley is being paid by Makarov to spy. For the first time in his life Vasley is well fed, while those as hard done by are starving.    

The Production. Lorenzo Savoini’s set is evocative of poverty and age. The back wall is dull grey wood with two doorways in it. A staircase goes up the side of the wall with one of the doorways at the top. The floor is well worn and also rough. To the sides of the stage are tables laden with books of all sizes, shapes and colours. You want to approach the tables and read the titles (okok, and “borrow” a book) but the ropes in front of the stage let one know that is a ‘no-no.’ Over the course of the play the tables will be moved around to create the bookstore or a table on which to eat. A bench will also be used. This simple set has created the poor world of Vasley (Paolo Santalucia) and his Uncle Piotr/Master (Eric Peterson).  

Ming Wong’s costumes continue this world of poverty vs prosperity. Whether in the small country village or in St. Petersburg the clothes are thread-bare, frayed, well-worn and tattered. Vasley’s ‘coat’ is not only full of holes and thin, it looks like it’s rigid with dirt. I thought that a wonderful touch.  The characters of Olga (Michelle Mohammed) and Maya (Shauna Thompson) are not peasants but are working for the peasant class. They are part of a group wanting a better life for the people. For them revolution is imminent. These are two of the characters on whom Vasley is spying.  Olga’s costume is a sturdy frock. She can afford to buy books. Maya dresses in stylish pants, a shirt and a tie. She is often mistaken for a man and she doesn’t care.

The costume for Makarov is another matter. Makarov is the ruling/moneyed class. He works for the Czar. Patrick McManus as Makarov is the essence of success and money. His beard and hair are trimmed and combed. He wears a beautiful fitted black suit and vest with a pocket watch. His shoes are shined. He exudes success and power, especially because Patrick McManus does not play the power. He is quiet speaking, except when dealing with Sasha (Kyle Gatehouse) a hot-headed thug. McManus listens and we listen too.

To add one more dash to this impressive creation, lighting designer Logan Raju Cracknell has lit Makarov in his first appearance so that it throws a shadow that goes to the top of the wall. That shadow and that character overpower everything else on that stage. It’s a fantastic effect to suggest monumental power, so bravo to Cracknell and director Tanja Jacobs for that image.

Playwright George F. Walker has created in Vasley almost an empty canvas. While he can read he has no opinions on anything except that his world is dark, depressing and almost hopeless. Vasley is so used to beatings, usually at the hands of his ‘friend’ Yakov (Christopher Allen) that Paolo Santalucia plays him stooped, as if he expects to be thumped. His brow is always furrowed. Worry creases his face. He is a man with questions and a sense of curiosity to explain why he should think better of his dark world.  Yet Vasley has a self-deprecating sense of humour that is hilarious. That Santalucia has wonderful timing in floating a laugh-line makes the humour always get its mark. But at the end, Vasley has an epiphany, born of total frustration that results in a shift in attitude. Our reaction is subtle but resounding.  

As Piotr and Master, Eric Peterson gives a masterclass in acting. As Piotr he is animated and kindly with dashes of frustration that his nephew is so morose. As Master (either a half-brother or cousin?) Eric Peterson is slow moving as if every movement hurts. In both characters Peterson knows how to pace a line and fill it full of nuance, making the audience lean in and listen to every single word, waiting for the last one, that is the joke. Masterful.  

Director Tanja Jacobs and her gifted cast creates a sense of community with those characters, and certainly regarding Rayisha—taking care of her because she is blind—and that sense of community is so obvious with how these actors take care of each other. Shayla Brown plays Rayisha with delicacy but also inner strength. It’s an impressive professional debut.

Tanja Jacobs has established the sense of ennui pervading the lives of these characters who keep working without a hint of doing better. But the humanity and humour that fill this production and play, both self-deprecating and aimed at the unfairness of the world of these characters, in its way establishes a sense of hope, a glimmer of light.

This is a wonderful, bracing, very funny play about people who keep on keeping on, so of course it’s a play for our times.

Comment. Russia is rich in writers who illuminate and describe the history and people of that country, but no one writes with as much compassion and understanding of the downtrodden, poor, peasant class like Maxim Gorky does. Similarly in Canada, no playwright captures the world of the marginalized and forgotten with as much heart and gentle embrace as George F. Walker. He’s been illuminating these characters and their world since the 1970s. What a perfect melding of writing worlds that George F. Walker has created in Orphans for the Czar. (And is Walker winking at Orphans of the Storm, D.W. Griffith’s silent film of 1921 about the French Revolution that was echoing Bolshevism in Russia?).

This is a big, bold play of 10 characters and it takes guts to produce it in these tricky theatre times. So bravo to Crow’s for taking it on.

Produced by Crow’s Theatre

Runs until April 24, 2022. (held over)

Running Time: 90 minutes.

www.crowstheatre.com

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Live and in person, as part of The Chekhov Collective Page to Stage: Theatrical Readings at the Red Sandcastle Theatre, 922 Queen St. East, Toronto, Ont., until April 2, 2022.

https://www.ticketscene.ca/series/928

Written by Anton Chekhov

Directed by Rena Polley

Cast: Susan Coyne

Nancy Palk

David Storch

As director Rena Polley told the sold-out audience on opening night: “No other writer has evoked boredom, dreariness and ennui with such richly entertaining specificity as Anton Chekhov.

In The Darling, Chekhov gives us a glimpse into the unadorned ordinariness of Olenka Semyonovna, a young woman who blindly devotes herself to the men in her life, molding her personality to suit their interest and opinions. 

At first glimpse The Darling may seem slight, but a hundred years later critics continue to debate if Olenka is an object of ridicule, pity or admiration.”

The short story is hardly ‘slight’. It’s rich in description, life, humour, perception and all sorts of things on which the audience can pass judgement, especially Chekhov’s multi-faceted characters.

Polley also went on to say that Chekhov had his way with the short story form, as well, often taking away the beginning and ending and just dealing with the middle, or even switching the formation around.

The Darling is no different. Rena Polley has directed this reading so that it almost seems like a finished performance. While the actors do hold their scripts they use the whole space, move furniture, chairs and a divider around the space for full effect and humour. You soon forget they are holding scripts. There is wonderful interaction between characters and readers.

The sterling cast of Susan Coyne (who ‘plays’ Olenka, Nancy Palk who is the narrator and David Storch who plays all the lovers, do a wonderful job of realizing the depth of character and their foibles. At first Coyne as Olenka is demure, accommodating, almost subservient, but then love makes her bold and formidable. As Nancy Palk reads, she too invests nuance and detail into her narration. A look over her eye-glasses is only one instance that speaks volumes. Storch is an overflowing font of invention as all the lovers and a little boy as well. These actors are masters at their craft and any chance to see them in action should not be missed.

The run of the reading of The Darling is very short. Don’t miss it.

The Chekhov Collective Presents:

Runs until April 2 at 8:00 pm

Running Time: 1 brilliant hour.

Red Sandcastle Theatre
922 Queen St. East, Toronto M4M 2J5

https://www.ticketscene.ca/series/928

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Live and in person, at York University, The Sandra Faire and Ivan Fecan Theatre, Accolade Building East, until, April 2, 2022

Ampd.yorku.ca/boxoffice

416-736-5888.

Adapted from Everyman by Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins

Directed by Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster

Choreography by Monica Dottor

Set by Erin Dagenais

Costumes by Tessa Dougan

Lighting by Ash Ovington

Sound by Michael Reynolds

Ensemble: Miranda Brown-Matthews

Owen Demers

Tuna Gűmeli

Pyper Johnston

Marianna Kokkinos

Jordan Jerry Kuper

Alex Lamarre

Anton Ling

Trinity Lloyd

Jessie Lutness

Jadyn Nasato

Eliza Smith

Lonelle Sweeting

Johnny Thirakul

Tito Vallarino

That secretive playwright, Anonymous, wrote Everyman, a medieval morality play, in the 15^th century. It was a play about Death and living one’s life well and wisely. Then in 2018 the dandy American playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins adapted the play and called it Everybody. To add a bit of spice to the proceedings the part of “Everybody” is chosen from the cast by lottery just before the show. Other parts then slot into place by chance as well. Here is the description of the play as per the back flap of the text of Everybody: “This modern riff on the fifteenth century morality play Everyman follows “Everybody” as they journey through life’s greatest mystery—the meaning of life.”

Actually, it’s a little murkier than that. “Everybody” has to prepare for a voyage of no return—to death—and in the process of course, it’s hoped learns the meaning of life and how to live it well. And it’s funny too!

The audience is prepared when an Usher (Marianna Kokkinos)  enters and gets our attention quickly. She waits while we turn off our cell phones. She explains what ‘silence’ and ‘Do Not Disturb’ mean and how they don’t mean what we hope they should mean with a cell phone. Kokkinos is straight-forward, pleasant and totally in control of the assembled. You don’t want to cross this “Usher” with a ringing phone.

There are appearances from Death (Miranda Brown-Matthews), Evil and Love (both played by the same actor after the lottery), and visitations by Friendship, Kinship, Strength, Time, Stuff, God (people are surprised God exists), Mind, Senses and others.

 Director Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster has envisioned this ‘ordinary’ world of Everybody with simple sets by Erin Dagenais, but with a really impressive conduit to “death”; everyday clothing that anybody would wear, thanks to Tessa Dougan’s costumes, and evocative lighting from Ash Ovington and sound by Michael Reynolds. And while Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster is a gifted director who draws strong performances from her fourth-year Acting Conservatory cast, she does something inspired. The whole cast performs the play wearing masks that cover the nose, mouth and chin. What has ‘everybody’ been doing for the last two years? Correct, we have been wearing masks to protect our loved ones and others. Having the cast wear masks while performing the play is just brilliant! In almost every single instance the enunciation is clear; the message pronounced and it all seems effortless.

Also inspired is Monica Dottor’s choreography of “Danse Macabre” by Saint-Saëns. The group moves like an otherworldly cohesive group but with each actor creating a distinct ‘persona’.  

All round bold work. Bravo.

Theatre@York presents:

Runs until April 2, 2022.

Running Time: 90 minutes, no intermission.

Ampd.yorku.ca/boxoffice

416-736-5888.

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Live and in person at the Shaw Festival, Royal George Theatre, until May 8, 2022

www.shawfest.com

Written by Edmond Rostand

Translated and adapted for the stage by Kate Hennig

Directed by Chris Abraham

Set and costumes by Julie Fox

Lighting by Kimberly Purtell

Original music and sound by Thomas Ryder Payne

Cast: David Adams

Kyle Blair

Jason Cadieux

Sharry Flett

Patrick Galligan

Katherine Gauthier

Deborah Hay

Jeff Irving

Marie Mahabal

Michael Man

Marla McLean

Nafeesa Monroe

Tom Rooney

Kiera Sangster

And exquisite production in almost every way that slightly stumbles with gender-bending casting.

The Story. Cyrano de Bergerac has always loved his cousin Roxane since the time they were children when they played together. She always appreciated his friendship. Cyrano grew to be a formidable swordsman (he’s a member of an elite troop of soldiers), poet, esthete, bon vivant and lover of art and beauty. But for all his accomplishments Cyrano was crippled with insecurity about his pronounced nose. For him it defined him. He assumed that that was all people considered when they thought of him, especially his cousin. Assumption is a terrible thing.

But one day Roxane wanted to meet Cyrano to talk and he thought his luck might change and she would love him as he loved her. In fact Roxane had fallen in love on sight with a handsome new cadet in the troop named Christian and Roxane wanted Cyrano to act as a go-between. Soul-crushing, but he did it.

It turned out that Christian also fell in love on sight with Roxane and since Christian could not express himself in the poetic terms that thrilled Roxane, he had Cyrano act as his go-between. In a sense Cyrano wooed Roxane with his words, but through the beauty of Christian.   

The Production and comment. Edmond Rostand’s wonderful play was first done in Paris in 1897. Kate Hennig, theatre-creator-extraordinaire, adapted Rostand’s play where it was first done at the Shaw in 2019 and now after a COVID hiatus is being revived with a few cast changes.

Kate Hennig has done away with the rhyming couplets of Rostand’s original play but been true to the soul, heart and spirit of this heart-squeezing epic. The language is lush, the emotions are high and the all-embracing love in the piece envelopes the characters and the audience as one.

Director Chris Abraham has filled the small Royal George Theatre stage with the rambunctious, bustling, heightened world of Paris in 1640. Abraham has also created scenes of such aching intimacy between Cyrano and Roxane that you are aware of the profound silence as we all hold our breaths for fear of missing a word.  

At the beginning of the play the French ‘theatre crowd’ is ready for a fight. Cyrano (Tom Rooney) has threatened an actor not to appear on the stage because he’s terrible. The actor ignores him and everybody waits for Cyrano to appear. Cyrano doesn’t disappoint.

With what seems like effortlessness Tom Rooney illuminates Cyrano’s panache and elegant brashness as he dispatches all comers who dare challenge him or look at his nose. Cyrano is emboldened when he can get the better of De Guiche (Patrick Galligan)—a man who covets Roxane (Deborah Hay). Because Roxane is also there at the theatre Cyrano acts with a fearlessness that subtly tries to win her favour. In all these moments and so much more, Tom Rooney is consumed with the spirit of Cyrano.

While Roxane is almost giddy with the favour of Christian (Jeff Irving), she is also a woman with deeper emotions and sensibilities. Deborah Hay as Roxane plums the depths of this exquisite character as she shimmers with the love of Christian, but wants more from him, deeper language and sentiments, and she gets it via Cyrano. It’s a beautiful thing to see Deborah Hay’s Roxane ease into the beauty of Cyrano’s words as said by Christian. There is such conviction in her dept of emotion as she falls in love with the words and not just the superficiality of Christian’s looks. As Christian, Jeff Irving has the confidence of a man who knows the power of being handsome. But Irving also realizes Christian’s insecurity when he knows that Roxane is a lover of words and poetry and he, Christian can’t rise to the mark. It’s a truly emotional moment when Christian realizes that Roxane is in love with the words of Cyrano and therefore, is really in love with Cyrano, before Cyrano does. Christian is a complex character and Jeff Irving beautifully realizes this multi-faceted man.

As De Guiche, Patrick Galligan plays him as a man to the manor born. This is a world of silks, ribbons, bows and artifice (kudos to designer Julie Fox) and Galligan has the swagger and elegance of De Guiche right down to the stockinged leg. What is also evident in this bristling performance is that De Guiche is dangerous.

As Roxane’s Companion, Sharry Flett is watchful, knowing and whimsical. It’s a lovely performance. Also noteworthy, is Kyle Blair as Ragueneau, a man more in love with his flowery poetry than his pastries.

I can appreciate that in the changing theatre world gender-bending casting is employed to shake things up or change perceptions. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. In several cases in this production women play men and it’s less than successful.  While this world of 1640 is one of artifice and affectation, the men, and certainly the swash-buckling Cadets, are not one-noted, blustering stereotypes, which too often is how they are played.

When Cyrano challenges Valvert (Katherine Gauthier) to a duel he says he will recite a poem in the process. Valvert can’t be less than a true challenge to Cyrano or the scene has less at stake. In this instance Gauthier (an otherwise fine actor) seems to screech and squeal when Cyrano makes a hit. This weakens the scene.

Le Bret (Nafeesa Monroe) is a supremely confident Musketeer and Cyrano’s long-time friend. There is loyalty there. Le Bret is the one in whom Cyrano confides about his love for Roxane. When Cyrano returns from the meeting with Roxane he is naturally upset but tries to hide it from Le Bret with off-handed remarks. Le Bret is wise to his friend and challenges him saying “What’s happened?” And Cyrano replies, “Shut up.” Then Le Bret twigs, “Roxane doesn’t love you.” The line is heartbreaking. Le Bret’s realization of this is heartbreaking. But too often Nafeesa Monroe plays Le Bret with stereotypical swagger and posturing. And she just throws away the line, “Roxane doesn’t love you,” and looses the scene. And that too is heartbreaking.

Too often in this production when women play men they go for the obviousness of bellowing and swagger and not the subtleties and depth of the characters.

But at its heart, is the heart and soul of Cyrano de Bergerac thanks largely to Tom Rooney as Cyrano and Deborah Hay as Roxane. The last intimate scene alone is worth the price of admission, said so quietly but clearly, that the silence is resounding. You can’t get that quality of silence anywhere but the theatre. Welcome back.    

The Shaw Festival presents:

Plays until May 8, 2022.

Running Time: 2 hours and 40 minutes (with one intermission)

www.shawfest.com

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Tuesday, March 29- April 17, 2022, 8:00 pm

At Crow’s Theatre

ORPHANS FOR THE CZAR

By George F. Walker

Featuring Christopher Allen, Shayla Brown, Kyle Gatehouse, Patrick McManus,

Michelle Mohammed, Eric Peterson, Paolo Santalucia, Shauna Thompson

Designed by Logan Raju Cracknell, Rick Sacks, Lorenzo Savoini, Ming Wong

https://www.crowstheatre.com/whats-on/view-all/orphans-for-the-czar

March 29- April 24,  2022, 8:00 pm

At Tarragon Theatre, Mainspace

ORPHAN SONG

By Sean Dixon

Directed by Richard Rose

40,027 BCE (when the average human could count to five), a grief stricken Homo-Sapien couple adopts a Neanderthal child. But language separates parents and child only to then separate mother and father – how do we love when we can’t communicate?

With that, a mythic journey of danger and sacrifice ensues to connect to the Neanderthals and to protect the child at all costs.

A heroic tale of clashing cultures and how the bonds of family are truly formed.

 

www.tarragontheatre.com

Wednesday, March 30-April 2, 2022, 8:00 pm

THE DARLING

March 30 -April 2, 2022

THE DARLING

Written by: Anton Chekhov

Performed by: Susan Coyne, Nancy Palk, David Storch
Directed by: Rena Polley
Presented by The Chekhov Collective

March 30 – April 2, 2022 @ 8pm – 9:15pm

Tickets: $25

PROOF OF VACCINATION ◾️ MASKS MANDATORY ◾️ HEPA FILTERED THEATRE
at The RED Sandcastle Theatre
922 Queen Street East, Toronto

No other writer has evoked boredom, dreariness and ennui with such richly entertaining specificity as Anton Chekhov. 

The Darling by Anton Chekhov is presented by The Chekhov Collective as part of their Page to Stage: Theatrical Readings of literary works. 

In this short story, Chekhov gives us a glimpse into the unadorned ordinariness of Olenka Semyonovna, a young woman who blindly devotes herself to the men in her life, molding her personality to suite their interest and opinions. 

Considered one of his finest short stories, Leo Tolstoy compared The Darling’ to ‘a piece of lace’, like those woven by ‘old maids,’ who ‘put their whole life, all their dreams of happiness, into their lace.’ 

At first glimpse The Darling may seem slight, but a hundred years later critics continue to debate if Olenka is an object of ridicule, pity or admiration. 

 

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Live and in person at Theatre Orangeville, Orangeville, Ont. Until April 10, 2022.

www.theatreorangeville.ca

Created, written and starring Dan Needles and Ian Bell.

I made a pilgrimage to the burgeoning metropolis of Orangeville, Ont. to see the latest production at Theatre Orangeville: More Confessions from the Ninth Concession of humourist/writer/country-dweller, Dan Needles and musician and perceptive lyricist Ian Bell.

Dan Needles is the author of the Wingfield Farm series of comedies about rural-life in Ontario and Ian Bell is a founding performer on the CBC Vinyl Café.

Every patron to the play was welcomed as they approached the theatre by David Nairn, the exuberant, irreverent, charming Artistic Director of the theatre. He thanked everybody for stepping up and showing up masked and vaxxed. He seems to know everybody who attended. A lovely way to feel welcome.

In the theatre on the stage is a backdrop of flats that colourfully create the sense of country living with farm buildings etc. There is a stand holding several stringed instruments, next to that are two stools and a lectern stage left.

Dan Needles is sporty in a casual suit and blue shirt. He often looks bemused.  Ian Bell is casual in a vest, a work shirt and dark pants with a slightly rumpled look that is deliberate. He has an impish glint. Both are hilarious.

Thirty-five years ago Dan Needles moved from ‘the city’ to the country around Collingwood to get away from the rat race. Ian Bell always seems to have lived in small towns.

Being an observer of people Dan Needles observed his neighbours, who seemed to squabble often with each other, or were jealous of each other or plain gossiped. Disagreements were frequent but they all did manage to agree on one thing: they all hated Toronto. The polite people of Orangeville did not guffaw at such an observation. Only one person guffawed with gusto. That would be me. When one lives ‘in the centre of the universe’ it’s good to guffaw. I guffawed often at More Confessions from the Ninth Concession.

Dan Needles told of renovating his old farm house himself. He was told it was haunted; that there were sounds of mysterious scratchings. He found out for himself when he spent the first night in the house.

Needles explained that while he came with money to the country it soon ran out with all the things that sucked the dollars out of his wallet: chores, fixing the house, farm machinery that was not top of the line, theft.

He deals with all these musings in a quiet, thoughtful, self-deprecating way. Every story holds a truth and wise observations.

Ian Bell watched attentively as Needles told his stories. When Bell sang his songs Needles always looked at him, usually smiling. They are a terrific tag team.

Bell’s songs are original and often parodies. “Home on the Range” gives a flavour of the wit and whimsy of his lyrics. His voice is strong and sweet. He plays an assortment of guitars and one banjo.

All in all, it’s a wonderful evening of gentle humour that seems perfect for getting people back to watching plays together, live.

Theatre Orangeville presents:

Plays until April 10, 2022.

Running Time: about two hours including an intermission.

www.theatreorangeville.ca

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Live and in person at the Marilyn and Charles Baillie Theatre, Canadian Stage, until April 3, 2022.

www.canadianstage.com

Written and performed by Daniel Brooks

Directed by Brendan Healy

Set by Kimberly Purtell

Sound by Thomas Ryder Payne

Daniel Brooks has been involved with creating theatre since the 1980s, variously as a writer,  actor, director, teacher, founding artistic director, dramaturge and visionary. There is a spareness to his productions, a pristine “look.” There is a cohesiveness of the various theatrical elements—set, light, sound—that work together to create the whole world of his productions. His plays are rich in language, dense in thought and conjure a complex world. His intellect is nimble, his manner is usually calm and there is bubbling humour in his productions.

His present production, Other People, which he wrote and performs, is all of this and less. While he enters the space with a frisky irreverence, trotting in front of the stage, swaying and dancing with a breezy peacefulness, we get the full whack of what his show is about in his first line, said as an announcement: “I have cancer.” He goes on to say he has stage four inoperable lung cancer (not from smoking). It’s a punch to the guts of the audience who have respected and revered his work for forty years. We are looking at a person with a clear ‘time limit’. Other People is about what he did with 10 days of that time.  

Daniel Brooks was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2018. Eight months later he went on a retreat to a facility in Quebec to silently meditate for 10 days. As he drove there he felt pain in his side. He fretted that he would not be well enough to complete the retreat. If that was so, he worried how would he get help? What would happen if he was in the hospital? What would happen to his car and how would it get back home? It’s interesting that it never occurred to him that other people would help. Or perhaps it’s just the all-consuming idea of cancer in his life that prevented him from thinking past himself.

Brooks specifically asks for a single room because his cancer regimen is so consuming and he has to pee often during the night that he wants privacy to take care of all this. He is aggravated when a pleasant man, Tony Small, is assigned as his roommate. Brooks does succeed in having Tony Small moved but then frets that Small will think less of him because of the move, but offers no explanation except superficially to Tony Small. Brooks has nicknames for the other participants in his meditation group. For the 10 days Brooks looks askance at Tony Small and the others offering cutting observations and snide comments. One tries to regard Brooks with compassion and justify his comments with what he is going through, but it’s difficult. When Brooks does have a chance to get to know his group participants his comments are glib and lack compassion for them.  

Director Brendan Healy has created a beautiful, artful production. He keeps Daniel Brooks in a simple chair as Brooks goes through each day of the retreat. A projection is flashed on the back wall indicting the number of the day.  Each day develops and involves considerable effort to focus on breathing, thinking and meditating. But Brooks’ mind wanders. Occasionally he breaks out of the meditation to offer cancer etiquette to the audience. He refocuses and thinks of a woman with whom he had a relationship and how he loved her. The physicality of that loving is one of the strongpoints of the writing. His mind often wanders to memories of her. He thinks of anecdotes; Russian literature, focusing, keeping his mind from wandering; his daughters and their support after his diagnosis, and how they now return his calls. He is grateful. But there is rage, not at the cancer, but at other people who are annoying, or waste his time. Bubbling up through the cracks is his anger. The humour is cutting and directed at other people. For all his elegant theatricality and pondering on life, cancer and trying to be grateful, I can’t ignore that Brooks comes off as self-absorbed and disingenuous.   

Brooks presents us with so many ideas in his play to ponder: the idea of living each day, cherishing time and the people in that life, finding pleasure and reveling in it, and holding on to love etc. But Brooks is such an irreverent player of mind-games that I wondered if he was conjuring the line “Hell is other people,” in Jean-Paul Sartre’s play No Exit with regards to his own play Other People. I guess while Brooks’ mind was wondering in what seemed like a deliriously clever stream of consciousness when he should have been concentrating on his meditation, my mind wondered too, trying to remember the quote about “other people.”  

Daniel Brooks has stage-four terminal lung cancer. That reality makes me heart-sick. I wish his play did as well.

Canadian Stage Presents:

Playing until April 3, 2022.

Running Time: 1 hour, 45 minutes, (no intermission)

www.canadianstage.com

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