Lynn

Live and in person at Streetcar Crowsnest (Carlaw and Dundas, Toronto, Ont.). Produced by ARC in association with Crow’s Theatre. Until March 20, 2022.

www.crowstheatre.com

Written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Directed by André Sills

Set and costumes designed by Jackie Chau

Lighting designed by Chris Malkowski

Sound designed by Christopher Stanton

Cast: Deborah Drakeford

Carlos Gonzalez-Vio

Jonelle Gunderson

Savion Roach

Nabil Traboulsi

athena kaitlin trinh

GLORIA is a bristling satire by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins being given a dandy production directed by André Sills.

The Story. The play takes place in 2010 in the gut-twisting-deadline-filled world of magazine writing. The twenty-something assistants to the editors are all waiting for their big break in writing something that will set them on their meteoric rise to fame. The well-educated interns decide if they want to become assistants or find something more fulfilling. And then something happens to change an ordinary day of waiting for work from a boss and going for coffee runs into something startling. The opportunity to write about it presents itself and again Branden Jacobs-Jenkins turns that on its head.

The Production. Act I begins in the magazine office in New York City. Act II is eight months later in a coffee shop in New York and then two years later in a film and television production office in Los Angles.  Jackie Chan has designed a spare, efficient office that designates where a person is on the ladder to success. The bosses, Nan and Gloria, have their own offices with a door, usually closed. The assistants to the bosses—Dean, Ani, Kendra–work in cubicles, suggested by the placement of the small desks and chairs. The intern, Miles is also in that mix who works for all of them. There is a counter acting as a reception point where Ani works, that also works in Act II as a coffee bar. The desks, wall coverings and other furnishings will be changed to create the coffee bar and the hip production office.

At the beginning of Act I it’s 10:48 am. Miles (Savion Roach) the intern is at his desk working while listening to classical music through his headphones. He has probably been there since 9 am.  Ani (Jonelle Gunderson) an assistant is there answering the phones for an unseen boss who is also there in a meeting with a client. Dean (Nabil Traboulsi), an assistant, rushes in, hung over, anxious. He went to a party hosted by Gloria, (a senior editor in the office) the night before and it was a disaster because few people from the office went. Dean stayed the whole evening to be polite and drank too much.  Kendra (athena kaitlin trinh) arrives soon after Dean holding a cup of coffee, a shopping bag and a stylish handbag. The dynamics of the office are soon clear. Dean and Kendra are usually at each other’s throats. Dean comments that Kendra is late for work (never mind that he just arrived) and she replies with how bad he looks. She says she has been working on a story about clothing sales and on spec.

Dean does have hopes of being a writer. As played by Nabil Traboulsi, Dean is a bit hyper, anxious, charged with the high anxiety of the office but trying to control it. He is sensitive to others, especially Gloria. Traboulsi beautifully paces Dean’s growing anxiety and animosity towards Kendra. He is observant about what is going on in that office. Kendra is fascinating and athena kaitlin trinh gives an honourable performance of this compelling character. Kendra is watchful and knows how to read the room and note everybody’s weaknesses for her own purposes. She’s masterful in putting down her colleagues, either to their face or behind their backs. She creates discord and doubt, certainly with Dean. She knows how office politics work and she plays them to rise up the ladder seemingly without doing any serious work. As Kendra, athena kaitlin trinh nails her ‘knee-jerk’ reactions to comment. But I think there is more to Kendra than that. She is wily, manipulative and conniving, and I think athena kaitlin trinh can dig a bit deeper to find more nuance and subtlety and reveal that calculating brain.  

Savion Roach plays Miles as a sweet, helpful, accommodating young man who is still making up his mind about what to do. He does know how to play the game—he gets chocolate bars and bottles of water for the assistants without complaint; he says good-by to the boss after his time in the office. Savion Roach plays other characters in the play as well with clear differentiation and fluid body language.

In her quiet way Ani as played by Janelle Gunderson is watchful and right on the ball with taking every opportunity to check out what is happening in that office, but being unobtrusive. She is collegial—although she didn’t go to Gloria’s party—but still pleasant to those in her orb. She too plays other characters in Act II each illuminating in their own way. As Gloria, Deborah Drakeford reveals a character consumed by doubt, insecurity, needy and desperate. It’s a compact, clear, powerful performance. And it speaks volumes about how self-absorbed the other office people were that they either didn’t notice or care about Gloria’s situation.  

Carlos Gonzalez-Vio as Lorin has the most defined arc of all the characters. In Act I Lorin is an overworked, stressed fact checker who just wants some quiet in his job. In Act II, two years later, he seems to have found his peace. But the most interesting aspect of him is that of all the other characters, he’s the one who was aware of Gloria the most, from the fact that she made her lunches and shared them if one enquired about them, and knew her as a person. Gonzalez-Vio reveals the character of Lorin in a detailed performance.

In his directorial debut, André Sills has created an assured, solid production that illuminates the drama and satire of the piece. Relationships are established with clarity and intelligence. Scenes are changes with ease and even its own humour, especially in Act II, scene 2. And André Sills knows how to carefully build tension until its explosive conclusion.

Comment. In Gloria playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is satirizing so much in our hyper-anxious, superficial world. In Act I he has created the ambitious, cutting world of twenty-something strivers who want to be writers, who inarticulately pepper their speech with the filler-drivel word “like” used as everything except properly as a simile. And what they write is generally superficial.  Jacobs-Jenkins is illuminating our slavish devotion to celebrity culture, as if a celebrity gives stature and credibility to a film or tv series. Characters gleefully announce that no one reads magazines anymore, and certainly not in something as old fashioned as ‘hard copy’. Then characters gleefully lament no one reads books unless they are made into movies, so that then they will read the book. He has created characters who are self-absorbed, but layered with contradictions. The twenty-something characters, heads down checking cell-phones or their screens, lack nuance or care for their colleagues. The older characters are more aware of the subtleties of the world around them. They might be disappointed by what they see, but they are aware of their fellow humans.

Gloria is a complex, multi-layered play that captures the vagaries of an ever changing world in which the decisionmakers seems to be just out of their teens. It’s created by a gifted playwright with laser vision to the foibles around us. This production does a dandy job of bringing that bristling play to tingling life.

Produced by ARC in association with Crow’s Theatre.

Running until March 20.

Running Time: two hours with a 20-minute intermission.

www.crowstheatre.com

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Live and in person at Theatre Aquarius in the Studio Theatre until March 12, 2022.

www.theatreaquarius.org

Written, directed, by Sky Gilbert

Studio design by Denise Lisson

Costume design by Sonia Lewis

Cast: Suzanne Bennett

Sky Gilbert

Ralph Small

Musicians: David Lee (Bass)

Chris Palmer (Guitar)

Sky Gilbert is a playwright, director, poet, drag-queen, theatre professor, novelist, memoirist and theatre provocateur. In 1979 Sky Gilbert and two friends formed Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto to have a place to produce his plays and also provide safe haven for theatre dealing with queer issues.

Gilbert has always been a confident mover and a shaker in the theatre but before all that he was a quiet, thoughtful fifteen-year-old coming to grips with having to tell his parents that he was gay and dealing with their divorce. Why they divorced always troubled Sky Gilbert and his play Pat & Skee is his effort to revisit that troubling time and try and make sense of it.

Sky Gilbert has always experimented with form in both his playwrighting and direction. Sometimes the experiment is at the expense of clarity but that’s the adventure—trying to figure out the intention etc.

The Studio Theatre at Theatre Aquarius has not been used for about 10 years, and Mary Francis Moore, the Artistic Director of Theatre Aquarius thought that this experimental play seems right at home here. The room is arranged with round tables and chairs and some overstuffed chairs close to the playing area and at the back of the studio.

As for Denise Lisson’s design for the space: there is a raised section with a round table stage left that will be a bar area and there is another raised area, stage right, that is the home of Pat and her husband Skee. There is a chair centre and behind that is space for the two musicians to play quiet jazz before the show as the audience is getting seated, and then during the show as part of the production.

A man and a woman enter the space from a door upstage right. The woman carries bottles of wine to the table stage left. Her hair/wig (?) is blond, a bit unkempt. She wears low heels and a sleek skirt and top. She is drunk. She tells us she drinks a lot. We surmise with that much drinking she is an alcoholic.

The man is casually dressed. He mainly occupies the raised area stage right that has his desk and a chair. Another man also enters and sits in a comfortable chair on the edge of the audience and watches what goes on, on stage. He is bald, wears a shirt and pants and perhaps an apron of some sort.

The woman and first man first talk to us about themselves without actually telling us who they are. They eventually reference each other. She is Pat (Suzanne Bennett). He is Skee (Ralph Small). They married and never seemed to have anything in common, or any joy in the marriage. They talk of their son Sky (Sky Gilbert) and how he was close to his mother but not his father. Skee was an awkward father who thought that at least his son should be able to throw a ball. Sky was not good at that. Eventually in this long extended first scene, Pat and Skee do address each other.

She wants a divorce. He’s boring, not exciting. (Later she refers to him and his dullness as “a preponderance of dearth.” Brilliant.)  He wants a good reason, if he talks to her at all. He generally ignores her. Pat is adamant. Skee says this will hurt his business as an insurance salesman.

At a certain point in the play Pat goes to the table stage left. Sky joins her there for their scenes together. (He does not have any scenes with his father). The program says the play covers two time periods: 1965 when Pat and Skee are bickering over the divorce and 1975 when Sky and Pat are talking about the divorce and why she wanted one. At this point Pat is 45 and Sky is 25. He wears a black curly wig. At various times in the scene Sky will give a subtle hand motion to the musician/duo and they will either start to play soft jazz or stop playing until he subtly directs them to begin again.

As Pat, Suzanne Bennett is sultry in a slightly messy way—well she does play a woman who is drunk most of the time and she’s very effective. As Skee, Ralph Small is stodgy, content with his life and not at all really interested in his wife’s concerns until she wants a divorce. Ralph Small nicely establishes Skee’s pre-occupation in his own world. When Sky and Pat banter, he wants to know what went on with his mother but she is evasive. At one point in their history we are told, but don’t see, that Sky told his mother that they can’t be friends anymore—that gives a hint of the bond they had, not just mother and son, but something else.

Most times we want a play to make sense with a clear story. Pat & Skee is not that kind of play. The audience is challenged to wade into the play almost in the middle. That first extended scene does not really establish who these people are or why we should be interested, but that’s the challenge—to keep up and be engaged.

Sky Gilbert also directed this and again his choices are intriguing. Characters move from one area to another for no reason except to change locations. The music is stopped and started without a clear idea of how the piece is served by its inclusion.

However, sometimes it’s not important to be able to figure out a play. What is important is to appreciate the telling. Pat & Skee is such an example. Sky Gilbert wanted to know why his parents divorced when he was fifteen-years-old. The questions bedeviled and confounded him for his life. He has passed on those questions to his audience to figure out in their own way. Fascinating.

Theatre Aquarius presents:

Plays until March 12, 2022

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes, approx.

www.theatreaquarius.org

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Gina Wilkinson was a wonderful actress and a fantastic director whose life was cut short by cancer. Her first few productions that she directed indicated the blazing talent she had for the craft of directing. This worthy award is a wonderful way of carrying on Gina’s legacy by offering women who want to direct the financial support that is needed. I heartily support this fundraising endeavor. Lynn Slotkin

The Gina Wilkinson Prize  Honouring Women Theatre Artists 10th Anniversary Fundraising Campaign

By contributing a donation, your gift will go twice as far to support the future of Gina’s Prize.  Every donation made until March 10, 2022 will be matched dollar for dollar up to 20k by generous donors Debbie Gray and The Kingfisher Foundation. While we are making progress, the theatre sector does not afford equal opportunity to women directors, and Gina’s Prize honours and amplifies women theatre artists across the country who are leading the way. Read about the impact on past prize recipients at www.ginasprize.ca. Gina’s Prize pays tribute to Gina Wilkinson, a daring, strong, inventive theatre actor/director/playwright who passed away in 2010. Gina’s dedication, vision and indomitable spirit imbued her work and life. Her prize is awarded annually to an inspirational woman theatre artist with a demonstrated body of work who is recognized by their communities for their practice, leadership and dedication to their craft. In the spirit of Gina’s appetite for life, the prize is a gift to be used in any way the recipients choose.  Established in 2011, the prize fund was built through the generous donations of many friends and colleagues from theatre communities across the country. It started as a 1k prize and has grown over ten years to a 10k recipient prize that also honours 2 shortlisted artists. Your support at this time will ensure the prize’s longevity. More women artists will be honoured and encouraged for years to come. The fund is managed by the Ontario Arts Foundation and your donation can be made by clicking on the button below.   Donate Now

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Filmed as part of the Norm Foster Festival.

Written by Norm Foster

Directed by Jane Spence

Set and props, James McCoy

Costumes by Jo Pacinda

Film production by Black Frame Cinema

Film and sound editing by Wes Keller

Cast: Kirsten Alter

Jacob James

David Leyshon

Emily Oriold

NOTE: The Norm Foster Festival, a theatre company in St. Catharines, Ontario, has recently released their first ever feature length film, Wildly Romantic, as a way to continue sharing Norm Foster’s comedic plays with audiences throughout the various restrictions related to the ongoing pandemic. This film has been a huge success so far with viewers tuning in from all over the world.

Four misfits manage to find each other in this tartly sweet film of Norm Foster’s play, full of Foster’s quirky banter and perceptive observations of people trying to fit somewhere.

The Story. Diane is the program director of CFTB, a small radio station in St. Catharines, Ont. She’s mighty ticked off because she discovered that her latest boyfriend, Mickey, who hosted the morning show, was having an affair with the woman hosting the overnight show. In fact, Diane discovered them having sex on the console (ouch) as a particularly long piece of music was playing. She fired them both on the spot. Coincidentally, Sonny Galloway wanders into the radio station looking for a job. He left his job in investments and since he liked music, thought that being a radio host would be a good fit. Katie is the office receptionist who keeps it all working smoothly, ensuring there was coffee and little interruption. Eugene is a hapless lawyer who arrives announcing that Mikey is suing for wrongful dismissal.

The Production and comment. The main office of CFTB is described by Katie (Emily Oriold) as “open concept.” This is not quite accurate. It’s really a big room with Katie’s desk by the entrance door over here and Diane’s (Kirsten Alter) neat desk way across the room over there with some plants here and there. There is a chair in front of Diane’s desk for guests, should she ever have one. There is a modest ‘couch’ by the door and upstage and around the wall in an alcove is the coffee machine, and beyond that is the studio.

Designer James McCoy has designed the office with the minimum of props and other furnishings. There are a few posters on the wall, carpeting on the floor. The room just looks huge and under furnished. Katie saying it’s ‘open concept’ is a gentle joke. When Sonny Galloway (Jacob James) wants to speak to Diane, Katie makes a big deal about announcing him and asking him to go across the room to Diane’s desk. He then asks Diane if it’s ok to ‘come into’ her office. Again, it’s a quiet joke but since it’s repeated later in the play it’s a joke that seems laboured after the first time.

Jo Pacinda’s costumes add a layer to the characters. Katie always wears stylish, bright dresses, shoes with heels but not too high, never pants. Diane wears casual pants, roomy tops and sporty shoes. Sonny arrives looking for a job wearing casual pants, a shirt with no tie and a windbreaker. Eugene (David Leyshon) initially wears tan pants, a brown sports jacket, white shirt, tie and tan shoes.

Each character is a misfit in their own way. Emily Oriold plays Katie with a sense of professionalism that tends to get away from her (I mean Katie) so that at times Katie seems officious. She is really trying to protect her boss, Diane, from being bothered, and that’s part of the humour.  As Diane, Kirsten Alter has a veneer of sass and smarm about her. She is not lucky with men and has either thrown them out of her apartment or her life. Mikey is the latest failure. As such Diane equates all men as ‘bovine sputum’. Diane views each man as suspect and treats both Sonny and Eugene as men who would cause her disappointment so she gets in her points before they have a chance. When Diane meets Sonny you sense she’s found her match. Jacob James plays Sonny as a man with painful secrets that he releases slowly. Sonny matches Diane barb for barb but with a thoughtfulness and kindness. He is resourceful and determined. Jacob James plays him with humour, a subtle smile and curiosity. It’s quite lovely watching the sparing of Kirsten Alter’s Diane and Jacob James’ Sonny. David Leyshon as Eugene is so hapless, so formal in his presentation, so proper in his language and seemingly without subtext that you are totally charmed by him. His awkwardness as Eugene is endearing. We know it and so does Katie.

Jane Spence directs with care in establishing all the individuality of the characters and then as characters interact and relationships are formed. She uses the big space of the set to establish the humour in the various situations; Katie walking determinedly across the large office to come right up to Diane’s desk to tell her that Eugene is way over there to see her and Diane asks what does he want, and Katie marches back to ask him. The joke is obvious but we have the patience for it to play out.

Norm Foster’s play is full of his trademark linguistic ‘dancing’. “Bovine sputum” I think might be a phrase that will live long after one sees the film. Wildly Romantic is also full of the wisdom of having lived life and observed its foibles and follies. Foster has created characters who are wounded in their own way and who find their ‘soul mate’ who help them heal.   

Film produced by the Norm Foster Festival.

Now streaming and available on demand

Running Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

www.fosterfestival.com

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Live and in person at Theatre Aquarius, Hamilton, Ont. until March 12, 2022

www.theatreaquarius.org

Created and performed by Farren Timoteo

Directed by Daryl Cloran

Set by Cory Sincennes

Costumes by Cindy Wiebe

Lighting by Conor Moore

While Made In Italy is really about Francesco Mantini, a second-generation Italian teen struggling to find his place in Jasper, Alberta, it’s also about his father, Salvatore Mantini, who came to Canada from Italy to make a better life for his family. Salvatore went ahead because his wife was pregnant with Francesco. Alas his wife died in child-birth so Salvatore raised Francesco himself.

Salvatore is proudly Italian. He believes that a solid table is the most important piece of furniture you can own, because your whole family can sit down around it and enjoy a traditional Italian meal composed of traditional Italian food, served in a traditional Italian way (the salad is always at the end, of course)!

Salvatore’s teenaged son, Francesco, just wants to fit it with his schoolmates but it’s hard, certainly when a girl he likes laughs at the salamis handing around his porch. It’s hard fitting in when the class bully calls Francesco racist names and beats him up. It’s hard fitting in when Francesco is made to wear a suit to school and his lunches are made of robust but oily meats.

Eventually Francesco realizes he has a talent to sing. At first he sings in his church, then he branches out with some friends and forms a band. They are pretty good. He travels to Italy to see his cousins etc. in his father’s small town and his life changes. He is taken under the wing of his ‘swivel-hipped-cousin who shows him how to dress: form-fitting pants, tight shirt unbuttoned to here, at least a gold cross and a lot of action in swiveling the hips. Anna imparts wise philosophy about life and its vagaries. Anna is a sultry, cigarette-smoking woman at a local ‘establishment’ who shows Francesco some finer aspects of life—she shakes him out of the ‘straight and narrow’ to embrace a growing, wider world. When Francesco is faced with a dilemma he always would first think of what one of his favourite saints would advise, and then by what Anna might tell him. Anna’s words are never minced. They are blunt, direct and usually serve the point.

As Francesco gets older, he and his band become more successful. With that comes the pressures of performing and Francesco begins to drink. This affects a great opportunity, so again, disappointment returns to his life. Francesco is conflicted about being Italian. He changes his name to one that is less Italian. His journey takes many twists and turns and he eventually finds inspiration and connection. But along the way he seems to always be butting heads with his well-meaning father.

The best way to make a universal statement is to be specific to a certain thing. Because Made in Italy is so specific to being Italian, the universality of the story is obvious. The show will of course have resonance with Italians, but it will also have resonance with a child who is second generation who is trying to fit in and not stand out. The story is familiar because it’s happened to so many people before us. This doesn’t mean it’s predictable, it means we can recognize the highs, lows and in-betweens of the story and appreciate it.

Farren Timoteo is a multi-talented theatre artist who wrote and performs all the parts (cousins, uncles, aunts, ladies of the various times of the day, saints etc.), specifically Francesco and his father Salvatore.

Cory Sincennes’ set is impressive. It is mainly Salvatore’s house. A large wall is full of framed pictures that will change as the evening progresses. We can assume they are of family etc. or whatever we want to imagine. In front of the pictured wall is a solid dining room table with room for at least 12. Salvatore knows the value of a table and the family and friends who will sit around it enjoying his food and bad jokes. He sits at what he calls the head of the table and a stool is beside him, which is where Francesco has traditionally sat.

Salvatore (Farren Timoteo) enters to begin the evening. He is stooped slightly with age, he speaks slowly and deliberately. He wears glasses. He is proud of everything Italian and is quite confident about how to serve food to his friends and family. He reminisces. He tries to tell jokes. He’s sweet and charming.

Eventually Francesco appears: no glasses, straight-backed, quick talking, energetic, lively and needy. We are charmed by him too. But then we see how Francesco (Timoteo?) is briming with talent. He sings. He dances. He reproduces all the sensual moves of “Being Alive” from “Saturday Night Fever.” He goes on a tear to build his muscles after he sees a movie that suggests he can fit in if only he can lift this weight over his head without rupturing anything.

Farren Timoteo has a gift for comedy that captures the sensuality and confidence of body-proud Italian men without making fun of them or being demeaning in any way. The show is beautifully directed by Daryl Cloran who has a comedic eye; knows the value of going big in a scene set on top of the table and building on that. The show is rich in detail and subtlety, like a complex ragu.

If I have a quibble it’s that perhaps a bit more detail is needed in explaining how Francesco got caught up in drinking to such an extent that is caused damage to his career and then just as quickly seems to have solved the problem without the audience seeing how or when Francesco decided to help himself. I think that needs to be fleshed out. Other than that, bravo.

Presented by Theatre Aquarius

Plays until March 12.

Running time: 2 hours, in intermission.

www.theatreaquarius.org

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Tues. March 1-12, 2022, 7:30 pm

Theatre Aquarius (Hamilton, Ont). Live and in person

Made In Italy

Created and performed by Farren Timoteo

Directed by Daryl Cloran.

Francesco Martini is a second-generation Italian teen in Jasper, Alberta who is sick of standing out and being different. This sweet, moving show illuminates the lengths that Francesco will go to to fit in. Dealing with his proud Italian father is another matter.

www.theatreaquarius.org

Tues. March 1-20, 2022, 7:30 pm

At the Streetcar Crowsnest (Carlaw and Dundas) Live and in person

Gloria

Written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Directed by André Sills

An ambitious group of young editorial assistants at a notorious Manhattan magazine vie for a starry life of feature articles and book deals, all while the internet is completely upending their industry. When an ordinary humdrum workday becomes anything but, these aspiring journalists recognize an opportunity to seize a career-defining moment. (Warning: excessive miss-use of the word “like” is used. Jacobs-Jenkins is brilliant at capturing the dialogue of his characters.)

An ARC Production in association with Crow’s Theatre.

https://www.crowstheatre.com/whats-on/view-all/gloria

Thurs. March 3 and 5, 2022, 7:30 pm

Harbourfront Centre

Chapter 3: The Brutal Journey of the Heart

After a two-year hiatus due to Covid-19, Harbourfront Centre will make its highly anticipated return to live performing arts on March 3 & 5, 2022, with the Canadian premiere of L-E-V’s visceral new work Chapter 3: The Brutal Journey of the Heart.

The work, choreographed by Co-Artistic Director of Israel’s L-E-V Sharon Eyal, will open Harbourfront Centre’s international contemporary dance series, Torque.

Chapter 3: The Brutal Journey of the Heart is an intoxicating and heart wrenching examination of love and loss, and the beauty that comes when life unfolds in new and wonderful ways.

Stunning costumes designed by Christian Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri to look like full-body tattoos, emblazoned with one bright red, bleeding heart, amplify the work’s intense sensuality and expressive movement.

Thurs. March 3-12, 2022, at 7:30 pm

Theatre Aquarius (Hamilton, Ont)

Pat & Skee

Written and Performed by Sky Gilbert

Sky Gilbert–playwright, novelist, poet, filmmaker, director, actor, professor, drag queen and Hamilton resident– is a ‘child of divorce’. Pat & Skee is an homage to his parents – who did their best to raise him despite all the unpleasantness.

www.theatreaquarius.org

Thurs. March 3- 13, 2022 various times. Live and in person

Theatre Orangeville, Orangeville, Ont.

Things My Fore Sisters Saw

Written and performed by Leslie McCurdy

In this one-woman play, you will meet four women of African Descent who affected change in Canada: Marie-Joseph Angelique, a slave who was said to have burned down “half” of Montreal from whom we have the first slave narrative in North America; Rose Fortune, the first “policewoman” in North America who helped “freedom seekers” settle in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia; Mary-Ann Shadd, the first North American woman to publish and edit a newspaper, amongst other things; and Viola Desmond who refused to give up a seat to segregation well before the celebrated Rosa Parks and who was recently named as the new face of the Canadian $10 bill

www.theatreorangeville.ca

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Streamed live, digitally, produced by Factory Theatre, Feb. 24-March 5. https://www.factorytheatre.ca

Written and performed by Augusto Bitter, Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman, Rosa Laborde and Anita Majumdar

Directed by Nina Lee Aquino

Set by Camellia Koo

Costumes by Joyce Padua

Lighting by Michelle Ramsay

Sound and composer, Mikael Bensimon

Broadcast designer and operator, Miquelon Rodriguez

Terrific in so many ways. Funny, insightful and deeply moving.

Nina Lee Aquino, the mighty Artistic Director of Factory Theatre, had an idea to engage four gifted theatre writers to create four personal pieces, about what ‘home’ means to them, that they would also perform in their homes, under the umbrella title of “Year of the Rat.” Each piece was performed and filmed in one room in each writer/performer’s home, directed by Nina Lee Aquino. The results are streamed digitally, on line until March 5.

While the most recent “Year of the Rat” was technically 2020, one can extend that ‘year’ to the time of the pandemic that kept people indoors, often against their will, sometimes not; had them thinking about who they were, who they thought they were and how that changed.

Three of the pieces are very personal, dealing with the lives of the writers, their joys, losses, regrets, despairs, uncertainty and quirky humour. One seemed a flight of fancy about a wannabe Instagram influencer, that in a way was a personal story as well. There were rats too.

Abuelita! Abuelita! (Grandma! Grandma!)

By Rosa Laborde

Rosa Laborde writes from her bedroom. It was supposed to be from the kitchen but she heard a noise and, well, the “Year of the Rat” turned out to be something like foreshadowing. Laborde writes of the joy-stress of giving birth, living in cramped quarters until she and her husband and baby move to a roomier apartment and she writes of ‘abuelita,’ her Grandmother who was from Chile, a formidable woman. Laborde writes of her parents’ breakup; living in Ottawa when she was a kid, and how much she missed her Grandmother when she (the Grandmother) went to Chile for a visit.

Laborde is an engaging performer, charming, funny and moving. She is a wonderful writer. She had to go to Chile on her Grandmother’s behalf to get some things and describes that “she had the smell of her homeland on my skin.” That is an image that is intoxicating and full of heartache. Laborde writes of being Jewish and notes a time during the war when the Canadian government’s immigration policy regarding how many Jews to admit into the country was: “None is too many.” A line that always makes me weep.  

Abuelita! Abuelita!  is a beautiful piece of writing, wonderfully performed. Nina Lee Aquino directed this with such sensitivity and wit.

Stairway to Heaven

By Augusto Bitter

Augusto Bitter is a buoyant, expressive performer who is anxious to go out for a night of karaoke if only he can find the proper shoes. He performs his piece in the tight confines of the hallway just at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to his apartment in the house he shares with friends.  He goes through the racks of shoes at the side of the hall, looking at and throwing the shoes behind him, up the stairs. There are sandals; ones with heels; boots; brogues; funky boots. None seem right. He talks of his sexual encounters in Europe; he talks of his father coming from Venezuela. He muses on home and how he feels he should move but doesn’t. Hiding under all that energetic bravura is uncertainty about what home is and where he belongs and where can he find acceptance, love, belonging. It’s a performance that makes you sit back the energy is so huge in the telling. Dandy.

Want Now.

By Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman

Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman performs her piece, Want Now, in her attic, where she goes for solace, peace and to write. She is often found and ‘captured’ by her toddler son who wants whatever he wants NOW and doesn’t stop saying “Want Now!” until he gets it. She lives in the house with her husband, son and father. She works under a lot of stress, trying to create, trying to be a good wife and mother and feeling she is failing. Corbeil-Coleman feels she is “a bad actor in my life.” She feels her heart is racing all the time. She tells her stories at break-neck speed to such an extent that one wants her to slow down. The point is, she is talking as fast as her heart is racing. It’s a wonderful bit of direction from Nina Lee Aquino.

Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman has had a lot of sadness to contend with. When she was 15, she lost her mother, writer Carol Corbeil to cancer. Corbeil-Coleman coped by writing about the experience, (Scratch)  starting her on her career as a writer. Writer Linda Griffiths became Corbeil-Coleman’s surrogate mother/confidante. The bond was strong until Griffiths died of cancer when Corbeil-Coleman was 29. In a sense, she lost her mother twice.  Life experiences have deepened Corbeil-Coleman’s perceptions of the world, herself and her place in that world. Her performance is witty, quirky, self-deprecating and totally engaging. I loved being breathless through this moving memoir.   

Candice the Cosmic Snitch

By Anita Majumdar

Candice is in her bathroom. She wears a bad red wig, bright red lipstick and a sweatshirt that says “Positive Energy.” She talks in the lingo of the Instagram influencer, wanting to be important and ‘liked.’ She references: being a ‘hop on-hop off bus guide, ‘the prophet Joe Rogan (!), the men who disappoint her, living in St. Catharines and the many and various texts she receives while she’s talking to us. They appear on our screens as well as hers. For Candice it’s all a pose when she finally takes off her wig revealing her own dark hair. She knows she is trying to be someone she is not.

Anita Majumdar has created an intriguing character in Candice, with her own language that echoes the stuff of the internet. On the one hand Candice is superficial but then there is depth to her despair at the disappointment she has felt in that fast-paced-click-if-you-like-me world.   

Year of the Rat is terrific in so many ways. And the fact that the evening started exactly when it said it would at 7:30 pm was so heartening for the future when we return in person.

Produced by Factory Theatre.

Plays on line, until: March 5, 2022.

Running Time: 90 minutes.

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Presented digitally on line from Saga Collectif, Architect Theatre and Theatre Passe Muraille Digital Co-Production, on Feb. 25 and 26:

https://www.passemuraille.ca

Written by Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho)

Adapted from Iphigenia at Aulis by Euripides

Directed by Jonathan Seinen

Set and costumes designed by Christine Ting-Huan Urquhart

Director of Photography and Editor, Steve Haining

Original music and sound design, Heidi Chan

Lighting by Gareth Li

Cast: Virgilia Griffith

Nathaniel Hanula-James

Kwaku Okyere

Paula-Jean Prudat

A compelling play with contemporary implications created by a gifted playwright, director, creative team and cast.

The Story. Playwright Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho) has taken as the source of his play the Greek play, Iphigenia at Aulis by Euripides.

Background. Iphigenia is a princess from the royal Greek House of Atreus. Her father was King Agamemnon. Her mother was Queen Clytemnestra. Her uncle (her father’s brother) was Menelaus, who was married to Helen. As sometimes happens in rocky marriages Helen was spirited away to Troy by her lover, Paris. The family honour was at stake so Agamemnon gathered his troops/sailors etc. to sail to Troy to get Helen back. The seas and the gods were not co-operating so the only solution to calm the seas and appease the gods was for Agamemnon to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to the god Artemis (goddess of the hunt and wild animals). It looked like this would go ahead except at the last minute Artemis scooped up Iphigenia from the sacrificing alter and spirited her away to Taui, leaving in her place a deer, and the people actually thought that Iphigenia was sacrificed.  In Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho’s) version a pig was left instead to be slaughtered but the people still thought it was Iphigenia. (Is Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho) using subtext when he substitutes the deer for the pig?)

Iphigenia landed in Taui and was now a High Priestess responsible for sacrificing men who come to that country. Two Greek men come to Taui in search of a statue that one of the gods accidentally dropped and the god wants it back. Unbeknownst to Iphigenia one of the men is her brother Orestes. The other man is his lover Pylades,  

Iphigenia is aided in the sacrificing by Chorus who has been in Taui for millennia and thought she was in line to be the High Priestess, but Iphigenia got the job instead. As Iphigenia prepares to sacrifice these two men, she learns who they really are. She also learns that her mother Clytemnestra killed her father Agamemnon in revenge for Iphigenia’s death. And in continuing revenge-form, Orestes killed his mother for killing his father. And Helen? She’s still frolicking with her Troy-Boy, Paris.  

But Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho) has put his own spin on the play full of playful dialogue that sometimes sounds like classical poetry with contemporary twists, situation comedy, and generational implications.

The Production. A woman walks along the outside of Theatre Passe Muraille, holding an illuminated globe. She enters the theatre with it and puts it carefully on the floor at the base of a large pillar. This is Chorus (Paula-Jean Prudat). By this simple action director Jonathan Seinen has brought the outside world into the theatre. Chorus is soon joined by Iphigenia who has her own illuminated globe that she places at the base of another pillar. They are in the large, imposing Temple of Tauros getting ready to kill the two intruders.

Christine Ting-Huan Urquhart has designed a set that is stylish and impressive. Imposing pillars are upstage. The floor is shiny with thick black and white stripes fanning out. One wall is a jumble of bunched, white paper that makes an impressive statement. Christine Ting-Huan Urquhart’s costumes are equally compelling. Iphigenia (Virgilia Griffith) the High Priestess wears form-fitting sleek dresses that give her an imperial air. Her ‘killing’ garb is a glittering gold gown that shimmers. She wears a ‘fascinator’ of sorts in her hair that is a band of white that stands up around the crown of her head.

Chorus (Paula-Jean Prudat) is dressed in a more subdued manner but still notable. Chorus is dressed in mid-calf length pants and a sturdy two-toned coat. Earrings hang down and look like they form feathers down the front of the coat. It looks like some of the fabric might be fine animal skins. Chorus does the grunt work, the cleanup in the sacrificing ceremony. The two men—Orestes (an energetic, thoughtful Kwaku Okyere) and Pylades (accommodating and well played by Nathaniel Hanula-James) wear black pants and tops (when they aren’t stripped to their tight shorts in love-making) that would mark them as coming from Greece.  

Iphigenia is of royal birth who is now in a foreign country as a High Priestess. As Iphigenia, Virgilia Griffith is regal, has bearing from that royal upbringing and a life of privilege. She is not repressed in hiding her emotions; she swears liberally and with gusto. She is wily and haughty.

Chorus had been in Taui for millennia and thought she would have that job but lost it to Iphigenia who just landed there from elsewhere. As Chorus, Paula-Jean Prudat is measured, controlled and seemingly without rancor. At times Prudat plays for laughs, obviously directed that way, but there is a serious side to her. She does not make waves at being passed over. There is no plotting of revenge. There is a sad acceptance of her fate. And Chorus is perceptive because this situation, of being usurped by someone from another place happens over and over and over and……again. It’s one of the most chilling, dramatic parts of this production.

Usually the lines separating the actor from the part is clear. But in Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land) deliberately blurs those lines.  In life Chorus is played beautifully by Paula-Jean Prudat who is Métis-Cree. Iphigenia is also played beautifully by Virgilia Griffith by is Black. Ordinarily such reference to ethnicity should not matter. But playwright Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho) and his gifted director Jonathan Seinen are making cultural references to appropriation, colonization and class distinction, and other aspects of people coming from elsewhere taking over—even in a small way—from the people who have been there for millennia. The result is a play that’s rich in subtext and detail with lots to think about.

Comment.  I saw this play live in an earlier iteration two years ago. Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho) has added more details and dialogue. He has said he wondered what it would be like to explore this play with a cast of people of colour. Ordinarily that would be part of their rehearsal process. But there are references that would resonate with an audience when they saw the play.  

Playwright Ho Ha Kei (Jeff Ho) has said that over the last two years in the pandemic, he has had a chance to deepen the play. He has said that he and the cast could delve into questions of identity. A reference is chilling. Iphigenia says that the Greeks always felt the Taurians were barbaric, tribal, when they studied them in history. She says: “All these words we use to strip humans of being human.” We can name all sorts of people’s who have been called that, usually by some conquering people who think lesser of the people they are conquering.

The dialogue dazzles with hip references. Iphigenia refers to her father Agamemnon as “Daddy Agi”. The swearing is very contemporary. Orestes and his lover Pylades are the two strangers who have come there to steal the statue. Playwright Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho) references how gays are perceived in contemporary times; the relationship is beautifully encapsulated by Pylades who feels he will only be a footnote in Orestes story.

The endless revenge for past transgressions continues when we are told that Clytemnestra murdered her husband Agamemnon for sacrificing their daughter Iphigenia. Then Orestes gets revenge by killing Clytemnestra. It’s a play that makes many contemporary references by using an ancient Greek story. And the production beautifully explores that as well.

Of course I would love to have seen this live again, but I thought they did a terrific job bringing it to life digitally. Jonathan Seinen has such a clear, theatrical vision that translates in the camera angles, arial shots and close-ups. Kudos to Steve Haining, director of photography. The camera work served the play and didn’t detract with fancy foot-work.

If I have a regret, it’s that the run is so short.

Produced by Saga Collectif, Architect Theatre and Theatre Passe Muraille Digital Co-Production.

Play:  Feb. 25 and 26

Running time: 90 minutes.

https://www.passemuraille.ca

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Live and in person at Koerner Hall until Feb. 20, 2022.

https://www.operaatelier.com/season-and-tickets/all-is-love

Conductor, David Fallis

Stage director, Marshall Pynkoski

Choreographer, Jeannette Lajeuness Zingg

Resident set designer, Gerard Gauci

Costume designer, Michael Legouffe

Lighting designer, Kimberly Purtell

Choreographer (Inception), Tyler Gledhill

Composer (Inception), Edwin Huizinga

Singers: Colin Ainsworth

Mireille Asselin

Measha Brueggergosman-Lee

Meghan Lindsay,

Danielle MacMillan

Rémy Mathieu

Cynthia Smithers

Douglas Williams

Dancers: Eric Cesar Del Mello Da Silva

Tyler Gledhill

Kevin Law

Courtney Lyman

Rebecca Moranis

Julia Sedwick

Cynthia Smithers

Dominic Who

Xi Yi

Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg

Pianist: Ben Cruchley

Because All Is Love ran for only two performances this past weekend, I’ll just post this as a comment and really not a review, although I hope you get the sense of how exquisite the production was in every single way.

And as I have explained when reviewing other Opera Atelier productions, I will concentrate on the theatricality of the performance and not technically on the dancing or singing—not my forte.

Since the pandemic began Opera Atelier has not stopped creating work. It’s two fearless, creative co-artistic directors, Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg have adapted to constant changing plans. When a planned live performance was cancelled because of COVID restrictions, they filmed a performance. The company has produced three beautiful films of various works over the last two years. When it looked like there might finally be a window in which to actually schedule a live production, Pynkoski and Zingg leaped at the chance. Since this was around the time of Valentine’s Day, a production celebrating love in all its guises was a natural choice.

Director Marshall Pynkoski made his usual on stage appearance before the beginning of the production, welcoming the audience. He was beaming of course, delighted to be in a room with an appreciative audience, ready to celebrate a company who love what they do, who love each other and those who come an see them. What was different was that Pynkoski was himself moved, his voice trembled with the emotion of it all. I must confess it was catchy—to finally, be in a room, ready to see beauty, skill and art created live—misty-eyed here.

The program was composed of songs and dance pieces from Henry Purcell, Matthew Locke, George Frideric Handel, Jean-Babtiste Lully, Raynaldo Hahn, Edwin Huizinga, Claude Debussy and others.

The evening began with Measha Brueggergosman-Lee appearing, as if out of the air, at the top of two small staircases that met from stage left and right. She sang “All Is Love” with an incandescent glow of the transporting power of love, the euphoria of it, the intoxication of it, as she wrapped her arms around her as if enveloped with it.

The evening flowed from dance excerpts involving the Artists of Atelier Ballet, Tyler Gledhill’s thrilling solos along with Eric César Del Mello Da Silva’s beguiling angel of love, to vocal solos with Opera Atelier stalwarts, Colin Ainsworth, Mireille Asselin, Rémy Mathieu and Measha Brueggergosman-Lee. Composer-violinist Edwin Huizinga played from his “Inception” with Tyler Gledhill dancing to the choreography he created for the piece. There was also a bit of a surprise—a scene from Pelléas et Mélisande that Opera Atelier hopes to produce in the future.

The beauty of Marshal Pynkoski’s direction is that each separate piece always looked like it was part of a whole. Transitions from one scene to the next never seemed jarring and always flowed seamlessly. Projections above the stage always enhanced a scene and never detracted from it. Jeannette Lajeunness Zingg’s choreography established that world of form, beauty, elegance and grace. In a word, exquisite.

Presented by Opera Atelier

Runs only until Sunday, Feb. 20 at 2:30 pm.

Running Time: 70 minutes.

https://www.operaatelier.com/season-and-tickets/all-is-love

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