Streaming on the WeeFestival site Until May 24: https://weefestival.ca/2021-box-office

The following three productions at the WeeFestival are story-driven, almost wordless and involve sounds to tell the story.

Tweet Tweet

Produced by Femmes du Feu Creations (Canada)

Created, and choreographed by Lindsay Goodtimes  Holly Treddenick and Monica Dottor

Directed by Monica Dottor

Apparatus creation by Upstage Fabrication Inc.

Set by Kelsey Carrier

Sound by Monica Dottor

Lighting by Ian Goodtimes

Costume by Tanis Sydney McArthur

Digital Production by Upstage Dynamics

Performed by:

Lindsay Goodtimes (Blue Bird)

Holly Treddenick (Red Bird)

With Ivy Benedetti

Winter Benedetti

Arlo Hollyman

Ian Goodtimes (Bird Watcher)

For children 3 +

Tweet Tweet Is a gem of a show that is performed without words but plenty of bird sounds. Two small birds awake in their separate nests high in a magical tree (created with ropes), discover each other and the world in which they live. The gifted Monica Dottor directs and co-choreographed the piece. The birds wake up to the Flower Duet from Lakmé with liberal sprinklings of music from The Magic Flute, Ode to Joy, and others selections. Glorious.

Glorious!!!

It’s a contemporary circus show about two baby birds, each in its own nest, who are born at the same time, discover each other, learn to play and fly with each other.

It was directed with whimsy, wit and imagination by the always creative Monica Dottor. To accommodate the new digital world and the absence of an audience, director Monica Dottor has engaged three children to act as the audience. They observe, through binoculars (made of toilet paper rolls), the nests of the birds in miniature. The streamed viewing audience sees the birds in their nests and the tree from which they are suspended, full up. The air is a sweet cacophony of birdsong and chirps. There are aerial shots of the birds in their nests, twirling around the tree truck; there are video shots of the children gleefully watching the birds, interspersed with the audience watching the birds up close. That combination is both inventive and engaging. The viewer enters that tweeting world.

When the show starts we see movement in the nests. Something is encased in a flexible covering and is moving and bursting to get out. When these birds break out of their ‘eggs’ they do it to the wonderful “Flower Duet” from Lakmé. The birds stretch, move and grow into the world to this incredible music. And at every turn, they discover their voices and “Tweet. Tweet” to each other. The two birds are in very colourful body suits, one red and one blue with flaps of billowy material that flows out. Feathers. The birds rise up and swing on the ropes holding the nests. Pretty soon they pull beautiful brightly coloured material out of their nests and throw them into the air to land on the floor. This is followed by long, slinky scarves and feathers. The music of Mozart and Elgar is played and there is a rousing rendition of “Rockin’ Robin” to boot, as the birds grow, mature and becomes fearless. For further whimsy, Dottor has added the word “CHEEESBURGER” to the birds’ vocabulary, said with the same high-piercing sound. Hilarious.

Old Man and the River (Canada)

Created by Lynda Hill and Thomas Morgan Jones

Concept, dramaturgy and direction by Lynda Hill

Inspired by the story by Thomas Morgan Jones

Original production design by Kelly Wolf

Original music by Nicky Phillips

Original Lighting design by Jennifer Lemmon

Puppetry by Mike Peterson and eric Woolfe

Videography by Alexander Gangurian

Performed by: Kira Hall

Ingrid Hansen

Mike Peterson

Andrew Young

A touching story of the power of friendship.

Old man lives a simple, grumpy life. He rises from his sleep to growl at the leaves that accumulate on his doorstep and in his house. With great effort, grunting and creaking bones, he gets up and sweeps the leaves away: “Sweep, sweep, sweep” he says. He grumbles at the trees that drop the leaves in his way. He goes to the river, sits on the bridge and fishes until the sun goes down. Then he trudges home to sleep. The next day is the same except at the bridge, while fishing, the river fairy arose from the water and flitted around him, gleeful, happy, joyful. Old man is annoyed and waves off the visitor. Old man trudges home again. When he goes to the bridge to fish again he looks for the river fairy. He misses ‘him’. He trudges home again, sad at missing this magical presence. And then something wonderful happens.

The puppets by Mike Peterson and Eric Woolfe are wonderful; old man is hunched, craggy-faced, scowling; the river is suggested by shimmering material with sparkly sequins; leaves float everywhere.

Four puppeteers work the puppets: old man, the trees, the river, the sun, moon and the river fairy. The puppeteers are totally focused on the puppets and so are we. The puppeteers are in brown hats, brown shirts and pants and vests. They also wear brown gloves, the better to be ‘invisible.’

Director Lynda Hill has directed this with sensitivity and spareness. You can feel the aches and pains of old man as he creaks and grunts to get up; you can sense his grumpiness with every growl at anything that annoys him, and the slump of his shoulders expresses such sadness.

The music by Nicky Phillips captures the sense of the rising of the sun, the humour of the trees and the joyfulness of the river fairy.  There are just enough grunts, creaks and sounds for old man to convey his age and effort to move. Moving and tender.

My Silly Yum

Jot & Tittle (Montreal)

Created and performed by Gabriela Petrov and Alexandra Montagnese

Directed by Myrna Wyatt-Selkirk

Design collaborator, Darah Miah

Music composed by Nigel Ward

Maminka and Button come to the forest to look for mushrooms. Maminka (Buttons’ mother? I assume so) is calm to the point of being perpetually tired. Button is diminutive, is curious, active and lively. “She” (sorry, the puppet looks like it’s wearing a shift so I assume rightly or wrongly that Button is a little girl). Button carries a mushroom book to be able to identify the mushrooms that are found. As soon as they arrive, Maminka gets drowsy and lays down on the ground to nap. Button cuddles the sleeping Maminka but then goes off to look for mushrooms. Button finds lots of lively mushrooms that appear from nowhere and is excited. There is a cluster of many mushrooms, some seductive, that dazzle Button until Button realizes she is lost. She cries out for “Ma!” until they are re-united. Button is breathless in acting out all the adventures she found in the woods until Maminka calms her down by breathing slowly which gets Button to breathe slowly.

Considering the economy of sounds in Tweet Tweet and Old Man and the River to tell the story, My Silly Yum is overloaded with sounds. Maminka sighs at every move. Button gasps, grunts, pants, utters “Huh?” “Wah?” and exclaims every time she is surprised by anything, which is often. The appearance of mushrooms is accompanied by a squeak or sound of surprise from the mushrooms. The excessive dependence of sounds of excitement of it all over powers the story and makes it seem rather thin. The creation of the puppets is imaginative and the manipulation of the puppets is dexterous, but I found the piece, on the whole, a disappointment.

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Part of WeeFestival for Families, 2021.

From Helios Theater, Germany

Created by the company

Directed by Barbara Köling

Musician, Roman D. Metzner

Scenography by Michael Lures and Barbara Köling

Performed by Michael Lurse and Matthias Damberg

Drip. Drip. Drip. You hear the sound first. The camera closes in on a rectangle suspended above the stage as drops of water fall from it and splash onto a glass below. Our imagination assumes the rectangle is a melting piece of ice. Rather than a torture, listening to the dripping, it’s mesmerizing—the power of that little drop to make such a compelling sound and create such a splashing reaction when it hits the surface of the glass.

The stage is completely covered in a blue plastic covering. A man wearing boots, carrying two pails of water arrives and clomps across the stage. Another man is bare-foot as he walks across the stage. Over time the men will: make water spray up gracefully into the air from two sopping sponges; water will be sucked up by straws in glasses; water will create rumbling bubbles in the glass when the air is pushed back into the straw in the water; and more and more water will accumulate over that stage so that a make-shift pool is formed.  

One of the men carefully places the nozzle of a hose in the water so that a gentle gush flows into the edge of the pool; objects are placed on the water to float and the gush from the hose gently moves the objects around the pool.

The images of the clean, clear water get more and more complex and compelling. I love that the formation of the water sprays and bubbles and the sounds always serve to show the beauty, effect and importance of water. At no time do the performers spit or spray water at each other in a teasing game. It’s all done with respect for the water. And without saying a word we think of water’s importance to the environment.

This performance was filmed with an audience of children. It was lovely hearing them react to the effects. And at the end, the children were invited to feel the drip of the water from the ‘melting ice’, to blow delicately into a straw and touch the water with respect.

Helios Theatre first brought this show, H2O to The WeeFestival in 2014 for a limited audience. Streaming allows a much broader audience to see this wonderful work. Don’t miss it.

http://weefestival.ca/2021-box-office

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Streaming…..

La Mue/tte (France)

Created and performed by Santiago Moreno

Staging consultant, Delphine Bardot

This show is absolutely enchanting and mesmerizing.

Santiago Moreno is a multi-talented Argentinian musician, puppeteer. From the most mundane of ‘things’ Moreno creates sounds, rhythms, percussive beats and glorious music.  He starts small. He takes a simple hand-held ‘fan’ and delicately lays it so close to the strings of his mandolin on a table, that the result is a sound that is not quite noise and not quite music. The result does make your eye-brows raise in wonder.

He takes another ‘fan’ and places it so near a Styrofoam cup the blade ‘taps’ at the cup delicately. He moves other objects close to the fan to produce other sounds as well. He has fashioned a metal hand ‘puppet’ he wears around his wrist that has strings that attach to his fingers and thumb which when moved produce a beat or the sound of soft cymbals.

Then he builds in his creation of music. He puts on a contraption of drums etc. to his back; he affixes wires from the contraption to his pant cuffs and slowly shows how he produces a beat when his feet move; there are attachments to his arms; something around his neck as well. And them he plays a complex, melodic Latin American composition on his guitar, incorporating all the sounds, beats, rhythms and percussive intoxication of all the ‘stuff’ that is attached to him.

Santiago Moreno’s imagination in the creation of the wrist ‘puppet’ and the musical attachments is clever, inventive, musical, engaging and absolutely joyful to watch and listen to. He creates music from things we take for granted in ways that are eye-opening. Wonderful.  

http://weefestival.ca/2021-box-office

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Lynda Hill was not going to let a pandemic stop her from producing The Wee Festival this year—it’s too important for young children and their parents.

Usually, Lynda Hill, the fearless Artistic Director of The Wee Festival (Arts and Culture for Early Years), produces the festival composed of children’s-based productions from various countries, over several days. Having in-person attendance is impossible this year. But streaming on-line has provided a fascinating alternative. It affords an opportunity to bring companies from far and wide that might not have been able to because of financial constraints and travel logistics. Companies were eager to provide filmed versions of their productions instead.

And while there is a note with each description of each event indicating the appropriate age of the child, that might vary with a digital viewing instead of in person. The parent is the best judge while observing how the child engages with the show.

There are 11 events of performances, films and instillations to enjoy. They are (with comments from the press information):

A Bucket of Beetles

Papermoon Puppet Theatre (Indonesia)

“Follow Wehea on a journey through the rainforest in search of the rare Rhinoceros Beetle!”

Cyclo

Campañía Aranwa and Comedia Köln Theater (Chile and German)

“A musical and visual feast celebrating the cycles of life and the seasons.”

Taama (Journey)

Théâtre de la Guimbarde & Soleil Theatre (Burkina Faso)

“Friendship is forged across languages and cultures through music.”

H₂O

Helios Theatre (Germany)

“A mesmerizing performance installation about water and all its wonders.”

The Cozy One-Man Band

Company La Mue/tte (France)

“Astonishing experimental puppetry meets virtuosic music concert”

My Silly Yum!

Jot & Tittle (Montreal)

“A delightful tabletop puppet adventure in mushroom picking!”

Tweet Tweet

Femmes du feu (Canada)

“Come fly with two colourful birds in this aerial circus treat.”

(note: a WeeFestival favourite, certainly for me, that is being repeated digitally)

Old Man And The River

“WeeFestival (Canada)

“A heartwarming and hilarious tale of friendship and change.”

DreamScape (At Home)

ThinkArts (India)

“A visual and audio journey through sensory-rich worlds”

Grass Films (Sunny Days and Insect Hands)

Second Hand Dance (England)

“A double-bill of dance for young children inspired by the great outdoors.”

Ticket information: https://weefestival.ca/2021-box-office

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What’s Your Deal ?

By Andrea Scott.

Friday, May 21 at 7:30 pm MDT (but 9:30 pm Toronto Time)

Alberta Theatre Projects

Check out Playwrights Projects 2021 View in browser

Up Next for Playwrights Projects 2021…

WHAT’S YOUR DEAL? BY ANDREA SCOTT FRIDAY, MAY 21 AT 7:30PM MDT

Winsome is a Black woman in her forties living in small-town Ontario. One year ago, her young son went missing. Within the town and community, there has been an ongoing search for the missing boy. That is until a famous gameshow host, also from that community, passes away. Upon returning home from grief counselling one day, she notices all the posters for her missing son are being replaced with posters for a fundraiser for the colon cancer society – in the name of the deceased game show host.   What’s Your Deal? explores grief, race in a small town, and ultimately the value of a human life.   Featuring: Peter N. Bailey, Devon Dubnyk, Katherine Fadum, Helen Knight & Monice Peter Director & Dramaturg: Trevor Rueger Stage Manager: Ruby Dawn Eustaquio Playwrights Unit Director: Trevor Rueger

Hit the button below to get your ticket to the workshop reading of Andrea Scott’s What’s Your Deal? today!

GET YOUR TICKET TO ‘WHAT’S YOUR DEAL?’

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Monday, May 17-21, 2021.

The Wee Festival ( Arts and Culture for Early Years and their parents).

WeeFestival Begins Streaming May 17!     Make WeeFestival a special part of the week ahead or your May long weekend! In between outdoor adventures in the park, quiet time and playtime, make time for you and your children to drink in any or all of the sparkling performances from around the world! From puppetry, music, dance, and installation performance to dance films, sensory films and audio storytelling, the WeeFestival is screen time you can feel good about!   Follow our suggested schedule or choose your own adventure.  Pick-Your-Price-Passes on sale now!   BOX OFFICE

Monday, May 17-20, 2021

The Theatre Centre presents its

Spring Residency Sharings.

Give a listen/look at what their Residency Artists are up to:

We’re back with another Digital Residency Sharing, and we’d love to see you there! If you came to our first digital sharing in December, you already know to expect the unexpected—scenes, readings, questions, games, conversations—nothing is off-limits. And if this will be your first time joining, you’re in for a treat. Take a lunch break and meet us on Zoom May 17-20 each day at 12:30 p.m. EST to see what some of the artists have been up to. Check out the full lineup:   Monday, May 17 // 12:30-1:45 p.m. Neema Bickersteth & Nikki Shaffeeullah (Black Paris) Anand Rajaram (The Monster from Inside the Third Dimension) Rimah Jabr (Broken Shapes) Tuesday, May 18 // 12:30-1:15 p.m. Nehal El-Hadi (Untitled) Stewart Legere (The Unfamiliar Everything) Wednesday, May 19 // 12:30-2 p.m. Victoria Mata Soledad (Cacao | A Venezuelan Lament) Milton Lim & Patrick Blenkarn (asses.masses) Thursday, May 20 // 12:30-1:30 p.m. PJ Prudat & Jonathan Seinen (À la façon du pays) Lorena Torres Loaiza (Pandora in the Box) Adam Lazarus (Bouffon) Click to RSVP

Monday, May 17, 2021, 7:30 pm

The wonderful Red Bull Theatre has a free benefit:

An Online Benefit Reading SEJANUS, HIS FALL by BEN JONSON Adapted and directed by NATHAN WINKELSTEIN MONDAY, MAY 17, 2021 7:30 PM EDT | LIVESTREAM First performed in 1603, the start of the Jacobean era, Ben Jonson’s tragedy of epic proportions is an incisive portrayal of political cronyism, sycophancy, and power. Tiberius is the Emperor of Rome. Sejanus is his right-hand man. But—in a society where books are burnt, “knowledge is made a capital offense,” and free men have become “the prey of greedy vultures and spies”—factions are forming behind each of these charismatic leaders. Jonson’s linguistically rich play has startling significance today in its exploration of treason and totalitarian tyranny

Adapted and directed by Nathan Winkelstein, this online benefit reading will feature Shirine Babb, Grantham Coleman, Keith David, Manoel Felciano, Denis O’Hare, Matthew Rauch, Liv Rooth, Stephen Spinella, Emily Swallow, Raphael Nash Thompson, Tamara Tunie, James Udom, and more. FIND OUT MORE

GET FREE TICKETS

ABOUT THE PLAY by HENRY S. TURNER Ben Jonson’s Sejanus (1603-5) is a play written against a backdrop of conspiracy and domestic terrorism. In Tiberian Rome, rival factions negotiate a city ruled by the whims of a tyrant, who has delegated his authority to his new favorite, the violent former soldier Sejanus, and retreated to his beloved pleasure and torture chambers at his coastal villa in Capri. The play opens with ineffectual politicians whispering in a corridor about the fast-rising Sejanus and his shadowy crowd of enablers; it ends with savage images of a violent crowd storming the Capitol to tear Sejanus and his children limb from limb. In Jonson’s hands, tragedy becomes a remarkably modern exercise in political horror, as the play discloses a world governed only by a relentless will-to-power and the human capacity for betrayal. Spies hide spider-like on ceilings, and private speech circulates with alarming speed in a public echo-chamber of conspiracy theories, fear, and self-promotion. Mob violence has replaced representational politics, a new generation of leaders who might restore the liberal legacies of Rome are assassinated one by one, and suicide has become the only possible act of individual resistance. KEEP READING

GET FREE TICKETS

Wednesday, May 19, 2021.

From Soulpepper’s series: “Around the World in 80 Plays.

From India:

HAYAVADANA

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 PLAYS

JOIN THE CONVERSATION USING #sp80Plays

WELCOME TO INDIA

MEET THE ENSEMBLE  |  FILM  |  FOOD  |  BOOKS  |  EXPLORE  |  PLAYS

---

DON’T MISS HAYAVADANA (PREMIERES MAY 19)

Hayavadana. by Girish Karnad. In Association with Why Not Theatre.

BUY AUDIO DRAMA NOW

Love is imperfect, identity can be deceiving, and perfection is dangerous. Padmini is in love with two friends, Devadatta, a poet, and Kapila, a blacksmith, but the familiar love triangle is turned upside down when the men’s bodies are mysteriously switched. One of India’s most popular plays of the 20th Century, Hayavadana reinvents an iconic myth into a powerful search for wholeness. Read the Playbill.

> EXPLORE THE 9 OTHER PLAYS FROM INDIA TO ROUND OUR YOUR AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 PLAYS EXPERIENCE

Tickets are Pay-What-You-Choose, and audiences enjoy unlimited access to the audio drama from the premiere date until June 30, 2021. You will receive an email on May 19 with a link to log into your account and listen to an embedded audio file through your computer or device. To purchase a Passport Subscription and enjoy all eight productions, CLICK HERE.

Complimentary access for Front Line Workers  and members of our Free 25 and Under program sponsored by Sun Life. 

Friday, May 21, 2021 9:am -10 am

On CIUT FRIDAY MORNING, 89.5 fm

I’m interviewing playwright Brad Fraser on his memoir: “All The Rage”.

Brad is one of the fierce stalwarts of Canadian Theatre. His memoir grabs you by the throat and the heart. Give a listen at 9 am.

CIUT.fm

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Written and read by Erin Shields

I’m late with this. Sorry. But this is still up on the Crow’s Theatre Website and I urge you to give a listen and read along because the text is provided.

Erin Shields is a wonderful playwright.  And now with Here We Are one can add “poet” because the piece sounds like an extended, dense poem of what Shields has observed in this year of COVID lockdown. Her observations are keen, sharp, precise, angry, frustrated, loving, kind and hopeful. She has documented the minutiae of events and emotions surrounding those events and reads about them in a soft, calm yet emphatic voice. Mesmerizing.  

I noted so many compelling phrases and observations while listening intently:

“….waiting for change that will never come; respectful; ‘a few bad apples’, ‘fucking looters’, ‘it’s systemic’, corrected pronouns, and unconscious biases; we love singing. We Are Here. We are present, but absent; children; what is that hum?…Locusts. There is no coming back from a plague. Let us out! Most of us are lonely; all of us are trying to be kind. Do the research! …everything we do doesn’t seem to be enough. Racism—pain we boil in our human skin. Democracy has triumphed if only we can ride out the second wave. “Stop the steal!” “Back up! Back Up! Back Up!….until the poet takes the stage. We mesmerized by her calm, by her grace and passion and certainty, by her confidence that we have what it takes to work together. Quite frankly we thought poets were a thing of the past. But this poet draws a line from history to action. She acknowledges pain and dreams of a future we can all surely get behind. The hill, the struggle, the potential for unity. That’s what we want, what we long for, what we need. Yes, we all fall in love with the poet.

….we have a way of coping now. It’s not ideal. …We hope it’s enough to last until spring. Another winter almost weathered. We will emulate our elders. We will eat with our friends. We will greet one another with handshakes or hugs or a kiss on either cheek…We will sing in choirs; dance in clubs or at parties or at street festivals with neighbours and co-workers and friends and family. We will take advantage of every opportunity…every moment to gather to share to live. We Are Here.”

Heart-squeezing.

The website for Crow’s says this is available until May 15, but I just listened (May 16) and it’s still there. Give a listen!

https://www.crowstheatre.com/whats-on/view-all/here-we-are

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Streaming on the Soulpepper.ca website until June 30, 2021.

Written by Anton Chekhov

Adapted by Simon Stephens

Directed by Daniel Brooks

Sound design by Thomas Ryder Payne

Audio producer, Gregory Sinclair

Cast: Ghazal Azarbad

Oliver Dennis

Raquel Duffy

Hailey Gillis

Stuart Hughes

Alex McCooeye

Kristen Thomson

Dan Mousseau

Gregory Prest

Paolo Santalucia

Sugith Varughese

Contemporary, but true to Chekhov spirit. The adaptation is blistering as is the production.

Background. The Seagull by Anton Chekhov is part of Soulpepper Theatre’s Around the World in 80 Plays audio series. So far they have done a play from Canada, Argentina, Italy, and now Russia.

Anton Chekhov wrote The Seagull in 1895, and it premiered in 1896 in St. Petersburg, Russia. He describes it as a comedy, which is kind of funny since it always played as a drama. The play is adapted by Simon Stephens, a wonderful British playwright, who has made the play contemporary in its language and expressions, but is still true to the spirit and structure of Chekhov. The director of the production, Daniel Brooks, describes Simon Stephens’ adaptation as “iconoclastic and yet true to Chekhov”.

From the press information: “Switching effortlessly between the ridiculous and the profound, this masterpiece of the modern era examines the burning need to create art and the destructive power of love.”

The Story. Irina is a celebrated actress who has come for a visit to her brother Peter’s estate. She arrives with her lover, the equally celebrated writer, Boris Trigorin. Living on the estate is Irina’s 25-year-old son, Konstantin, along with various hangers-on.

Konstantin wants desperately to win his mother’s affection and respect as a playwright. He  has written a play that he hopes will be a new form of theatre, not the boring stuff his mother performs.

He has written a play and rehearsed it for a performance that night in the moonlight, by the lake, with his girlfriend Nina in the starring role. Nina is nervous about performing for Irina but dazzled by the celebrity of Boris. All are assembled at the proper time for Konstantin’s play, that takes place when the moon rises over the lake. The play is impenetrable to Irina and she doesn’t hide her whispered comments about it during the performance. The result is that Konstantin loses his temper and stops the production and rages at his mother and all concerned for their rudeness. Over the course of the play Nina will have an affair with Boris; a seagull will be shot becoming one of dramatic literature’s most iconic symbol, and angst will bubble, if that’s a proper description of what angst does. 

The Production and Comment. In this particular time of lockdown with COVID I think there is a simmering feeling of isolation, rage, despair, anger, frustration and an inability to move forward. That perfectly describes what is happening to these characters in Simon Stephens’ adaptation and Daniel Brooks’ direction of The Seagull. Simon Stephens’ adaptation is very contemporary in its language with lots of contractions and the use of ‘gonna’ for example. To echo a comment from Brooks, purist will probably be upset with the adaptation. Ah, well, uhm, tough. Get over it. It’s terrific.  

I was struck at how Daniel Brooks and the cast realize the absolute pent-up anger in the play. It’s not just disappointment they are experiencing, it’s also being trapped in their own world that is closing in on them. Konstantin is stuck on that estate with no real job or purpose except to try and write. For much of the play he makes no money and his mother does not help out. He then does begin to sell his work and make money but he knows it’s not very good.

There is a celebrated speech by Boris (beautifully played by Gregory Prest, throughout) about his obsession with writing. He is drawn to it. The process of writing is never finished or done because he is going on to the next project, the need to write is still there. Simon Stephens’ version of that speech is stunning in putting us in that world of obsession. Boris loves to go fishing but does not feel able to because he has to write. The speech goes on and on in the minute details of this obsession, putting the listener deeper into that world, making us understand what the need to write has on this writer. Masterful.

In this adaptation you get the keen sense of everybody’s disappointment with their lives, the ache of unrequited love,  their sense of loss and confinement, their short tempers, just like everybody going through this pandemic, I thought.

I do think The Seagull works really well as an audio play, with one quibble.  The cast is terrific. They are full of outsized passion and emotion. As Konstantin, Paulo Santalucia is both sensitive and boiling over with pent up emotion for Nina, his mother, his sense of longing. Konstantin is perceptive about the world of his mother and others. He sees phoniness everywhere. He also knows he is a disappointment. Even his love for Nina cannot give him the joy he needs.  

Matching him in emotional variation is Hailey Gillis as Nina. She is like a caged bird living in a suffocating house and feels free when she acts in this obtuse play. She is skittish with euphoria to be in such exalted company; her emotions are heightened and alive when she acts or is with Konstantin and later Boris. We get her sense of desperation when she falls in love with Boris and then becomes an actress to follow him when he leaves the estate. The weight of the world pushes down on her later in the play, and all that is illuminated in Hailey Gillis’ performance. Hailey Gillis is heartbreaking as Nina.

Kristen Thomson plays Irina with a coquettish hauteur. She knows her worth and fights for it. She loves Konstantin for the most part, but his moods irritate her. She is as emotional as he is. When Thomson as Irina and Santalucia as Konstantin spar, as they do in several scenes, they are electrifying, giving us a vivid picture of what they look like from this audio experience.

There is the crackle of sexual tension in the scenes between Raquel Duffy as Paulina (who is married) and Stuart Hughes as Hugo (to whom Paulina is not married). We get the sense of him purring conspiratorially into her ear and she enjoying the intrigue. Their playing is so vivid.  The whole cast is terrific in illuminating the heart, humor and angst of their characters.

Daniel Brooks has directed the cast beautifully to realize those emotions.  He has also adds moments in the audio recording in which he interrupts the proceedings to give a direction to an actor to do a line again with a different emphasis on the line, and slightly changes the meaning, or to say they will not stop recording because they are behind.  I can appreciate this is to illuminate that this is an artificial presentation, interesting though it is to see how a director works. There are a few interruptions in Part One of this recording, that don’t add anything new to the production except for that line reading, and no interruptions in the second part at all. So I think the real-world interruptions are a weak conceit to show that this production is artificial. We know that, but we are still engaged with the lives of the characters.

As I said, a quibble, because I thought the whole production worked a treat.

The Seagull streams as an audio drama until June 30, 2021, at: www.soulpepper.ca

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Sunday, May 9, 2021

We Are Here by Erin Shields

Available until May 15.

(alas I just got to this now—it’s been available since March, the anniversary of the beginning of the pandemic.)

This huge, gut-wrenching poem from one of our most gifted playwrights, encapsulates every feeling, thought, dream, doubt  and hope we all had.

In March, Crow’s Theatre and Erin Shields released “Here We Are” to mark the one year anniversary of our doors closing.  “Here We Are” is an unstoppable outpouring of words and thoughts and emotions to try to make sense of the upheaval of the world as we knew it. It is an expression of pain and longing. It is an act of empathy. It is a search for community in a time of profound isolation and division. You can read “Here We Are” while you listen to the audio recording read by Erin, with music by Thomas Ryder Payne. We recommend clicking play on the audio file, opening the book in full screen mode, and reading along.

LISTEN TO HERE WE ARE

READ HERE WE ARE

Monday, May 10-16, 2021

Yours Unfaithfully

Streaming from the Mint Theatre

• FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

YOURS UNFAITHFULLY

March 22 – May 16

“THE SPLENDID CAST OF FIVE INHABITS THE CHARACTERS WITH PASSION AND GRACE. IN BRINGING NEGLECTED WORKS TO LIGHT, THE MINT PERFORMS A GREAT TRICK: MODERN AUDIENCES EXPERIENCE WHAT IT MUST HAVE BEEN LIKE TO SEE A PLAY IN ANOTHER ERA, WHEN CAREFUL LISTENING WAS EXPECTED — AND REWARDED.”

The New Yorker

An “un-romantic comedy” about the price of free love, YOURS UNFAITHFULLY is an insightful, intelligent and exceptionally intimate peek behind the closed doors of an open marriage. Stephen and Anne, blissfully happy for eight years, are committed to living up to their ideals. When Stephen, a writer who isn’t writing, begins to sink into a funk of unproductive moodiness, Anne encourages him to seek out a fresh spark. Can their marriage survive uncompromising generosity, sacrifice and love? More than the story of an unconventional couple, the play is about what happens when our ideals clash with our emotions.

Max von Essen, Mikaela Izquierdo, and Elisabeth Gray in YOURS UNFAITHFULLY by Miles Malleson, directed by Jonathan Bank. Photo by Richard Termine.

To read the program, click here.  To learn more about the play and production, visit our Production Archives.

To see Video of our EnrichMint Speakers, visit our EnrichMint Video Archives.

Wednesday, May 12, 2021

From Soulpepper:

THE SEAGULL

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 PLAYS

JOIN THE CONVERSATION USING #sp80Plays

WELCOME TO RUSSIA

MEET THE ENSEMBLE  |  FOOD  |  EXPLORE  |  PLAYS

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DON’T MISS THE SEAGULL (PREMIERES MAY 12)

The Seagull. By Anton Chekhov. New Adaptation by Simon Stephens. 

BUY AUDIO DRAMA NOW

Unrequited love. Creative jealousy. Guns. Vodka. Art. A summer weekend at a lakeside estate falls apart when celebrities come to visit. Switching effortlessly between the ridiculous and the profound, this masterpiece of the modern era examines the burning need to create art and the destructive power of love. Read The Playbill.

EXPLORE THE 9 OTHER PLAYS FROM RUSSIA TO ROUND OUT YOUR AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 PLAYS EXPERIENCE

Tickets are Pay-What-You-Choose, and audiences enjoy unlimited access to the audio drama from the premiere date until June 30, 2021. You will receive an email on May 12 with a link to log into your account and listen to an embedded audio file through your computer or device. To purchase a Passport Subscription and enjoy all eight productions, CLICK HERE.

Complimentary access for Front Line Workers  and members of our Free 25 and Under program sponsored by Sun Life. 

Thursday, May 13-June,  2021

Streaming on Stratford@home

february: A Love Story.

A couple meet for a date, outside. In February. He’s a romantic. She’s a bit flighty. Can this work?

My review from an earlier viewing:

https://slotkinletter.com/2021/02/review-february-a-love-story He’s looking for feelings, she’s looking for a rebound… To stave off the pandemic blues, two mismatched millennials try their hand at “short-distance dating

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