Thrilling. Every single second of this dark, haunting musical is realized in Mitchell Cushman’s deeply imagined direction. The cast is sublime.
Background. In 2018, Arkady Spivak, the hugely creative (then) artistic producer of Talk Is Free Theatre, got the wild idea of ‘A Curious Voyage’, in which a group of adventurous people would sign on for a three-day adventure. The first day took place in Barrie, Ont. where the adventurous participants engaged in immersive role-playing and observing various theatrical activities. On the second day, first thing in the morning, the group got on a plane to London, England, landing at night, where a few more theatrical endeavors unfolded. On the third day the group engaged in various encounters with ‘strangers’ on the London streets. The day culminated with the group being taken to an abandoned building down an alley-way where they watched an immersive production of Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street directed by Mitchell Cushman and starring a stellar Canadian cast engaged for this special occasion. Then the next day, the adventurous people flew home to Canada.
This Toronto engagement of Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street ‘only’ involves the production of this celebrated musical, but it is every bit as thrilling and inventive as that Curious Voyage in 2018.
The Story. It’s 1846, London, England. Anthony Hope has rescued Sweeney Todd at sea and brought him to London. Todd escaped from a prison in Australia where he had been sent by an unscrupulous judge, Judge Turpin, based in London. We learn that Judge Turpin coveted Sweeney’s wife Lucy and created a phony charge to get Sweeney out of the way so Judge Turpin could make the moves on Lucy.
Sweeney returns to his old digs in Fleet Street—he was a barber in his previous life and he was named Benjamin Barker—hoping to resume his life with his wife and their young daughter, Johanna, and get revenge on Turpin. The barber shop is above Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop and Mrs. Lovett tells him, that alas, Lucy is dead. Johanna, now a young woman, is the ward of Judge Turpin. This sends Sweeney Todd into a vengeful frenzy. Mrs. Lovett recognizes that Sweeney Todd is in fact Benjamin Barker. She says that his barber shop is exactly as it was, and she saved his precious razors. And that is the beginning of his vengeful journey.
The Production. Director Mitchell Cushman didn’t revise his previous “Curious Voyage” production of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street for the Neighbourhood Food Hub location on Gerrard St. E. He completely rethought every second of the production to illuminate this haunting, moving musical of revenge and regret. And Cushman also reimagined how he would have the cast utilize every part of the multi-level space. The Neighbourhood Food Hub is also a working church. At times the audience sits in the pews, on the dais, stands on the stairs going up to another level, scurries to the basement etc. Accommodation is made for those with ambulatory issues, but one must be aware that this is an immersive production in which we follow characters all over the building, sometimes quickly.
Mitchell Cushman makes us aware and watchful of everything. So that silent man (Ensemble—Joel Cumber) sitting on the steps of the Neighbourhood Food Hub, wearing torn jeans, a worn jean jacket and toque, playing the ukulele, should not be overlooked as one might a homeless person. He follows the audience around, standing on the edges, watchful of everything that unfolds. Is he humanity? Kindness? You decide.
When we enter the church sanctuary and sit in the designated pews, we note that standing in other pews are various characters in costumes of 1846, looking crazed and haunted, eyes rimmed in black shadow, lipstick askew, hair disheveled. Every face indicates the cares of that hard world.
Stephen Sondheim’s brilliant “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” establishes the world we are about to enter and who is at the centre of it. And just as suddenly Sweeney Todd (Michael Torontow) appears, hollow-eyed, vengeful and compelling. Michael Torontow gives a performance of such relentless drive, such all consuming rage as Sweeney that it is nothing less than explosive. And yet your heart breaks for him. The proximity to such a performance is gripping. Every single character locks eyes with the audience and doesn’t let up or let us look way. We are constantly drawn into the darkness and humour of the story because of the closeness to the company.
There is so much invention in scene after scene of Mitchell Cushman’s direction it is tempting to fill a whole review with reference to scene after glorious scene. That’s not fair to future audiences—and of course the point of any review is to get people to go see the production. So here are only a few scenes that stood out in a production brimming with them. Cushman and his lighting designer, Nick Blais make wonderful use of shadow, light and silhouette. Many scenes in silhouette happen behind a white sheet. We see the interplay of characters behind the sheet. The most vivid is Judge Turpin (a charming, dangerous Cyrus Lane, who tries to whip out his lascivious thoughts about Johanna, by self-flagellation) reaching out in shadow, and elegantly moving Sweeney Todd out of the way so that the Judge can move in closer to Lucy. Simple, gut-squeezing, and effective.
Sweeney lives in a time of moral decay. People live by their wits. Sweeney begins his life of murder in practice for when he can get Judge Turpin in his barber chair to give him the closest shave he’s ever had. What to do with these ‘bodies’. Hmm. Mrs. Lovett (Glynis Ranney) is struggling in her increase her meat pie business. Hmmm? Aha!!! One does what one can, if you get my drift. Glynis Ranney plays Mrs. Lovett in a way that is so beguiling and frightening that you are left limp in your seat at the ease of duplicity. She sings “A Little Priest” with Michael Torontow as Sweeney that has a hint of joy between these two characters as they differentiate between meat pies considering ‘who’ represents the filling.
Getting rid of the bodies as Sweeney gives shave after shave to unsuspecting customers is again bristling with imagination and elegance because of Mitchell Cushman’s creative effectiveness. It’s almost balletic with a touch of weightlifting.
The cast is sublime. And while it’s so pedestrian to just list the actor and their character, to do so with a total description would take up too much of your time, when you should be just getting a ticket. Gabi Epstein is a crazed and mysterious Beggar Woman who has obviously seen and experienced something that has changed her life. You won’t soon forget her haunted eyes. Jeff Lillico as Pirelli is arrogant, humourous and not who he seems. Griffin Hewitt as Anthony Hope is a man consumed with love for Johanna and desperate to have her in his life. As Johanna, Tess Benger is beguiling, ‘innocent’ and yet knowing. Noah Beemer as Tobias Ragg is a young man who would do anything to protect Mrs. Lovett. He is eager, loving, sweet and perhaps fragile minded with what he too has endured. And Andrew Prashad is a very proud Beadle, knows the power of his position and how to use it. Every one of these actors sings beautifully, in a strong, compelling voice. Each one invests 100% into illuminating their troubled, mesmerizing characters. It’s to their great credit and their gifted director that even when we think someone is a villain, there is such nuance and shading that we aren’t sure.
Comment. Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Streetis one of Stephen Sondheim’s darkest, most compelling musicals. It’s about those troubled people we pass on the street without ‘seeing’ them. What Mitchell Cushman and his gifted cast have done in this glorious production is make us look, consider and pay attention.
Adapted for the stage from her novel (“Room”) by Emma Donoghue
Directed/music & lyrics by Cora Bissett
Associate director, Megan Watson
Music and lyrics by Kathryn Joseph
Set and costumes designed by Lily Arnold
Video Designer, Andrzej Goulding
Lighting designer, Bonnie Beecher
Sound designer, John Gzowski
Cast: Stewart Arnott
Brandon Michael Arrington
Lucien Duncan-Reid
Tracey Ferencz
Alexis Gordon
Shannon Taylor
Ashley Wright
Note. This production of Room played first at the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario and was then set to play the CAA Theatre in Toronto as part of the Mirvish season. Because of COVID the venue was changed to The Princess of Wales Theatre. I first saw ROOM in London, Ontario because I couldn’t wait. And then saw it at the Princess of Wales recently.
The Story. (As I wrote in my original review, https://slotkinletter.com/2022/03/review-room) I’m using the theatre’s description so as not to give too much away. The bracketed information is mine). “Kidnapped as a teenage girl, Ma has been locked inside a purpose-built room in her captor’s (Old Nick) garden for seven years. (He has sexually abused her for those seven years, resulting in Ma giving birth to Jack). Her (now) 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.”
The Production. The Toronto production has all the same creatives and cast as the production I saw last month at the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario. Performances have deepened since I saw it at the Grand Theatre. I will reference those areas of my original review where applicable, and note where there are changes.
The stage curtain is down as the audience files into the theatre. There is a large square section of the curtain that is illuminated with distinct areas of it sectioned. We see activity reflected on the other side of the curtain, but as if it is an arial shot of what is happening in the room. Two figures, one small and one bigger, navigate the room, play on what looks like a bed, cuddle, do exercises together, separate with one going one way and one going the other way to occupy them in activities. This activity goes on until the beginning of the show. In fact, we are looking at an ‘aerial view’ of the room in which Ma and Jack are living.
In this “pre-show” director Cora Bissett establishes what goes on in that room between Ma and Jack in a day. Even if you have not read Emma Donoghue’s novel, or saw the film, or read anything about this show, the set-up is established. We learn the extent of the activities when the curtain does lift to reveal the room and begin the play.
Lily Arnold has designed a set of the room that is both apt and still problematic, as it was at the Grand Theatre, in London, Ont. The room is compact with the stuff of daily life for Ma (Alexis Gordon) and Jack (Lucien Duncan-Reid). There is a bed along one wall with an old television on the floor downstage of the bed. There is a skylight to the room. There is also a table. And there is a door leading outside that is locked with a keypad combination.
As I wrote about the Grand Theatre production, the Act I set of the room is problematic if one is sitting house left within several rows of the front, as I was, because the wall of the room cuts off ones vision of some of the activity that goes on on that side of the stage. I did find myself leaning to the right to see if I could make out details.
For the Toronto run of the show, at the larger Princess of Wales Theatre, I was sitting house right on the aisle and there were problems with seeing what was on that side of the room. I could not see the toilet, sink and ‘laundry’ line along the house right side of the wall.
I did all sorts of head scratching about this. When ROOM played at the Stratford East Theatre in London, England and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, the cast was different but the set and director etc. were the same. Those proscenium stages are much smaller than the Grand Theatre in London, Ont. and the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto. (In Toronto ROOM was originally scheduled to play the CAA Theatre, but scheduling difficulties changed that to the larger Princess of Wales Theatre). The set seems too small for our two Canadian venues, until I found out that not being able to see everything is deliberate; the design team did all sorts of thinking about this. The walls are fixed to suggest the sense of claustrophobia that Ma is experiencing and to give that sense to the audience. Hmmmm. Ok… I can understand that. But audiences are curious. They want to see everything. They are curious about what they can’t see, and when I saw the show in Toronto, I could not see most of what was on the house right side (and because I had seen that wall clearly in London, Ont. I knew what I was missing. Frustrating). It’s glib to say, “don’t sell those tickets” but theatres are not in the business NOT to sell tickets. True one might get a glimpse of what is obscured when the set revolves and we might get a better view, but we aren’t sure what we are looking at or why when the set revolves. I think Lily Arnold’s set for Act I is a misstep.
The set for Act II is a complex assortment of revolving doors and rooms that beautifully illuminates the confusion of the outside world.
Ma has created a day full of regimented activity for her and Jack in an effort to create ‘normalcy.’ Jack counts out 50 Cheerios exactly for him and for Ma. After that there is clean up, then laundry, then reading one of the five books they have, then some television, but not too much. Ma explains that sometimes what happens on television is not real.
As Ma, Alexis Gordon is buoyant, cheerful, measured, loving and totally devoted to Jack and creating a world that is a ‘normal’ as one can be when one is five years old and has never been outside that room. The only time Jack senses that something is different is when Old Nick (Ashley Wright) makes his usual visit at night to bring supplies and sexually abuse Ma. For those times, Jack goes into the cupboard (where he also sleeps) and does not come out.
When Jack is sleeping then Ma shows her real anxiety. She has frantically tried to find the combination of the keypad lock, noting various patterns of numbers that she quickly discards when it doesn’t work.
Alexis Gordon as Ma walks a fine line between the cheerful, fun-loving Ma, determined to protect her son from whatever, and the frantic mother trying to get out and get to freedom. Alexis Gordon accomplishes this balance beautifully. The music and lyrics by Cora Bissett and Kathryn Joseph express the inner feelings of the character that she can’t express to Jack. She muses on how she has saved her by just being there. She expresses her emotions and her feelings in song. This is not a musical. This is a play with music—a huge difference. And here too Alexis Gordon sings each song diving deep into each to express the emotional power of each lyric.
Alexis Gordon is beautifully ‘accompanied’ by Lucien Duncan-Reid as Jack. This young actor is confident without being cloying. He is direct, innocent, limited in his world, but comfortable with that world because he hasn’t known anything else. And the rapport between Alexis Gordon and Lucien Duncan-Reid is true, genuine and totally committed.
Acting as an ‘older’, wiser version of little Jack is SuperJack (Brandon Michael Arrington) who echoes everything that Jack does. As SuperJack, Brandon Michael Arrington has that mix of the innocence of a five-year-old, and the smarts of a wiser version of that younger ‘self’. He also offers a more mature insight into what Jack might be feeling again through song. SuperJack sings of his/Jack’s frustrations, again in song.
Ashley Wright plays Old Nick with a sense of danger, he can explode any minute. Old Nick is big and lumbering and it’s a lovely touch that he always adjusts his slipping glasses with his finger. One does wonder at the desperation of a man who has to kidnap a young woman, hold her captive to sexually abuse her, and have this continue for seven years.
Director Cora Bissett was not able to come to Canada from her native Scotland for rehearsals because of COIVID restrictions—so direction was done by the magic of Zoom and the able assistance of associate director Megan Watson. You got the sense of the claustrophobia of that room by the performances, the direction and almost constant activity to suggest a normal day, and writer Emma Donoghue’s writing.
Comment. Donoghue has created a compelling story that draws the audience in to this restricted world, so that they experience just a fraction of what those characters are going through. It’s a fascinating imagination that can conjure an ideal world for a little boy, and a claustrophobic one for his adult mother in the same room. When freedom appears Donoghue creates another kind of claustrophobia that affects both Ma and Jack in their own way. That too is fascinating.
More than anything Room is a testament to tenacity—certainly the tenacity of Ma to plot and plan their escape. Audiences are eager to see compelling, engaging theatre again and Room is definitely that kind of theatre. And please read about the shows you are seeing so you know what you are seeing and you won’t be surprises with ‘anxiety,’ as the young man was sitting next to me.
David Mirvish presents a co-production with the Grand Theatre, London, ON, and Covent Garden Productions UK:
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)
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.
The Digital Festival of Light and Dark is presented by 4th Line Theatre Company in Millbrook, Ont. just south of Peterborough. This is the second year of the festival that engages artists in the Peterborough area to create short videos and digital presentations around subjects of their choosing. I was blown away by last year’s festival and the stunning array of talent and imagination that went into last year’s video presentation.
This year’s offerings are just as intriguing and imaginative.
And once again, I’m so impressed with the fearlessness of Kim Blackwell, the Managing Artistic Director of 4th Line Theatre company, to fund and showcase artists in the Peterborough area to make their art.
This is from 4th Line’s press information:
“The theatre has provided 10 regional artists with micro-grants to create 8 five-minute digital showcases of their work. The Festival enables the community to engage with the artists’ creations in the safety of their own homes through 4th Line’s digital video gallery. The Festival is free of charge to watch.
The projects encompass a myriad of artistic styles from experimental music to abstract painting to short films dealing with seemingly simple stories. The topics and issues explored include: the synesthetic experience of nature; fear of the dark; and finding the light within during the darkest times, to name only three.”
There are seven films that are available now with others soon to be available. But first……
I’m sure I’m not alone in wondering what is “the synesthetic experience of nature?”
From our friend Google: “Synesthesia is when you hear music, but you see shapes. Or you hear a word or a name and instantly see a color. Synesthesia is a fancy name for when you experience one of your senses through another. The word “synesthesia” has Greek roots. It translates to “perceive together.”
This idea is illuminated in the short film: Emergent Symphonies, a collaboration by Maralynn Cherry who did the images and Michael Morse who composed the music.
This is how the piece is described: “This is a collaborative work based on synesthetic brush paintings of nature’s rhythms, and sympathetic musical elaborations. Here, sounds give voice to unheard visual songs”.
One of the images looked like an erratic coil and the music reminded me of riffing on a piano. Another painted image looked like whisps of feathers or delicate leaves floating in a breeze. So the image of the painting from something perhaps in nature melded with the music.
I appreciated the depth of thought here in conveying something that we might overlook—nature and how music connects with it.
I’m so impressed with the scope and sweep of the imagination illuminated in these short films. Even what looks like a straightforward story, has quirky twists and turns.
Every Other Weekend
Written and directed by Mike Moring.
Cast: Taylor Brown
Mike Moring
Oliver Moring.
The film is about a divorced father who gets visiting rights to his son every other weekend. It’s poignant, sweet, loving and beautifully creates the loving care the father has for his son, and also his concerns that he wants to do better for him. There are lovely touches of how both father and son have the same anxiety when they are in the dark alone in bed at night and they imagine all sorts of sounds.
I was really impressed with Mike Moring’s story-telling in his short film last year in this festival. This year’s offering didn’t disappoint either.
Senior Moment
Written by Jack Shultz and Brad Shultz.
Directed by Jack Shultz
Original music by Jack Shultz and Tim Wright
Starring: Anne Killian
Chris Killian
Jack Schultz
The premise is simple: a senior couple is aware that someone in the neighbourhood is stealing delivered packages from porches. And they are going to do something about it to stop that.
It’s full of whimsy, irony, humour and it’s quite unsettling. Jack Shultz has an imagination that makes one’s eyebrows raise in disbelief for one who looks so young. The accompanying music is played liltingly on the ukulele adding an irony that ramps up the tingling feeling as the story unfolds. And he has an artistry that makes it all work. Jack Shultz, remember that name.
There are also eclectic offerings in the festival.
Joyeaux Anniversaire
Directed by Bruno Mertz
Music by Bruno Mertz.
Sung by Alicia Mertz.
Cast: Dreda Blow
Peter Blow.
The piece takes it’s lead from the song Joyeaux Anniversaitre about a woman trying to escape her haunted past. A lyric shows a woman rushing outside a house: “scrambling to get free.” Music, story and performance meld for this compelling scenario.
Art factors prominently in two films.
Be Inspired. Embrace your creativity
Created and narrated by by Lynda Todd.
Lynda Todd became fascinated by the luminosity and the depth effect of acrylic fluid and resin art creations. And when you consider that she is visually impaired and partially colour blind, you realize what a huge accomplishment her colourful art is. A quibble and certainly not a complaint, is that I wanted a clear definition of what acrylic fluid is and how she forms her work. Some are paintings some are shapes and forms. I would have liked some clarification about her process.
What is absolutely clear is her enthusiasm to pass on her joy of art and creating it and getting people to realize their own joy in their own creating processes.
Flowing Euphoria: Black and White
Paintings and comment by Valerie Kent
Video by Soma Belanger
Music by 3B
The video focuses on six black and white paintings of fantasy flowers Valerie Kent painted as a result of a dream conversation she had with a Japanese painting master. The painting master’s vision in the dream was to sharpen the impact of Valerie Kent’s new paintings by expressing contrast. The paintings are graceful, elegant and otherworldly.
When the camera slowly zooms in we see how the painting changes to the various strokes and components, and when it zooms out there is the full picture. Beautiful in every way. The music augments the viewing experience, even when there is silence.
Lumenumbra
Images by Naomi Duvall
Music and editing by Ryan McLean Purdon
Lumenumbra is described as “a biorhythm, a transition between two qualities. A metaphor for mortality”.
At times the images are deliberately blurry other times they are sharply illuminated images that look like trees. The accompanying music is kinetic, percussive, and the whole effect is captivating.
I am always impressed with the talent that is introduced by the Digital Festival of Light and Dark. Well worth your time.
The Digital Festival of Light and Darkis available for free on the 4th Line Theatre channel:
A binaural audio experience, co-produced by Factory Theatre and Obsidian Theatre. Streaming Nov. 19-28. www.factorytheatre.ca
Written by Lisa Codrington
Directed by Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu
Foley artist, sound designer and composer, John Gzowski
Starring Alison Sealy-Smith
I first saw Cast Iron, playwright Lisa Codrington’s first play, in 2005. At the time I said: “Lisa Codrington is a new vibrant voice that deserves to be heard… bold and daring.” This binaural audio production is the first revival in 16 years. That’s a pity. The play has a lot to say about aging, loneliness, the traditions and hold that ‘home’ has on a person, how memory haunts us and the demons we try to keep inside.
Libya is being bedeviled. She is in a nursing home in Winnipeg and she can’t sleep because the cold wind outside keeps howling. She’s spent time there, alone, when that night she is visited by a man—is he real? In her imagination? Can she confide in him her secrets that have been haunting her for 40 years when she lived in her native Barbados?
Libya goes back into her memory to dredge up the superstitions and folklore she was taught by her grandmother, a feisty woman who wielded a cast iron pan for protection as well as making her famous Bajan Bakes. Libya coveted that pan. But her grandmother held on to it tightly, as one would a secret recipe.
Libya conjured up the memory of her rivalry with her more popular half-sister, Gracie and how Libya was jealous of Gracie’s success in attracting the attentions of an admired local man. Libya remembers how terrified she was of a woman known to her community as “The Red Woman” and how it was rumoured “The Red Woman” would catch children and kill them in the tall shafts of sugar cane with a butcher’s knife. There was a logical explanation of why she was called “The Red Woman”, but Lidya was held tight by the superstition. One particular terrifying event in Libya’s past bubbles to the surface that evening while she is confiding to the stranger. We see how much anxiety she has been carrying around with her for years.
Playwright Lisa Codrington has created Libya as a woman bursting with life, anger, frustration and haunted memories. She speaks in a Bajan dialect that is both musical and challenging if one is not used to it. Alison Sealy-Smith and her director Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu trust the audience to ‘get it’ and be attentive to its riffs, idiosyncrasies and colourfulness. On her own, Codrington has a keen sense of language. At one point Lidya says to the unseen/unknown force, “Take my hand and let me go.” It’s a line full of poetry and heart-ache. And it’s stunning.
Sealy-Smith is fearless in playing all the characters in the play. She is determined and forthright as Libya; almost crazed as the old woman in the nursing home, and just briming with jealousy and frustration as her younger self in Barbados. She also plays a young, viral man; stodgy older people and many and various personalities.
Because of the nature of the binaural sound—that it surrounds the room—the sense of activity, racing, rushing through foliage if not sugar cane, is beautifully produced in sound by John Gzowski, the foley artist, sound designer and composer. The sounds are vivid and put us right in the world of the play, if not Libya’s imagination.
My only regret with Lisa Codrington’s work is that we don’t hear/see it enough. More please.
I’ve known Martha Henry for decades, first as a theatre-smitten theatre student standing in the theatre parking lot giving her Tootsie Pops, the talisman of thanks for making the theatre so special for me, then as a friend and my mentor.
Acting.
Martha Henry never rushed, hurried or raised her voice. She didn’t have to. She commanded attention by being still and quiet. Her voice might sound like a low growl to suggest anger, but never louder than that. She knew the power of making the audience listen to her rather than raising her voice to make them hear her. She was a masterful teacher at that and so much more.
Martha Henry was born in Detroit, Michigan. Early in her career Martha was part of illustrious theatre companies in the U.S: the Arena Stage Company in Washington, D.C. with Jane Alexander and part of the Lincoln Center Theater Company with Blythe Danner. But it was Canada that won Martha’s heart and loyalty. She fell in love with the Stratford Festival when she visited it when she was a stage-struck kid. She said that any country that had a place like Stratford was where she wanted to live.
I was so fortunate to see Martha Henry act and later direct, mostly at the Stratford Festival, but also across the country. I first saw Martha at Stratford in Measure for Measure (1975). She played Isabella. She was thrilling. Isabella was a novice nun. She was asked to compromise her beliefs and her chastity to Angelo a powerful man in charge of governing at the time, in exchange for her brother’s life. Angelo was smitten with her. She was saved by The Duke but then he, too, wanted her, as his wife. Her life as a novice was over.
The last scene was of Isabella wearing a nun’s head covering and simple glasses, looking stricken over her shoulder to the audience, slowly taking of her glasses and sliding off the head-covering. Devastating. What a perfect beginning to seeing the brilliance of Martha Henry on stage. The director was Robin Phillips.
That stunning performance was followed in 1977 by her determined, strong performance as Lady Anne in Richard III with Brian Bedford playing Richard III. Again, Robin Phillips directed. There was a scene when the Duke of Gloucester (later King Richard III) propositioned Lady Anne as she followed her husband’s casket for burial. Martha Henry as Lady Anne furiously spat a gob in his face. He smirked and wiped it off with his hand, then licked his hand. The production was full of such power.
Martha Henry and Robin Phillips often worked together and the results were stellar. Phillips’ directed the film of The Wars (1983) by Timothy Findlay. It was a huge achievement in Canadian film starring William Hutt, Martha Henry, Brent Carver and Jackie Burroughs, among other fine actors. Martha Henry played Mrs. Ross, the troubled mother of Robert Ross played by Brent Carver. The scene people always talk about is the one when an equally troubled Robert Ross is in the bath tub, taking a bath. Mrs. Ross is sitting behind him, on the closed toilet seat, quietly smoking. His back is to her. The scene is full of pain, angst, despair and is absolutely heart-breaking—quietly done. And again, devastating.
As much as Martha worked with other directors: often with Antoni Cimolino (her towering Prospero in The Tempest, a forceful Volumnia in Coriolanus and a wickedly impish Lady Bountiful—especially with a large zucchini–in The Beaux’ Stratagem) at Stratford; with Ann Hodges directing her as a fierce Violet in August: Osage County (2012) at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre in Winnipeg; Stewart Arnott directed her in Marjorie Prime (2020) at the Coal Mine Theatre in Toronto, to name only a few, Martha had a special relationship with director Diana Leblanc.
They had been friends since they both were both acting students at the National Theatre School in Montreal. Diana Leblanc directed Martha Henry in some of the best work I’ve seen anywhere:
Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Stratford, 1994 and 1995) considered by many to be the definitive production of this play. Martha played Mary Tyrone and was astonishing as was William Hutt as James Tyrone. Mary’s lilting voice of enquiry and yet concern of “What are you looking at? Is my hair coming down?” Mary’s voice was also fiercely quiet in how she could manipulate and shoot off a dart of a line of her own. Mary rocked in a rocking chair, sliding her hands back and forth along the arm rests and how the fingers were deliberately entwined to look gnarled like they were crippled with arthritis. The memory leaves me breathless.
Three Tall Women (1996) at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton in which Martha played “A” for the first time, a warm-up for Stratford, 25 years later. “B” was Fiona Reid and “C” was Jennifer Wigmore.
Wit also at the Citadel playing Vivian Bearing, a university professor fighting cancer.
Rose (2005) at the Saidye Bronfman Theatre (now the Segal Center) in Montreal. Playing Rose, a one-woman play of a woman sitting shiva for her grandchild and to a larger extent, the 20th century.
Sweet Bird of Youth(1996) at Stratford. Diana Leblanc directed this steamy, sensuous production of lost chances starred Martha Henry, Geordie Johnson and Bernice—Bernice was the ‘pet-name’ given to the deep-wine-red satin bed covering under which a lot of physical action took place. Bernice was a sensual presence in this production of sex and desire. The chemistry between Martha Henry and Geordie Johnson was undeniable.
Death of a Salesman(1997) at Stratford. Al Waxman played Willy Loman, Martha Henry played Linda Loman. In the first scene, when Willy came home after a disastrous road trip, Linda followed him around the set, holding on to the back of his coat like a lost child needing to be lead. It was a heartbreaking performance of a dutiful wife who was not appreciated.
The Cherry Orchard (1998) Stratford. Martha Henry played Lyubov the deluded owner of the Cherry Orchard, who was both frustrating in her not wanting to face reality and endearing because she was so needy in wanting to be liked.
The Glass Menagerie at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. Playing Amanda Wingfield, resilient, and determined who loved her children by willing them to try and do better.
And Three Tall Women at Stratford, 2021. Martha played “A”, Lucy Peacock played “B” and Mamie Zwettler played “C”. More on that later.
Martha Henry illuminated every character she played and every play she directed. Lots has been written to try and capture her artistry. Suffice it to say, there is Martha Henry and then there is everybody else.
Directing.
Martha wanted to direct and said that she would start small, by directing a one person play. It was Brief Lives (1980. Stratford) by Patrick Garland about John Aubrey a 17th century chronicler and gossip of the times. It starred Douglas Rain. The set was a rat-pack’s delight, a conglomeration of stuff that would defeat even Marie Kondo. The staging, direction and acting were terrific. The same rigor that Martha Henry applied to finding the clues to her characters in her acting she applied to finding the clues of the play in her directing.
The Grace of Mary Traverse (1987)at Toronto Free Theatre, in which Martha Henry used the huge space of Astrid Janson’s set to great effect.
Martha Henry went from directing strength to directing strength, heading the Grand Theatre in London, Ont. as Artistic Director from 1988-95. Her casting was always inspired. Martha was incorporating ‘colour-rich, colour-conscious casting before it was de rigueur. She directed David Mamet’s incendiary play Oleanna(1995) about a pompous, but clueless, teacher named John and his dealings with a hapless, but easily manipulated, student named Carol. John was played by Rod Beattie. Carol was played by a young Korean-Canadian actress making her professional debut named Sandra Oh. The casting added another layer of complexity to the play. The results were electrifying.
Blood Relations (1989), Grand Theatre, London, Ont. A fantastic set by Astrid Janson set the stage for the bloody acts of Lizzie Borden—a bloody psychological thriller. Diana Leblanc played Lizzie, Frances Hyland played her actress friend. Martha Henry’s direction illuminated the depths of the play.
Fire (1990-91) Grand Theatre. Martha Henry directed Michael McManus as a character loosely based on hard-rocker, Jerry Lee Lewis, in a wild, daring production.
All My Sons (2016, Stratford). Martha Henry directed an exquisite production. It was as delicate as a spider web and as fraught with danger. The revelations of how deep the betrayals and deceit go gripped you more and more tightly.
Henry VIII (2019), Stratford. (The last production Martha directed). She created a court of political intrigue and secrecy with Jonathan Goad as Henry VIII. Characters have cloistered conversations with others sharing their mendacious plans; others stand on the ‘balcony’ above the stage and observe private conversations and imagine what is being said; rumour abounds.
Mentorship.
Martha shared her wealth of experience, first as the Director of The Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Training, which she headed for several years and then as the Director of The Michael Langham Workshop for Classical Direction. Her mentorship was revered by the next generation of actors and directors. They saved her missives, post-it notes with advice, e-mails full of suggestions and letters full of encouragement.
And I revered her mentorship too. When I was starting my Slotkin Letter of my reviews of theatre I’d seen locally, nationally and internationally, Martha Henry was on the list to receive it, in multi-pages of hard copy. She said it was an invaluable resource. She was talking about the letter in glowing terms to Pat Quigley, then the Director of Education at the Stratford Festival. Pat said she wanted to be on the list. Martha said that was not possible as the list of who received it was so long (about 40 people at the time) “…that Lynn said no one new can come on the list until someone on the list dies.” Pat Quigley then said, “I’ll pay.” What a concept. So Pat Quigley became a paying subscriber. More subscribers followed. When I went digital with the letter I did not charge. But more often than not the morning the letter was on my website I’d receive wise, thoughtful words from Martha Henry who suggested a comma here or correction of a spelling/and or grammar there. Martha often said that ‘editing was my life.” I believed her and was grateful.
Christmasand Marilyn Monroe
Martha, Diana Leblanc and I have been celebrating Christmas together for about 20 years. For a few years choreographer/director Valerie Moore joined us but for the last several years it was Martha, Diana and me. We alternated who would host and cook.
Martha loved Marilyn Monroe, I did too. I always gave Martha a Marilyn Monroe calendar. She so looked forward to that. She gave me books and a purse with Marilyn Monroe on it. For Martha there were books on the sayings of Marilyn Monroe, a book of photos over the years and other memorabilia. She opened every present carefully and received them with glee.
Martha said that when she was a kid her idea of the perfect time was reading a book while eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich with a glass of milk. And popcorn was involved too. So every Christmas, besides the regular presents, I gave Martha a shoe box inside which was: a raffia box into which would fit a small carton of milk; another raffia box the precise size to hold a wrapped peanut butter and jam sandwich; a package of Orville Redenbacher microwave popcorn, and a book. If she came in from Stratford she reported back when she got home that she ate the sandwich and drank the milk and they were delicious. Always the perfect message. Then when we saw each other the next time, she gave me the empty raffia boxes to be used the following Christmas.
Kindness.
Martha Henry was wonderfully kind and thoughtful. It was intermission of an opening at Stratford years ago. Martha never went out to schmooze. She sat quietly in her seat. Also sitting quietly in her seat down front was a beloved long-time supporter of the Stratford Festival. This woman always went out for intermission but not this time. It was a hard time for her family. The woman and her husband had just lost an adult son to illness. Martha walked down the aisle to the row where the woman was sitting, quietly slipped into the seat beside her and put her arm around her shoulders, I imagine offering words of comfort and condolences. The woman melted into Martha. It was achingly personal and private. I felt like I was intruding seeing this from across the theatre from my seat. But that offer of comfort was pure Martha.
We often went to dinner in Toronto, Stratford or out of town if she was acting out of town. If I invited her for food between/after a show there was always a ‘conflict’ for the bill. Martha always paid the bill. She never accepted a contribution to the bill. She flicked the money away as if it was somebody else’s used Kleenex. And she did it with flair.
The last time we went to dinner was in Stratford, at Foster’s. We (Martha, Diana Leblanc and I) were at Martha’s table—the round one in the window. A waitress (Martha knew her name, I didn’t) quickly brought Martha a glass of her favourite chardonnay with ice. They knew what she liked and how she liked it and gave it to her without asking.
I was determined to pay the bill. After we got settled, on the pretext of going to the bathroom, I quietly went to the waitress at the entrance to the restaurant saying that when it came time for the bill I wanted her to give it to me. She blanched visibly. I have learned about subtext from watching Martha Henry act all these years, I knew what that blanching meant. The waitress said, “She won’t like that (meaning Martha).” I said, “I know. I don’t care. Occasionally people should be able to take Martha Henry to dinner. I know that Martha will make a fuss, but I want the bill.” The waitress said she would do it but she was going to leave the table quickly after that.
When the time came the waitress gave me the bill and quickly left and I just as quickly and quietly got out my wallet.
Martha: “What are you doing?” Martha asked quietly but with that look of horror as if a crime had taken place.
Me: “I’m paying the bill,” I said.
Martha: “No, you’re not,” (“not” was stretched to three syllables)” Martha said it in that musical, elegant voice, with a hint of edge. A look of surprise/disbelief.
Me: “Martha Henry, I am entitled to take you to dinner once every two years and pay the bill (the previous time was two years before. The time before that was never). You always, always take me to dinner and pay and it’s my turn. I’ve got the money and I want to take you to dinner. I think that’s a reasonable request.” (My heart was thumping).
(Pause).
Martha: “Ok. (pause) (I exhaled in relief). But I’m going to tell the waitress that I am never coming here again.”
And we burst out laughing.
A Lasting Memory.
Of course, the production that will stay with me always, is Martha Henry in her last production, and particularly her last performance (Oct. 9, 2021) in Three Tall Women at the Stratford Festival. Diana Leblanc’s production was beautifully nuanced, subtle and riveting. The production was unforgiving yet graceful, hard yet funny and heartbreaking. And it showed Martha Henry determined and at the top of her theatrical powers; the fluttering hands that looked like ribbons floating on a breeze; the sultry voice making every syllable count; it was Martha Henry who had a deep understanding of her character and illuminated the pure command she had over her audience to make them feel uncomfortable, unsettled, but beguiled.
It was about a woman at the end of her life although I was sure this was not the end of the woman playing her, even though I knew Martha was ill. Not THAT Martha. But there is that line at the end of the play, “There’s a difference between knowing you’re going to die and knowing you’re going to die.” And she knew.
Martha started the run of the play in August using a walker. She finished the run using a wheelchair. Director Diana Leblanc kept re-staging the production to accommodate these ambulatory changes. Martha had been in failing health for two years and was stoical about it. It was reasonable to believe this was her last show. But, but, but, Martha Henry was so determined that it’s also reasonable that she could find the strength to do another production, next year, in Richard III as had been scheduled before COVID cancelled everything.
Her final bow Oct. 9 was electrifying. I’ve never seen such joy and defiance that she got through it. The standing ovation was instantly spontaneous and totally earned. Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino was there to give her a huge bouquet of yellow roses. He knelt on one knee and handed her the bouquet. It was so touching. Then Martha turned the wheelchair, waived and went off. It reminded me of William Hutt, also a great actor who would wave as he exited, indicating he was not coming back for more bows because he was tired. With Martha Henry this was different. This was final. I thought, “Don’t you dare wave like that as if it’s the end. Don’t!
I knew there were festivities backstage. I waited for Martha when they were finished. She came out the stage door with her daughter Emma pushing the wheelchair and Diana Leblanc with them. I gave Martha her traditional Tootsie Pop as thanks for such a gift of a performance. She was glad/surprised to see me saying she sent me a card and if she knew I was going to be there, she would have given it to me.
I had given Diana a bottle of champagne to give to Martha for her past birthday in February. I always gave her a bottle of champagne for her birthday, but because of COVID was not able to this year. The three-hour break between Act I in the afternoon and Act II in the evening was a perfect time to pass on the bottle. I figured that was quick—to have written a card of thanks for the champagne and mailed it—was pure Martha.
Martha was tired. I squeezed her hand—because of her fragile health I dared not kiss her cheek, thanked her again and said good-bye. It was the last time I would see her.
On Tuesday night Diana e-mailed me and said that Martha was sleeping most of the time and being given her pain killers intravenously. By a nurse. I was stunned. “Is she leaving us?” I e-mailed back. “Yes” was the reply. Emma, Diana and a few other close friends kept vigil by Martha’s bedside.
I received Martha’s card on Oct. 15. It wasn’t a card thanking me for her birthday champagne. It was a card saying good-bye in the most elegant, sensitive, funny ‘Martha way’ without actually using those words. And a smiling, joyful Marilyn Monroe was on the front of the card. I sobbed reading it. Typical of Martha, thinking of others right to the end.
Martha Henry died a little after midnight, Oct. 21. She was 83.
When Diana e-mailed me at 12:38 am that Martha was gone, I went to the fridge to find something to drink to toast her. At the bottom of the shelf at the back was a bottle of wine. I was stunned when I read the label. It was chardonnay. I don’t drink chardonnay. But Martha Henry does/did. I think I might have bought it to give to her the next time we met for dinner. Martha Henry, gone but not really gone, always there even when we don’t realize it.
Here’s to you and thank you, dearest Martha, for a life filled with the finest art; being the most supportive, encouraging, guiding friend and being an example of what a truly special human being really is.
After captivating imaginations around the globe, this pioneering work makes its Canadian Premiere.
Draw Me Close blurs the worlds of live performance, virtual reality, and animation to create a vivid memoir about the relationship between a mother and her son charting twenty-five years of love, learning, and loss. Weaving theatrical storytelling with cutting-edge technology, the performance allows the audience member to take the part of the protagonist, Jordan, inside a live, animated world.
This unique show consists of two distinct experiences – Blue and Red:
Blue:
Inspired by Homer’s The Odyssey, in this journey you will embark upon a multidisciplinary voyage across art forms including radio documentary, dance, playwriting, poetry, virtual reality filmmaking, and augmented immersive concerts. Travel through the backstage of the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts and make choices that will influence the narrative you experience.
Red:
Inspired by Dante’s Inferno, in this journey you will lose yourself in an underworld hidden among the real-life streets of Toronto and the St. Lawrence Market at night. Visit a world suspended between ancient and contemporary, sacred and profane, and experience close encounters with your inner mysteries and the ones of those around you.
Please be advised:
• This piece contains explicit language and mature themes.
• At times, during the piece, there are intense flashing lights, those with photosensitivity, are advised.
• During certain sections of the piece, audiences may find themselves in dark and/or small spaces
• As this work is interactive, you may come close to an actor. Please do not actively touch the actors. They will also not actively or intentionally touch you.
Please note that audience members will be on their feet throughout the event and will need to move through a variety of spaces. It may not be possible to accommodate all accessibility needs, and those with questions about accessibility should contact us as soon as possible.
Tickets: PERFORMANCE DETAILS & BOX OFFICE INFORMATION The Spectators’ Odyssey – o dell ’Inferno will be performed with timed entry. Groups of 8 will begin their voyage every 15 minutes for one of two different journeys,
each approximately one hour. Audience can choose to do journey A or B or both.
DATES & TIMES Tuesday, Nov 2, 7PM – 10PM
Wednesday, Nov 3, 7PM – 10PM
Thursday, Nov 4, 7PM – 10PM
Friday, Nov 5, 7PM – 10PM
Saturday, Nov 6, 7PM – 10PM
Sunday, Nov 7, 1PM – 4PM & 6PM – 9PM
Wednesday, Nov 10, 7PM – 10PM
Thursday, Nov 11, 7PM – 10PM
Friday, Nov 12, 7PM – 10PM
Saturday, Nov 13, 7PM – 10PM
Sunday, Nov 14, 1PM – 4PM & 6PM – 9PM
TICKETS: $50 per journey or combined ticket of $75 for both.
Tickets are available online at www.tolive.com, by phone at 416-366-7723 & 1-800-708-6754, or by email at boxoffice@tolive.com.
TO Live box office phone and email support operates 1pm – 6pm Monday to Friday. On-line sales operate 24 hours per day
Thursday, Nov. 3, 2021. 8:00 pm
Theatre Gargantua presents;
Live and in person:
A TONIC FOR DESPERATE TIMES
NOVEMBER 3RD – 14TH, 2021
Emerging from a global state of isolation and uncertainty, Gargantua presents a vital exploration of hope: A Tonic for Desperate Times. This world premiere, two years in the making, investigates our instinct for optimism, and the surprising places hope can be found — in the fractal patterns of nature, the swing of a pendulum, the murmuration of starlings in flight. Merging dynamic physical movement with sound and video installations, this live and in-person performance is at the forefront of Toronto’s return to theatres.
Premiering in the heart of Toronto’s vibrant west end at Historic St. Anne’s Parish Hall, A Tonic for Desperate Times is a communal experience of resilience and courage. A balm for injured souls.
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
Performances run November 3rd to 14th, 2021 at Historic St. Anne’s Parish Hall (651 Dufferin Street).
A Tonic for Desperate Times (Preview)Wednesday November 3, 2021 – 08:00 PM EDT
SelectA Tonic for Desperate Times (Preview)Thursday November 4, 2021 – 08:00 PM EDT
SelectA Tonic for Desperate TimesFriday November 5, 2021 – 08:00 PM EDT
Live, in person under the canopy in the back lawn of the Bruce Hotel, Stratford, Ont. as part of the Here for Now Theatre, New Works Festival.
So, how’s it been?
Created by writer-director Liza Balkan and composer/musical director, Paul Shilton
Additional songs by Katherine Wheatley and Bruce Horak
Cast: Barb Fulton,
Evanglia Kambites
Marcus Nance
Trevor Patt
Liza Balkan, writer-director-Stratford resident began a project in the summer of 2020, interviewing people who live and work in Stratford to see how they were doing in the pandemic. She interviewed business owners, employees, artists, nurses, retirees, kids, farmers, actors, and parents. Then she and composer-musical director Paul Shilton put those words from the conversations into songs. Liza Balkan also directed this bringing out the nuance and subtleties of each song.
So, how’s it been? is the result, a song cycle of how people coped during the pandemic; the highs, lows, in-betweens; the stuff that was funny, sad, odd, curious, interesting and eye-opening. While we hear the words from the actual interviews and then the songs they formed, it was the performers who made the immediate connection with their recollections.
Barb Fulton looked on this as a little break—at the beginning of the pandemic. She described having a tightness in her chest, wondering if she even wanted to perform anymore. As the pandemic lasted longer and longer that idea changed. Could she even do it anymore. She is such an engaging singer/performer, one hopes she wants to continue performing. Certainly the show afforded her an opportunity to find out for sure.
Trevor Patt had plans to buy a house and a dog and……But then the pandemic happened. Jobs were lost, money was tight. Puppies need to eat. He sang and played his guitar with a quiet self-deprecation and quiet humour.
Marcus Nance and Evangelia Kambites are two terrific singer/actors. They imbue their songs with heart, nuance and humour. They also bring a different perspective most of us do not experience: they are two Black actors in a white town and in their recollections they talk about subtle and not so subtle racism. Marcus Nance owns a house in Stratford and loves to garden, and when the flies are particularly bad he wears a ‘hoodie’ to protect himself while he works in his garden. He talked of people who have seen him on stage and praised him and see him in his garden and assume he is working a second job and not tending his garden of his house.
Evangelia Kambites talks of walking her dog at night when a man in a pickup truck drove by and rolled down his window and called out, “That’s a cute dog.” ‘Ordinarily’ this would seem like someone being a jerk and we would slough it off. But Kambites is a Black woman walking her dog at night in a white town and the call out the window is not innocuous; it’s dangerous and puts her on alert. These are two stories that put the majority of us in their world just for a sobering short period of time. Something of which to be mindful.
The group sings of the geese, the damned geese. They used a stronger word, more appropriate, but I won’t use it here. And what these geese leave all over the place to slip and slide in and mess up the area. They all sing of frustrations, fears, claustrophobia, not being able to visit a loved one in a long-care facility.
They expressed the joys they found in the time they had. Marcus Nance loved the time at home in Stratford with his husband. He talked of the joy of that personal time, eating a delicious breakfast of croissants, scrambled eggs, bacon and the very best coffee, and described it with such intoxicating reverie, I almost forgot myself, wanting to put up my hand and ask for his address, to invite myself next time.
Barb Fulton sang a wonderfully poignant song of a woman whose husband has dementia and she was desperate to keep him at home and not have to put him in a ‘home’ because then she wouldn’t see him often.
So, how’s it been? is a beautifully crafted show of dealing with the pandemic in all its good and bad ways. And it’s created by artists who will not be stopped in creating. Lovely work.
Charmaine and Kingsley met at a party. She was classy, sophisticated and confident. He wore a silly hat and played the ukulele. He was nerdy, old-fashioned and ‘slightly out of tune.’ She wasn’t interested until one time she was in distress and sat on a stoop in the rain and he sat right with her, stroking her hair, silently telling her with that gesture, it would be ok.
They got married of course. That kind of consideration is not to be ignored. Twenty-five years later there is trouble in the marriage. They snipe, argue, get exasperated and frustrated. I’m reminded of a card I got once with a quote from Lillian Hellman: “People change and forget to tell each other.” And of course how do you even begin to talk about it. Temptation is introduced. How will this resolve itself?
Mark Weatherley has written a funny, sweet play about communication, the rocky road to love and marriage, commitment and the importance of sitting beside someone you love, in the rain, getting soaked but stroking her hair to tell her it will be ok.
Weatherley also plays Kingsley in it with Monique Lund who plays Charmaine. Lund also happens to be Mark Weatherley’s wife. The two have a chemistry that is obvious. Their banter seems to have been honed to a sheen over years of bantering. They flip lines off each other as two people who are familiar with each other can and know the other’s timing.
As Charmaine, Lund is sophisticated, a bit exasperated by Kingsley, and frustrated by the stall in their marriage. As Kingsley, Weatherley brings a sweet goofiness to the part, as Kingsley was all those years ago. That goofiness is Kingsley’s protection. He knows there is trouble in the marriage. He so wants it to work but is at a loss about getting that feeling back. Love always finds a way.
Director Seana McKenna works with the chemistry of her two actors and uses her acting smarts to realize the nuance and shading of this relationship. She has created a delicate production in which we cheer for and urge these two characters to work hard to talk to each other and go back to what it was that attracted them in the first place.
Weatherley has such an irreverent way with a line. He talks about regret at a missed opportunity, and quotes that famous line from Casablanca (which I will not quote here—see the show and you’ll know), and we know it will be ok. They will always have the ukulele.
A concert of songs, live and in person on the front yard of a private residence.
Created and performed by Sara Farb and Britta Johnson
The always resourceful Musical Stage Company has come up with a wonderful idea to keep musical theatre alive, employ talented theatre makers and engage, friends, family and neighbours in the event called Porchside Songs.
The idea is simple. A host or hosts books a concert usually involving two musicians/singers, perhaps more, who will create a 45-minute concert to be performed on a front porch, lawn, or front yard of a private home, in which the host/hosts invite the neighbours to come, bring their own chair and enjoy.
I’d heard about these wonderful concerts and wanted to hear one but didn’t know how to go about it. Then the lovely folks at The Musical Stage Company enquired of a host if I could come and hear the concert he arranged, and the gracious host said yes. I will keep his name a secret in case he’s inundated by the music lovers in the area to make this a regular Saturday night occurrence.
On Saturday, Aug. 7 I went to the front yard of a house on a leafy street off Bathurst near St. Clair to hear Sara Farb and Britta Johnson do a concert they call “Sad Lady Songs.” Individually these ladies are powerhouses. Sara Farb has acted across the country, on Broadway in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, at the Stratford Festival and in Fun Home for Mirvish Productions, to name a few. Britta Johnson is a force in musical theatre in this city. She wrote the musical Life After for Canadian Stage which played internationally; with her sister Anika she wrote Dr. Silver, A Celebration of Life, with Liza Balkan she wrote The Children Stay. With Sara Farb she wrote Kelly v. Kelly and He is Coming. Together they are a force to be reckoned with.
The dynamic duo chose eight songs to showcase their considerable talents. The songs were a celebration of complicated women. Six of the songs were from shows that either Sara Farb and Britta Johnson wrote together or Britta wrote with others. They also sang “A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell and “Dancing on My Own” by Robyn who the duo said was a terrific Swedish singer. (Who knew?)
Sara Farb has a glistening voice that plumbs the depths and heights of the emotions in the songs. Britta Johnson is an attentive accompanist as well as an expressive singer in her own right. Some people’s skin sweats. Britta’s skin seems to emit music. Music is in her fingers. Both women bring a wonderful sense of the perfect lyric to express an emotion. Their sense of language is terrific. Their banter is teasing and good natured with Sara Farb asking if the amplification on Britta’s keyboard could be brought down a bit. T’was ever thus—finding the proper balance of sound between the singers and the accompaniment.
The hosts plastered the neighbourhood with posters announcing the concert and to come and enjoy it. People flocked. Kids came with their parents. People stood in the street if they didn’t have a chair. Everybody had a great time. Glad I heard/saw this gifted duo.
