SNAFU dance brings a lively and energetic late-night offering to this year’s undercurrents festival with Snack Music, a highly physical show with heavy elements of improv comedy and object theatre: imagine telling an audience an embarrassing story about yourself and then watching three purple jumpsuit-clad actors retell it using food props and synthesizer sound effects. … Continue reading “Snack Music” Satisfies The Creative Taste Buds
“Forstner & Fillister” Level with Masculinity
Every year undercurrents usually brings back a few artists that have been involved with the festival before, but with Forstner & Fillister comes the only chance this year to see a show that has previously appeared as a work in development in the same setting. Everything you love about the previous undercurrents or even the … Continue reading “Forstner & Fillister” Level with Masculinity
“How to Disappear Completely”: A Deeply Personal Story that Shines a Light on Tech. Theatre
Itai Erdal’s How to Disappear Completely is completely non-fiction: partly a memoir on the deterioration of his mother’s condition after her cancer diagnosis, the show fascinatingly is also something of an intro to theatrical lighting design. Erdal keeps the connection understated between these two halves, so while at times the show seems to ramble, most … Continue reading “How to Disappear Completely”: A Deeply Personal Story that Shines a Light on Tech. Theatre
Luna Allison Talks “Shit”
So this year the work-in-progress show at undercurrents is called The Shit Show, a 25-minute musing on our cultural fascination with and refutation of feces. Since this is a work-in-progress I can’t really evaluate this as a production unto itself, but I will speak to the concept and what steps creator/performer Luna Allison has taken … Continue reading Luna Allison Talks “Shit”
887 Gets 10/10
Robert Lepage’s 887, an autobiographical exploration of memory, aging, and Québec’s Quiet Revolution, is currently running at the National Arts Centre for the first time in English and if you haven’t already seen it, you should. 887 excels both as a beautiful play to look at, thanks to Lepage’s legendary stagecraft (and backstage crew of … Continue reading 887 Gets 10/10
2017 In Review: What Have We Been Up To?
We’re at the point where a brand new year is around the corner and we find ourselves asking “what did we do this year?” In the spirit of a round-robin Christmas letter, we thought we’d let you know what our 2017 has been like… January proved to be an exciting start to the year for … Continue reading 2017 In Review: What Have We Been Up To?
EMBEDDED CRITICISM: Critics Become Stagehands for a Night
Blind Date @ GCTC November 30-December 17, 2017 Previews November 28 and 29 WHAT IS EMBEDDED CRITICISM? The traditional model for theatre criticism (and other art forms) involves a separation between artist and critic. The artist(s) create(s) a piece of theatre and present it, the critic attends the performance and writes their review, and never … Continue reading EMBEDDED CRITICISM: Critics Become Stagehands for a Night
“Building the Wall”: A Character Study Exploring “Building” the Straw Man Argument
Robert Schenkkan’s Building the Wall, a speculative look at the near future of America under the Trump presidency, is a timely yet oddly underwhelming examination of the political situation our southern neighbours have regrettably brought upon themselves. Horseshoes and Hand Grenades Theatre present the Canadian premiere (playing at the Gladstone until December 3rd) of this … Continue reading “Building the Wall”: A Character Study Exploring “Building” the Straw Man Argument
On Reaching Out to the Media
One of the great things about digital media is that it’s a lot easier and faster for the publisher to open up a dialogue with the public: updating a problematic sentence on a web page is simple and guarantees that future readers will see the corrected version, whereas the corrections in a newspaper, for example, … Continue reading On Reaching Out to the Media
“Ordinary Days” Goes Small and Wins Big
Musicals, with their outrageous sets and costumes, 11 o’clock numbers, and dance breakdowns, aren’t a common sight at Great Canadian Theatre Company. Their current production of Adam Gwon’s Ordinary Days, however, shows that none of those things are necessary to produce quality musical theatre that still maintains a significant degree of theatricality. Ordinary Days follows … Continue reading “Ordinary Days” Goes Small and Wins Big
The New Ottawa Critics 