canadian stage News
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Toronto -
“Romeo and Juliet” is one of the Shakespeare tragedies that’s hard to make fresh. Even for those who don’t care for the Bard, it’s too familiar, over-referenced and over-parodied, and everything about it now seems like a stale cliché.
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Toronto -
Tanja Jacobs knows how to make Shakespeare fun. Fresh off last year’s funny, colourful production of “Twelfth Night” in Toronto’s High Park, the director scores another winner with her quick-paced take on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.
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Toronto -
It was an evening of rampant rule-breaking at the thirty-ninth Dora Mavor Moore Awards last night – the annual ceremony recognizing the best in Toronto theatre – as winners littered the stage with random F-bombs and overlong speeches.
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Toronto -
For a light romantic comedy, Simon Stephens’ “Heisenberg” is surprisingly compelling. This may be because of the way the acclaimed British playwright plays with – and overcomes – many of the familiar conventions of the genre.
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Toronto -
Now this is what a Shakespeare comedy should be. Canadian Stage’s “Twelfth Night”, which opened last Friday, is so much delirious fun that it will make you forget all the boring academic blather you heard about the Bard in Grade 11 English.
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Toronto -
It’s 2017, and it’s beyond time that the women of the acting world got to walk in the footsteps of William Shakespeare’s great tragic heroes. Canadian Stage’s new “King Lear”, with Diane D’Aquila in the lead, makes a strong case.
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Toronto -
There are a lot of ways you could categorize Robert Lepage’s spellbinding “887” – magic show? Confessional monologue? History lesson? – and none would be wrong. But only by blending these unlikely elements does it become a masterwork.
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Toronto -
“Liv Stein” is like an edgier “All About Eve”, set in the classical music world, with a climax that takes cues from “Saw”. If that description is hard to believe, it suits a play about how the desperate believe anything they want to be true.
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Toronto -
Not everybody finds quantum physics romantic or sexy. British playwright Nick Payne evidently does, as his acclaimed 2012 stage hit “Constellations” tries to examine different incarnations of a relationship between two scientists.
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Toronto -
How do you scrunch “Hamlet” down to ninety minutes without killing the plot or losing too many of the great soliloquies? Sounds like an impossible task, but Canadian Stage manages to pull it off in a surprisingly solid High Park production.
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Toronto -
“All’s Well that Ends Well” is a famous title, but it’s not one of William Shakespeare’s better-known plays. This year, Canadian Stage is tackling this rarely remounted work with a wide comedic onslaught – mostly to its advantage.
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Toronto -
If you’ve always wanted to see a play about a large, sentient cotton ball that travels around the world and observes how people’s behaviour interconnects through modern technology and economics, German playwright Philipp Löhle has you covered.
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Toronto -
With an implausible plot about mistaken identity and bawdy puns, “The Comedy of Errors” may be the Shakespeare play that's closest to being a “Three's Company” episode. Thankfully, Canadian Stage's new production doesn't pretend it's much more.
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Toronto -
There are moments in Canadian Stage’s new “Julius Caesar” that are so affecting and original, you’re tempted to ignore other moments when it misfires. Director Estelle Shook turns this classic into high spectacle, but not always to its benefit.
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‘Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play’ is a little light on ‘The Simpsons’ content, but still a very inventive and entertaining adaptation of the beloved TV show.
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Toronto -
“When I add up the balance sheet of my life,” says Juliana (Tamsin Kelsey), a seemingly confident neurologist, in “The Other Place”, “the numbers say I'm happy.” But things are never as they look in this fresh depiction of mental illness.
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Toronto -
The holiday season is upon us whether we are ready for it or not. Take time to escape the madness with one of these theatre productions currently running in venues across the city.
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Toronto -
Not that I'm a fan of Trigger Warnings, but if any Shakespeare play really needs to be preceded by one, it's “Titus Andronicus”. Murder, rape, mutilation, cannibalism, racism — this early Bard tragedy is a grim celebration of meaningless atrocity.
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Toronto -
Canadian Stage's annual Shakespeare in High Park has become a respected Toronto summer tradition, and this year, the Bard's pastoral comedy “As You Like It” is a fine match for the High Park Amphitheatre's outdoor setting and young audiences.
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Toronto -
It was an evening full of bondage and murder at the Dora Mavor Moore Awards last night — with local productions “Of Human Bondage,” “Venus in Fur” and “London Road” among the big winners at the annual awards ceremony for theatre in Toronto.
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Toronto -
Winner of a few major 2012 awards in both London and New York, Nina Raine's play “Tribes” is a powerful examination of communication issues between the deaf and the hearing. Too bad that Canadian Stage's new production doesn't always get it right.
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Toronto -
In all the years I've been writing sporadic theatre reviews — from student papers through local weeklies to “Digital Journal” — this is the first time I’ve ever had to write these words: I’ve honestly never seen anything like this play.
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Toronto -
Gender politics are rarely as funny, or as thought-provoking, as they are in “Venus in Fur.” Making its Canadian debut in Toronto, David Ives' Tony-winning one-act play cleverly twists satire and eroticism into an exciting, sexy stage winner.
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Toronto -
“The Taming of the Shrew” remains one of Shakespeare's most problematic and debated comedies, in its endorsement of male-dominated gender politics from four centuries ago. Is it possible to adapt the text in a way that's acceptable in 2013?
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Toronto -
Nothing undermines a Shakespeare play like a tragic hero who can't arouse your sympathy. And “Macbeth”, in which the title role is a murderous usurper, particularly requires a lead who can charm empathy from an audience, in order for it to work.
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Toronto -
If David Mamet's “Race” were a musical, its big closing number would probably be “Everyone's a Little Bit Racist” from “Avenue Q”. It's a shame Mamet's play never quite reaches that tune's level of insight into humanity's tribal tendencies.
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Toronto -
“I'm a good liberal, and I've always made a lot of assumptions about my own liberal purity,” says director Daniel Brooks. “I haven't thought a lot about race, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to enter a discussion about it.”
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Toronto -
The theatre of Melissa James Gibson has arrived north, and it's about time. The Canuck scribe's 'THIS', a brilliantly written comedy-drama about a group of thirtysomething friends in crisis, opened at Toronto's Berkeley Street Theatre last night.
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Toronto -
It's hard to believe that Max Frisch's darkly comic parable “The Arsonists” has never been staged in Canada before. The Toronto debut of the 1958 play captures Frisch's absurdism nicely – but also adds a rock-and-roll edge that doesn't really fit.
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Toronto -
Shakespeare in High Park marks its 30th season this year with the comedy that launched this annual Toronto tradition in 1983, “A Midsummer Night's Dream”, but the new production takes many unusual risks – many of which pay off.
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canadian stage Image
Lear (Diane D'Aquila) reunites with Cordelia (Amelia Sargisson) in "King Lear" at Shakespeare in High Park. Cylla von Tiedemann
Quebec actor and director Robert Lepage revisits his childhood hime in "887", now back at Canadian Stage. Erick Labbé
Hamlet (Frank Cox-O’Connell) isn't quite at his best after his mother and uncle's marriage, in Canadian Stage's "Hamlet". Cylla von Tiedemann
Ipswich residents react (in song) to the arrest of serial murderer Steven Wright, in Canadian Stage's production of the extraordinary British musical "London Road" David Hou
Biedermann (Michael Ball), left, unwittingly helps Eisenring (Shawn Wright) build a detonator in Canadian Stage's "The Arsonists". Canadian Stage
Sylvia (Holly Lewis) and Billy (Stephen Drabicki) sign each other in Nina Raine's "Tribes", running at Toronto's Berkeley Street Theatre. David Hou
Marianne (Cara Ricketts), left, and Roland (Graham Cuthbertson) ponder love and the universe in Nick Payne's "Constellations". Cylla von Tiedemann
From left, Jonathon Young, Christian Laurin, Laura Condlln and Yanna McIntosh star in Melissa James Gibson's "THIS". Bruce Zinger, Canadian Stage
Ian (Jim Mezon) confronts his wife Juliana (Tamsin Kelsey) in Sharr White's "The Other Place" in Toronto. David Hou
Aging classical pianist Liv (Leslie Hope, left) finds a new purpose thanks to student Lore (Sheila Ingabire-Isaro, right) in Canadian Stage's "Liv Stein". Cylla von Tiedemann
Thomas (Rick Miller) and Vanda (Carly Street) get up to some (mostly verbal) shenanigans in David Ives' “Venus in Fur”, now running in Toronto. David Hou
Orsino (Richard Lee) and a disguised Viola (Amelia Sargisson) find out that it takes two to tango in Canadian Stage's "Twelfth Night", in High Park. Cylla von Tiedemann
L - R Colin Doyle, Amy Keating, Rielle Braid and Katherine Cullen. (Photo by David Leyes) rock-it promotions
Alex (David Schurmann, left) and Georgie (Carly Street) have themselves an encounter in Simon Stephens' "Heisenberg". Cylla von Tiedemann
Petruchio (Kevin MacDonald) and Katherina (Sophie Goulet) go at it in Shakespeare in High Park's "The Taming of the Shrew", in Toronto. David Hou
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