Andrew Kushnir’s new play, The Division, currently playing in the Studio at Crow’s Theatre, is both a very personal story and an interrogation of some very uncomfortable aspects of Ukrainian history. It’s told, in the present, as a letter to Kushnir’s nephew to be read in maybe fifteen years time when, perhaps, it will be easier to divorce history from current events (and then maybe not…)
Erin Shields’ Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary is currently playing at Crow’s theatre in a production directed by Ellen McDougall. It aims to shed new light on the Gospel stories by seeing them through the eyes of four Mary’s; the mother of Jesus (Michelle Monteith), Mary Magdalene (Sabryn Rock), Lazarus’ sister (Belinda Corpuz) and the mother of James and Joseph (Nancy Palk). It doesn’t really provide much illumination.
Clyde’s, currently playing at the Bluma Appel Theatre, is so much more than a play about ex-cons making sandwiches. There are layers of meaning here that I’m only beginning to unpack. But let’s take a step back and summarize. Lynn Nottage’s play is set in the kitchen of a truck stop owned by Clyde; a woman with a short fuse, a sharp tongue and a thoroughly jjaundiced view of the human condition. The kitchen is led by the enigmatic Montrellous who seeks to create the perfect sandwich and is making progress. His calm enthusiasm captivates the three other ex-cons who work the kitchen and who aspire to meet Monty’s standard of sandwich excellence while coping with their fractured lives and keeping out of reach of Clyde’s wrath.
Clare Barron’s Dance Nation is a grimly hilarious examination of how cut-throat competition culture affects the lives of children in small town America. It’s currently playing at Coal Mine Theatre in an Outside the March production directed by Diana Bentley.
Jen Silverman’s The Moors is a sort magic realist comedic parody of the Gothic novel in general and the Brontës in particular. It’s currently playing at The Theatre Centre in a Riot King Art Market production directed by Bryn Kennedy.
The headline is a quote from late in the second half of Zaiba Baig’s double header Kainchee Lagaa + Jhooti: The Begging Brown Bitch Plays which opened on Thursday night at Buddies in Bad Times in a production directed by Tawiah Ben M’Carthy for House of Beida Inc. The plays are loosely linked in that both deal one way or another with queerness and Pakistani-Canadian identity and experience.
Yolanda Bonnell’s White Girls in Moccasins, presented by manidoons collective and Native Earth Performing Arts opened at the Aki Studio on Friday night. Co-directed by Bonnell and Carmen Alvis, it’s a play about identity and and recovering roots. The principal character Miskozi, like the playwright, is Indigenous but I don’t think the play is entirely about Indigenous identity. The other two roles are Ziibi, played by a Bermudian Trans Woman of African ancestry and Waabishkizi; played by a second generation Settler woman. So while the focus is on Indigenous identity I think it raises a lot of other questions too.
Cyclops is the only satyr play by Euripides to come down to us though I guess whether it’s “complete” is a bit of an open question. A satyr play was a kind of weird hybrid of comedy and tragedy that closed out the Festival of Dionysos after the tragedies had been performed. Unlike most Athenian comedy it was usually based on mythological source material; in this case Odysseus’ encounter with the Cyclops from the Odyssey. It would have featured principals and a chorus of satyrs; half man, half goat with enormous erect phalluses.
Sam Holcroft’s A Mirror opened on Thursday evening at 918 Bathurst in an ARC production directed by Tamara Vuckovic. It’s a complex play with many levels and multiple places where the boundary between play and audience dissolve. The first “framing device” has us as the audience for an “unlicensed” play which s being performed under the cover of a wedding.
It Could Still Happen’s The Herald opened at Buddies in Bad Times last night. It’s a really difficult work to pigeonhole. It’s a poetic exploration of “labour” through words and music using Ancient Greece as a sort of vehicle for discussing more contemporary, or perhaps, universal concerns. It starts with playwright and director Jill Connell making a speech in front of a projection of the “principles for work” which could perhaps be summarised as “labour should be a temple of awareness” but along the way we get a lot of astrology; night charts and day charts and Antonio Banderas and whether his fashion line includes capes.
operaramblings 