Trident Moon, by Anusree Roy and directed by Nina Lee Aquino opened at Crow’s Theatre on Friday night. It’s set in 1947 during the Partition of India and concerns a bunch of women in the back of a truck seeking safety in what has become India. Arun is a Hindu servant to a Moslem family. Her boss, presumably to show he is not soft on Hindus, has beheaded her husband and sons. In revenge she has shot him and kidnapped three of his women folk in the hope that they can be multiply raped by Hindu men when they reach “safety”. The truck also contains her sister who has been accidentally, but seriously, wounded in the shooting, her retarded daughter and a box with the three heads. The truck is driven by her brother.
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The Waltz
Factory Tneatre opened the season last night with The Waltz by Marie Beath Badian in a production by Nina Lee Aquino. It’s a one acter that’s partly a sort of classic “coming of age” story and, rather more, about what identity and belonging mean in Canada today. Our two characters are Bea Klassen (played by Ericka Leobrera); sixteen years old, part filipina, part Scandawegian growing up in Saskatchewan; currently on her own at a remote cottage armed with a crossbow, and RJ Alvarez (played by Anthony Perpuse); second generation filipino, clever and nerdy, has lived all his life in Scarborough but is off to UBC to be as far as possible from his family. He has made a diversion from his trip to meet someone from his mother’s past who is somehow connected to Bea but that character never shows up.

The Monkiest King
This year’s Canadian Children’s Opera Company main stage performance is The Monkiest King. It’s from the team of Marjorie Chan and Alice Ping Yee Ho who collaborated most successfully to create another highly successful Western/Chinese fusion piece; The Lesson Of Da Jee. The inspiration for this one is the antics of Sun Wukong, the mischievous and arrogant Monkey King in the Chinese classic Journey to the West.

