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.
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.
Here is what’s on the radar so far.:
Music
Here’s a few things to look forward to next month. Weirdly everything I know about so far is in the first half of the month so I’ll maybe do a supplemental for the back half in a couple of weeks time. Continue reading
Make Banana Cry is a dance work by Andrew Tay and Stephen Thompson currently being presented by Toronto Dance Theatre at Buddies in Bad Times. It’s an exploration of Asian stereotypes seen through both Asian and non Asian lenses. Six dancers process through the audience which is arranged so that the dancers’ path is a U shape and nobody is more than two rows away from the action. At the top of the U they add or subtract clothing and pick up props so each “procession” is a bit different. The sound track is eclectic combining, inter alia, K-pop and J-pop with Western pseudo orientalism. Inevitably Un bel di and extracts from Miss Saigon make brief appearances.
The Green Line takes two story lines set in Beirut a generation apart and weaves them into a fascinating, sometimes mesmerizing, poetic and sad story about two families torn apart by civil war. It’s written by Makram Ayache and translated by Hiba Sleiman. It opened on Thursday night at Buddies in Bad Times in a co-production with Factory Theatre and In Arms theatre Company directed by the author.
Life slowly returns to some version of normal.. Here’s what I’m seeing so far for Sptember.
Genrefuck is a double bill that opened on Wednesday at Buddies in Bad Times. It consists of two one performer shows; Reina written by Augusto Bitter and performed by Jaime Lujan, and Never Walk Alone written and performed by Julie Phan.
Here are my top picks for May.
Amanda Wilkin’s Shedding a Skin premiered at London’s Soho Theatre a couple of years ago. It’s now playing at Buddies in Bad Times in a Nightwood Theatre production directed by Cherissa Richards. It’s a one woman show about a young woman escaping from corporate Hell and her boat dwelling boyfriend and discovering herself. It’s set in contemporary London and Myah is black and very, very middle class; the daughter of successful immigrants with, as they tend to, ambitions for their children which Myah isn’t really living up to.
operaramblings 