Tag Archives: canadian stage

Hamlet in High Park

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This year’s Dream in High Park production is Hamlet directed by Jessica Carmichael.  Now Hamlet is an interesting choice for this format because it is, notoriously, a really long play and the High Park format demands something that comes in around two hours.   A full blown Hamlet, as in the Branagh film lasts over four hours and even with the usual stage cuts it’s a three hour plus project.  So getting it down to two hours rather meands that it’s almost as much Carmichael’s Hamlet as Shakespeare’s.Qasim Khan as Hamlet (foreground) w Raquel Duffy and Diego Matamoros (BG) in CSHamlet-photobyDahliaKatz-5475

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Late July and August

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aug24It’s still mostly festival season with two events coming up in Toronto.

There’s Summer Opera Lyric Theatre   It runs July 26th to August 4th and features three operas in piano score with young artist singers.  The operas are Puccini’s La Bohème, Handel’s Serse and Mozart’s Idomeneo and the venue is the Alumnae Theatre on Berkeley Street.  Full details, tickets etc. Continue reading →

The Inheritance – part 2

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So it was back to the Bluma Appel on Thursday evening to see part 2 of Matthew López’ The Inheritance.  Part 1 had certainly left plenty of active plot lines to be resolved (or not) so it looked like being an interesting ride.

TheInheritance-Part2-photobyDahliaKatz-5701

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The Inheritance – part 1

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Matthew López’ The Inheritance is an epic adaptation of EM Forster’s Howard’s End.  It’s epic in scale and scope.  It runs for two evenings; each over three hours long and it features a rich, and sometimes bewildering, cast of characters.  I was going to wait until after part 2 before writing about it but I actually think it will work better to review it in two parts.  So here is part 1 as seen on opening night (Wednesday) at the Bluma Appel Theatre.

TheInheritance-Part1-photobyDahliaKatz-0567

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Looking ahead to March

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march2024First some additional February shows

  • On the 23rd at Harbourfront Centre Art of Time Ensemble are presenting Music from the Weimar Republic.
  • On the 25th VOICEBOX have a concert performance of Verdi’s Ernani at the St. Lawrence Centre.

Opera

  • Opera York are presenting Verdi’s Rigoletto at the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts on March 1st and 3rd.
  • March 14th to 17th UoT Opera are doing Massenet’s Cendrillon at a to be determined location.
  • March 20th and 22nd at Koerner Hall, the Glenn Gould School spring opera is Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites.  That one has me excited!

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February 2024 – mostly theatre

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feb2024theatreHere’s a round up of February shows not previously mentioned; mostly straight theatre.

  • Factory Theatre has two shows.  Rockabye by Joanna Murray-Smith deals with the travails of a female rock star who must reinvent herself before age pushes her onto the casino circuit.  That’s on the Main Stage from January 26th to February 11th.  Then on the 23rd and 24th illusionist Nick Wallace has a one man show in the Studio Theatre.

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The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes

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The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes (I’m going to abbreviate this to Shadow) is a theatre work created by Geelong based collective Back to Back Theatre.  It’s currently playing at the Berkeley Street Theatre as part of Canadian Stage’s season.  Back to Back is an unusual company.  Its actors all have perceived intellectual disabilities but, collectively, they have created theatre that has been seen on stages all over the world, on film and on television.

The Shadow Whose Prey The Hunter Becomes, Zurich, Back to Back Theatre, Image Kira Kynd 2022 (6).

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November gigs

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november24Here’s what I’m looking forward to in a busy November.

  • The reprise of Tapestry’s Rocking Horse Winner at Crow’s Theatre.  That’s November 1st to 12th.
  • The Glenn Gould School’s fall opera offering.  It’s a presentation of five of Tapestry’s short operas from the 2000s.  November 3rd and 4th in Mazzoleni Hall.
  • Voicebox are doing Verdi’s Un giorno di regno at the St. Lawrence Centre on the 5th.

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Topdog/Underdog

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Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, which is currently running at Canadian Stage’s Berkeley Street Theatre has garnered impressive accolades since its 2001 New York debut.  It’s won a Pulitzer and been named, in 2018, as “the greatest American play of the last 25 years” by the New York Times.  It’s well written, dramatically well crafted and often very funny but, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t deeply engaged by it.

Mazin Elsadig and Sébastein Heins in TopdogUnderdog-photobyDahliaKatz-5695

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Additional September and October gigs

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leavesHere are a few shows that didn’t make it into earlier listing posts:

  • Opera 101 at the Redwood Theatre at 4pm on September 23rd and October 7th is a free recital programme organised by Alexander Hajek.
  • There are a couple of highly experimental audience participation shows at the Theatre Centre.  In asses.masses the audience creates a video game based on the story of a herd of unemployed asses.  In work.txt which runs September 27th to 29th the audience “designs a welcoming space for collectively processing “working” in capitalist metropolitan cities”.  I’m going to the latter.  I don’t think I’ve been in/at a show of this kind since I was an undergrad.

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