Theatre Gargantua’s Dissonant Species opened at Factory Theatre on Friday night. It’s written by Heather Marie Annis and Michael Gordon Spence and directed by Jacquie P.A Thomas. It’s a multi-disciplinary exploration of the idea that “everything is sound” and it also explores other ideas about waves; vibration, the notion that two people can be (metaphorically) on different wavelengths and it flirts with the idea that everything is “vibration” which is sort of true in a QFT way.
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.
Come Closer; libretto by Rachel Krehm, music by Ryan Trew, is a two act chamber opera about Rachel’s relationship with her younger sister Elizabeth who died as a consequence of heroin addiction. Some of it is based on Rachel’s memories and much on the writing and drawings that Elizabeth left. It premiered on Friday night and is currently playing in an Opera 5 production at Factory Theatre.
Opera 5 opened the first Toronto Opera Festival last night at Factory Theatre with a gala featuring Greg Dahl and the singers from their intern programme; most of whom have McGill connections.. It was basically a concert of opera arias and scenes and musical theatre numbers in about equal shares. It was quite varied ad theire was some excellent singing supported with versatility and flair by Nate Ben-Horin on a slightly battered looking piano (it sounded fine though!).
Nate Ben-Horin, piano; Gregory Dahl, baritone
The Cunning Linguist is a one woman show written and performed by Monica Garrido Huerta. It’s produced by the TCL Collective and Aluna Theatre and directed by Beatriz Pizano. It’s playing at Factory Theatre until May 11th. Monica (the character) is a lesbian living with her conservative but fairly affluent and conventionally Catholic family in a small town in Mexico. She has a direct line to God, a sister who sings in a band in the town’s gay bar and a girlfriend but she’s not out to her family whose gaydar seems to have been made on the Friday afternoon shift.
Here are my top picks for May.
Bimbos in Space from Femmepire Theatre is currently playing at Factory Theatre as part of Summerworks. It’s the first play I’ve seen where the content warnings included BDSM and cannibalism! It’s billed as a homage to sex workers and trans people and riffs off every cliché of the B sci-fi horror genre.
Dana H, by Lucas Hnath, is a rather unusual piece of theatre. The sole actor, Jordan Baker, lip synchs to tapes of Dana Higginbotham (Lucas’ mother) being interviewed by Steve Cosson. In these interviews she relates the events of five months of her life where she was kidnapped and held prisoner by a psychotic member of a racist criminal gang.
Joanna Murray-Smith’s 2009 play Rockabye is currently playing at Factory Theatre in a production directed by Rob Kempson. It’s an odd play. Ostensibly it’s about an aging rock singer; Sidney Jones (played by Deborah Drakeford), who hasn’t achieved much for 20+ years and desperately needs her come back album to be a success before she’s written off as a has been. She’s also obsessed with adopting an African baby. We’ll come back to that. She’s at the centre of a coterie of personal staffers and hangers on who are almost as shallow and self obsessed as she is. There’s the manager; Alfie (Sergio di Zio) endlessly congratulating himself on sticking with Sidney rather than taking on a “hot sixteen year old”. There’s boy-toy Jolyon (Nabil Trabousi) who has curtain phobia, a U-boat fetish and a big dick. Sidney’s every wish is the concern of her plummy lesbian publicist Julia (Julie Lumsden) who races around to locate the absolutely vital Peruvian wheatgerm or to send to Uzbekistan for a swatch of cloth to repair a button. Only the cook/maid Esme (Kyra Harper) seems to have any connection to reality.
Here’s a round up of February shows not previously mentioned; mostly straight theatre.
operaramblings 