My last show of this year’s SummerWorks was perhaps the most unusual. Date of Performance; written and directed by Maryam Khalili and presented in The Theatre Centre’s Franco Boni Theatre. It’s a lecture-performance documenting theatre and performance practices created inside Iranian prisons from 1954 to 2024. There is no-one on-stage; just recordings of telephone conversations and some voice overs; all in Farsi with English subtitles.
Our Other Ogan is a one man show (almost) written and performed by Boaz Barkan. It was originally designed specifically for the old anatomy theatre at the medical school in Copenhagen. For the performance at SummerWorks we have to imagine the black box of the Incubator as an amphitheatre with busts of Galen and Hippocrates looking down at the anatomist and his subject.
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.
I was brought up on the British TV sketch comedy of the 1970s; above all Monty Python, so I ought to love sketch comedy, right? I’ve actually been trying to rekindle some enthusiasm for it. I went to Spotlight at Srcond City and last night I went to Sex T-Rex; the featured act of Sketchfest at the Theatre Centre. It’s not working for me. Sketch comedy has changed or I have changed and likely, honestly, both. Bottom line it really doesn’t do it for me.
It’s not that the current show Crime After Crime (after crime) doesn’t have any merit. It does. It’s cleverly set up as the multi-generational saga of the Stone family; colourblind crime bosses of Crime City. It’s inventive. There’s a recurrent joke about defusing the bomb that’s about to go off but nobody can tell which wire is the red one. It manages the mood change from 1940s noir to 1980s James Bond to more contemporary super-hero genre movies with a clever nod to Star Wars Along the way; to whit a starfighter pursuit crafted out of coat hangers. The movement; goofy simulated car and boat chases is funny but in the end it couldn’t hold my attention for 90 minutes. YMMV. Continue reading
RED by John Logan is a ninety minute play about Mark Rothko and the Seagram Building murals. It premiered at the Donmar Warehouse in 2009 and it’s currently playing at the Theatre Centre in a production designed and directed by Kenzia Dalie. It’s a two person show in which Lindsay G. Merrihew plays Rothko and Brendan Kinnon plays his young assistant Ken.
Game of Life is a two part exhibit/performance based on the personal story of bluemouth inc. artist Lucy Simic. Shortly before the pandemic she was diagnosed with brain cancer and the piece explores what it’s like to live with cancer against a backdrop of Lucy’s artistic life and relationships in Canada, and more recently, Brooklyn.
The first component of the piece is an installation; Lucy AI. This consists of an interactive AI model into which aspects of Lucy’s personal history, beliefs and values have been fed (I understand an 800 question questionnaire was involved). The piece loops for about 90 minutes alternating opportunities for audience members to interrogate the model with video clips, with voiceover, about Lucy’s life and journey. I spent the suggested 90 minutes with the installation but I could probably have done pretty much as well with 20-30 for reasons that will become apparent later.
Back in July I saw a crazy clown show called Monks at the Fringe. It’s back playing at the Theatre Centre. It’s basically the same show with Veronica Hortigüela and Annie Luján playing a pair of delinquent Benedictines on their one day off every five years. TL:DR it’s hilariously mad.
Mukashi, Mukashi; Once Upon a Time, currently playing at the Theatre Centre, is a collaboration between two companies; Toronto’s CORPUS and Osaka’s KIO. It explores two characters who feature prominently in the folklore of Europe and Japan; the wolf and the crane. This is done via a playful exploration of two well known folk tales; Little Red Riding Hood and the story of the Crane-Woman who weaves miraculous cloth.
Well late August has been a bit thin in terms of live performances but September. sees things back with a bang.
Versus is a one man show (more or less) by Adam Lazarus about a day in the life of the rather unfortunate (if distressingly normal) Gerald Bloom and worse the day is his birthday. It’s part of Summerworks and playing at the Theatre Centre. While it is mostly a monologue, Lazarus gets assistance from Nicholas Eddie and Irene Ly who do rather more than shift props. He also ropes in audience members, from time to time, to, for example, make him a smoothie or clean up dog poo. If being acutely embarassed is not your thing then don’t sit in the front row! Continue reading
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