The Herald

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.

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Not a very funny apocalypse

Erased; written and directed by Colleen Shirin MacPherson is currently running at Theatre Passe Muraille.  It’s a surrealist black comedy about a post climate catastrophe capitalist autocracy.  Unfortunately it doesn’t really hit the mark.  To be fair, black comedy with a serious core is desperately difficult to do and about the only person I can think of who could bring off a successful treatment of this subject is Arnando Ianucci.  This just isn’t in the ball park.

Kat Khan & Nancy McAlear- Henry Chung

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