Dorianne is a graduate of the Theatre and Drama Studies joint program between University of Toronto, Erindale campus and Sheridan College. She writes short stories, plays and screenplays and was delighted to be accepted into the 2010 Diaspora Dialogues program and also to have her short story accepted into the 2011 edition of TOK: Writing The New Toronto collection. She is also a regularly contributing writer on http://www.sexlifecanada.ca. You can follow her on twitter @headonist if you like tweets about cats, sex, food, queer stuff and lefty politics.
This intricate adaptation of the famous novel, The Tin Drum, is brought to life at Toronto’s Aki Studio Theatre
The Tin Drum, playing at the Aki Studio Theatre, is based on the famous novel of the same name by Günter Grass and follows the story of Oskar Matzarath. Oskar is born in the city of Danzig (now Gdańsk) in the 1920’s and immediately has the preternatural self-awareness to realize that life is safer, easier and more comfortable as a child. He wills himself to stop growing after the age of three. Continue reading Review: The Tin Drum (UnSpun Theatre)→
Two life rejects explore love in Danny and the Deep Blue Sea at Toronto’s Brockton Collective Studio
It’s always exciting to see a play in a new venue and the Brockton Collective Studio, currently featuring Danny & The Deep Blue Sea, charmed me the minute I walked in. It is obviously a multi-purpose space, with one end featuring the curved wall characteristic of a photo studio. A long bar stretches across from it, serving beer to the audience as we waited for the play to begin. The bar then became the first set of the play, a deserted dive in the Bronx where Roberta and Danny meet. Continue reading Review: Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (BARO Theatre Company)→
Moss Park explores relationships through poverty, playing at the Theatre Passe Muraille
Moss Park, playing at Passe Muraille, opens with Tina and Bobby meeting in a park to try to plan a life that lifts them out of poverty. This is the second time George F. Walker has visited these characters, but you don’t need to have seen the first play (called Tough!) to understand the situation. Tina and Bobby have a toddler, conceived when they were both teenagers. Bobby has not been very involved with parenting, nor has he been employed for any meaningful length of time in recent years.
You Should Have Stayed Home is the dramatic true story of a detainee during Toronto’s G20 riots playing at the Aki Studio Theatre
You Should Have Stayed Home is Tommy Taylor’s true account of being kettled, arrested, held in inhumane conditions for nearly 24 hours, and then let go with no charges laid in Toronto’s 2010 G20 debacle. Thousands of others received the same or similar treatment, which is hard for us Canadians to reconcile with our view of our society and our laws. This makes it a very important story to tell.
Taylor is a likeable guy, which I think is a huge part of why this show works. It’s storytelling, rather than a play: hardly anything is acted out on stage, mostly Taylor just tells the audience what happened to him. And what happened isn’t always easy to parse. If it were fiction, the plot would make more sense. But this is a true story that takes place in the midst of the chaos of the G20, and by chaos I’m not talking about broken windows or burning cars. I’m talking about the incomprehensible decision-making that happened at the upper echelons of police and security that day. Continue reading Review: You Should Have Stayed Home (Praxis Theatre)→
Crash is an emotionally raw and visceral autobiographical story playing at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille
Pamela Mala Sinha’s Crash, currently onstage in the Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace, takes the audience on a harrowing journey where sadistic rape is ever present, grief and loss loom larger and larger, and spectres of murder and suicide lurk around certain corners. And yet there is a through-line of familial love that keeps hope alive. Also, on a more objective note, there is the pleasure of watching a production where sound, lighting, projection and dance are all seamless and integral aspects of the storytelling.
Pamela Mala Sinha’s