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.
At the time it was considered quite scandalous and no one – not the royal family, not the government, certainly not the Church of England – would allow David to both marry Wallis and proceed with the coronation.
David insisted on marrying Wallis so he abdicated the crown and his brother Bertie became King George VI, despite the fact that that he hadn’t been trained to reign and he had a stutter that made him insecure. This is the part of the abdication crisis that The King’s Speech focuses on: Bertie’s struggle to overcome his stutter and his insecurity, which is why modern audiences connected to it. A person placed in an unpleasant situation, having to work hard to overcome the impediments in their path, is a timeless story. Continue reading Review: Crown Matrimonial (Stage Centre Productions)→
I have seen d’bi young anitafrikaperform at poetry events and Pride, but had never seen a full production of one of her solo plays until I attended the sankofa trilogy at Tarragon Theatre. Actually, I attended word! sound! powah! which is one third of the trilogy. It is running in repertory with the other two shows, blood.claat and benu.
d’bi.young is a force of nature, and I’m not saying that as a casual turn of phrase. Deeply rooted in Caribbean/African spirituality, she invokes the female-gendered deities of nature during her performance so powerfully that she seems like a manifestation of a pagan goddess herself. It is deeply affecting, even for an atheist like me. Continue reading Review: word! sound! powah! as part of the sankofa trilogy (Tarragon Theatre)→
The Test is an English translation of a play by Swiss-German playwright Lukas Bärfuss, produced by The Company Theatre. They also produced the Danish play Festen in 2008, which I had the pleasure of seeing. Both Festen and The Test feature performances by Philip Riccio, Eric Peterson and direction by Jason Byrne and the similarities don’t end there. Both plays are tragicomedies around a dark family secret. Unlike most work with such subject matter, in these two plays the secret is revealed right at the beginning. Instead of building up to a revelation these plays start off with it and the main action are the characters dealing with their newfound knowledge.
Guns & Roses has nothing to do with the band of the same name. The title refers to a bouquet of roses and a gun that figure in the action. This is a show about teenagers who do MDMA on the night after their Grade 11 exams. It was developed by The Original Norwegian, in association with Breakaway Addiction Servicesand Mixed Company Theatreand is designed for a teenage audience. Most of the run is during the daytime and they are encouraging school groups to come.
I can’t imagine my high school allowing us to see this show. But that was long ago, and in a remote small town. I think this show is great for teens, though I fear many parents and educators would balk at the language and content. Which is exactly why I think it is a good show for youth: they may actually relate.
Not all teenagers are sexually active and do drugs. But a lot of them are. At least they were in the 90’s in a small town in northern Ontario and nothing I see in the media leads me to believe things are any different here and now. Continue reading Review: Guns & Roses (The Original Norwegian)→
The promo material for Pandemic Theatre’s Murder on Ossington says “Come experience a site specific performance that takes you deep into a realm only imagined until now: Your own home. Inspired loosely by the Ossington Avenue Murder.” The audience was limited to 10 people per night and the location is secret; the address to meet at was emailed to us the day before the performance.
This all sounded very intriguing, and rather like a murder mystery. This suspicion was further encouraged when we showed up and were each given an envelope that we were told not to open. The envelopes were labelled with numbers that divided us up into groups. But it isn’t really a murder mystery. When you do eventually open the envelope, you don’t find out who the killer is. You open the envelope at the end of the show and I found the contents very anticlimactic. Continue reading Review: Murder On Ossington (Pandemic Theatre)→
