As we approach the 100 year anniversary of the beginning of the Great War, The Empty Room has delivered Toronto theatre audiences a tremendous present by remounting R.C. Sherrif’s Journey’s End.
World War I was an immense mistake. Missing Journey’s End at The Artisan Factory would be another gigantic mistake. It is an intimate, firsthand glimpse into a soldier’s life during war.
The Double, now onstage at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre Extraspace, is an entirely engaging journey. It is based on Dostoëvsky’s novella of the same name, and is the story of one man’s descent into self-doubt and stark, raving madness.
A stroganoff of comedy, slapstick, mime, music humour and terror, The Double is a delicious play that you’ll find yourself immersed in. It’s comprised of two different acts. During intermission you’ll likely be tweeting great things about it and inviting friends while the second course is being prepared.
Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis HAS left the building. Sure, he’s not on your playlist on your phone, but The King is in your armrest. Elvis is Water examines the early days of Elvis, when he was just getting started at Sun Studios in Memphis.
Those were incredible times. White people were starting to figure out that black people are cool, and music was unbelievably cool for a decade or fifteen years.
Continue reading Elvis Is Water (Scotty’s Boys Productions) 2013 Toronto Fringe Review
I was REALLY excited to see Assassinating Thomson by Bruce Horak. It’s a show about an iconic painter by a legally blind man. Horak bills himself as a blind mind, doing a one man show about Canada’s most celebrated painter. Well that’s cool.
Who doesn’t love those Group of Seven paintings? They’re so ridiculous and clichéd. People look at them and think “yeah, it must be great to ski in July. Canada is a great country.”
Unfortunately I got to the venue a mess, so I wasn’t in the best of moods. I paused as I entered the lobby at St Vlad’s. Then I got a grip.
Continue reading Assassinating Thomson (Monster Theatre) 2013 Toronto Fringe Review
My friend Dick Valentine from Electric Six once told me that rock and roll without fun and danger is pointless. I think the people responsible for Kill, Sister, Kill got expelled from the same school of thought, because their Fringe play is like a big old Cadillac, barrelling down the interstate, with a jet engine bolted to the trunk. These people like fun and high-voltage danger. These are my kind of people. Continue reading Kill, Sister, Kill (Kid Switchblade) 2013 Toronto Fringe Review