Ilana Lucas has been a big theatre nerd since witnessing a fateful Gilbert and Sullivan production at the age of seven. She has studied theatre for most of her life, holds a BA in English and Theatre from Princeton and an MFA in Dramaturgy and Script Development from Columbia, and is currently a professor of English and Theatre at Centennial College. She believes that theatre has a unique ability to foster connection, empathy and joy, and has a deep love of the playfulness of the written word. Her favourite theatrical experience was the nine-hour, all-day Broadway performance of The Norman Conquests, which made fast friends of an audience of strangers.
It’s comic vs. comic and place vs. place in this ‘battle for the laughs’ comedy show
Hosted by Danish Anwar and performed sporadically in cities across the world (this time at Yuk Yuk’s), Your Hood’s a Joke is a “roast battle” where comics attempt to decimate each other’s communities. Each round enlarges the combat area, with this outing’s first round featuring two cities, then two provinces, two countries, and two continents.
The show bills itself as “uncensored,” and warns, “While we pride ourselves on smart comedy that punches up, there will be no restriction on what can or cannot be joked about. Please exercise discretion if you wish to avoid hearing jokes about sensitive subject matter.”
Pass Over is tense, urgent theatre, now playing in Toronto
Antoinette Nwandu’s searing Pass Over is a riff on Waiting For Godot by way of Key and Peele, which replaces the signature tree with a streetlight and Beckett’s existentialist tramps with young black men who can’t find a way out of a perpetual cycle of racism-driven poverty and violence. The prophetically-named Moses (Kaleb Alexander) and his friend Kitch (Mazin Elsadig) dream about finally arriving at the Promised Land from their street corner.
They make Top Ten lists of what they’ll find when they reach the other side, some extravagant, some simple human pleasures they’ve been denied. They rant, pace, provide a running commentary about life…and raise their hands in fear when the police searchlight blindingly invades their space, yet again. “Do what you can,” they say, “but what can you do?”
Playwright Qui Nguyen’s New York-based Vampire Cowboys theatre company is often credited as the originators of “Geek Theatre” – theatre inspired by superheroes, graphic novels, and martial arts flicks, often presented at comic cons. “Geek Theatre” is alive and well in Toronto.
Life in the Residential School system is told through dance at the Young People’s Theatre
The cultural – and literal – genocide perpetrated against Indigenous communities via the Residential School system is one of our country’s most shameful actions in a history with no shortage of shame. Taken from their parents, Indigenous children from toddler through teenagehood experienced conditions similar to those at a prison labour camp allowed to operate without any concern for human rights. Beaten and starved, sexually abused and isolated, they were there to have their culture forcibly removed and replaced with degradation and servitude.
Young People’s Theatre’s 2019-2020 season, based around the Seven Ancestral Teachings of the Anishinaabe, opened with The Mush Hole, a dance-theatre piece by Kaha:wi Dance Theatre which is attached to the teaching of Truth. Truth (Debwewin), separate from Honesty, is symbolic of principle and the basic law of nature; it represents a commitment to speaking about one’s experience, and exhibiting resilience, evolving without being fundamentally changed.
Beautiful and little spooky, Ghost Quartet makes a prefect Halloween month treat
Ghost Quartet, a hipster-inflected song cycle by Dave Malloy, is described as being “about love, death, and whiskey.” As you enter Eclipse Theatre’s grotto-like space at Streetcar Crowsnest, whiskey shots are on sale, and a thick haze hangs in the air.
With reality sufficiently altered, you’re then treated to a puzzle of a story that’s cyclical, freewheeling and a bit scattershot, mixing together the tales of Rose Red and her sister Pearl White, Scheherazade and the One Thousand and One Nights (with references to Thelonious Monk), The Fall of the House of Usher, and a modern fable about a tragedy that befalls a woman waiting for a subway train. Characters weave in and out in a dream-like dance, and the world bends at its seams. It’s a spellbinding and spooky evening of song, perfect for Halloween month.
It’s comic vs. comic and place vs. place in this ‘battle for the laughs’ comedy show
Pass Over is tense, urgent theatre, now playing in Toronto
Life in the Residential School system is told through dance at the Young People’s Theatre