Games and improv feature in this family-oriented comedy show

Hotel X, the new luxury lodgings on Exhibition grounds, is hosting Second City’s family-oriented Improv Showdown during the month of December and early January as part of their holiday programming.

Kids, their parents, and other hotel guests who have booked a Family Fun Package are invited to watch two small teams of veteran Second City improvisers take on a variety of games in a quick 50-minute set. Members of the public can purchase tickets to the show too ($20 for adults, $15 for kids).

Continue reading Review: Improv Showdown (Second City/Hotel X) →

Here are the Fragments is an explorative deep dive into life with schizophrenia

What is it like to live with a mind affected by schizophrenia – a mind gradually colonized by voices, thoughts, and experiences not your own? These are the questions asked by Here are the Fragments, ECT Collective’s fascinating immersive theatre work currently transforming The Theatre Centre. Written by neurologist Suvendrini Lena, it’s inspired by the writing of Frantz Fanon, a French West Indian philosopher and psychiatrist, whose short but vital life and works on decolonization inspired models for both community psychology and political revolution.

Continue reading Review: Here Are the Fragments (ECT Collective/The Theatre Centre) →

Girl in the Machine is a dystopian exploration of the not so distant future

Girl in the Machine, Olivier Award-winning playwright Stef Smith’s 2017 one-act, has garnered a lot of comparisons to Black Mirror in its vision of a technological dystopia. Set in the not-too-distant future, it uses a fictional technology to explore our current technological addictions and their impact on our relationships with the here and now. This production, by Seven Siblings Theatre, is a hip, thoughtful, and discomfiting show from a promising young company. Just like in any new technical release, however, there are some bugs to work out.

Continue reading Review: Girl in the Machine (Seven Siblings Theatre) →

There are a few steps to take before you enter the world of Hollow Mountain, by Rock Bottom Movement, now playing at Collective Space. First, you have to find the theatre, located in the warrenlike maze of the 221 Sterling Road complex. Luckily, a volunteer with a giant pink sign is there to guide you. Next, you must don equally pink booties over your shoes to enter the cramped and cozy space.

Once you’re inside, there’s still more pink: a suggestively-ridged, translucent tarp stretches mountainously from the ceiling, blasted with heavy fog. A troubadour (Nick Dolan) sings a mix of entertaining, abstractly-connected, “rejected” songs in French and English, with lyrics like “Never have I ever eaten pee-filled snow/Never have I ever been on time for the show.” In this vaguely womb-like space, bizarre wonders of dance (choreographed and directed by Alyssa Martin) and song (music by Sydney Herauf) unfold.

Continue reading Review: Hollow Mountain (Rock Bottom Movement) →

The Good Thief explores morals and ethics while being set in a bar

The story of a hired goon and a job gone horribly wrong, Fly On the Wall Theatre’s The Good Thief, currently playing at the Dora Keogh pub, whispers a tale into your ear as you sit on a banquette or stool, and sip at a pint of Guinness or Harp. Written in 1994, the monologue was then-23-year-old playwright Conor McPherson’s second effort, winning him the Stewart Parker Award for best debut Irish play.

Tony-winner McPherson, currently also showing on Toronto stages as the book writer for Girl From the North Country, is well known for his plays which tell Irish stories featuring troubled people, and our Narrator (David Mackett) certainly has his share of troubles. Imbibing in the alcohol, he pours out his heart to the assembled crowd. The ambiance is just right in this piece of site-specific theatre, making it seem like the person sitting next to you has turned to you and said, “You’ll never believe what happened,” or, in this case, “Shall we begin?”

Continue reading Review: The Good Thief (Fly on the Wall Theatre) →