Apart from his (pathological?) obsession with airplane disasters, Istvan is a filmmaker and film enthusiast, but began his creative adventures in theatre. Starting out as an actor, he soon discovered a preference for life behind-the-scenes. He has experience in lighting design, stage management and production management, but his passion is writing and directing. With several short films and an indie feature under his belt, film has been his focus in recent years, but theatre has been calling him back. You see more of his critical writing at his film reflection blog: http://captiveviscera.wordpress.com/
Games are not only a source of amusement, they are good practice for the heavy challenges of life. Salome’s Clothes is very much about the games that families play, how some games can be constructive and prepare our children for the world, while others (if not carefully tended) can mask ugly problems and allow them to fester.
The play gives us a Mother of two teenage girls, Nila and Salome. To raise her daughters with a respect for the education she never received, she sets up a game where, when one of them uses a particularly loaded word, each must recite a different definition of that word. Each character’s unique definition serves as a metaphor for their particular attitude toward whatever situation is being addressed and reveals the conflicting inner worlds of each woman in that particular moment. Continue reading Salome’s Clothes (Body Theatre) 2013 SummerWorks Review→
Utopia. It’s a bold title for a play, right? It’s got all kinds of philosophical baggage that comes with it. Any work of art that stamps such a word on a program owes some allegiance to the weight of that baggage. At SummerWorks this year, Len Falkenstein’s Utopia can wear its title with pride.
The story is this: Karen owns a farm she loves, handed down to her from her father, and she is determined to make a living from it, and create a life for her daughter, Jess. Jess doesn’t want that life, she wants to run off with one of the farm workers—Zach. Into this little family drama, a planet appears and attaches itself to Karen’s property. This planet is full of the natural resources we’ve almost completely squandered here on earth, and those resources attract the attention of corporations and politicians. Will Karen agree to sell her claim to this planet, or will she protect it (as an extension of her farm)? Continue reading Utopia (Theatre Free Radical) 2013 SummerWorks Review→
What is an oubliette? I sure didn’t know until this SummerWorks show where I found myself thrown headfirst into one to meet four unnamed women who have survived a war and are forced to deal with each other and the shared memories of their old lives.
An oubliette is a dungeon, with access only through the top. What better venue for such a setting than the Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace. The space is high and narrow, and you are forced to look down upon the performers who always seem trapped. It is a dynamic that wouldn’t work for all plays, but it certainly works for Think,Pig!‘s production of Oubliette. Continue reading Oubliette (Think, Pig!) 2013 SummerWorks Review→
Rushing into The Anglican Church of The Epiphany and St. Mark at the very last minute, I wasn’t able to read the program notes for Purgatory in Ingleton ahead of time. If I had, I would not have felt so lost during the performance. Or rather, I would have understood that my feeling lost was somewhat the point of this SummerWorks play.
When I read the synopsis of Always on Alert (playing at the Alumnae Theatre), which tells us that the protagonist is in an isolated cabin in the Arctic attending to “the button” that could put an end to humanity, I was both intrigued and wary. It was sure to be philosophical—always up my alley, but the set-up sounded, to put it mildly, a little too obvious.
A perusal of the company’s website informed me that the “Iconoclasm Theatre Company intends to provoke audiences to examine social norms and collective understandings that may impede social justice” and that their goal is to “not only entertain but challenge audiences to examine culture, religion, and their symbols.” These intentions are certainly evident in David Lichty’s script and direction for Always on Alert. Continue reading Review: Always on Alert (Iconoclasm Theatre Company)→
