Fledgling Toronto theatre collective wrestles with love and relationships in its inaugural show

Empty Boxes is Homestead Theatre Project’s inaugural production and I went to opening night at Red Sandcastle Theatre. Empty Boxes is the story of the relationship between Sarah and Kevin, how it all began and where it went wrong.

As I’ve expressed in previous reviews, I love story and story development. Empty Boxes spends most of its energy telling us what the story is rather than letting us discover it. Sarah and Kevin meet and fall in love. Their friends think they’re the perfect couple. Sarah and Kevin have their ups and downs over the course of seven years and it is their diverging lives that ultimately breaks them up. Continue reading Review: Empty Boxes (Homestead Theatre Project) →

Inspiring and intelligent Toronto theatre in La Fugue

La Fugue is a powerful piece of theatre presented succinctly in forty-five minutes. I was among an audience of high school drama students and I was enthralled by their level of engagement with the performance.

La Fugue presents Yohann, a teenage boy, who runs away from his restrictive and authoritative father to find a new family among street-involved youth.

While I’m a sucker for the written and spoken word, I can’t ignore the punches La Fugue packs. The dialogue is minimal to non-existent; the production relies almost exclusively on music and puppetry to convey the story. Continue reading Review: La Fugue (SMCQ Jeunesse/Qui Va Là) →

Heart in Hand Theatre’s Fool For Love is another adept piece from Toronto’s Playwright Project

Fool For Love is one of seven plays in the 2013 Playwright Project. Seven plays written by Sam Sheppard are performed at seven different venues throughout the city by seven different theatre companies on seven nights.

I went to opening night of Heart In Hand Theatre’s production of Fool For Love at May Café.

Fool For Love is the story of May and Eddie, two people in a seemingly doomed on-again, off-again relationship. Eddie has returned to May after a protracted absence. A quiet desperation looms in the air of May’s motel room at the beginning then quickly shifts to anger, tension, jealousy and hurt as the two hash out their grievances. These two lovers are bad for each other and their relationship always ends up the same, with Eddie leaving and May starting over.

At the top of the play, we wonder what it is that bonds these two. Why do they continue to return to each other after fifteen years of cyclical dysfunction? Continue reading Fool For Love (Heart In Hand Theatre/The Playwright Project) →

A comic touch and Chilean politics are blended together on the Factory Studio Theatre stage in Toronto

I attended opening night of Carmen Aguirre’s Chile Con Carne at Factory Studio Theatre. Chile Con Carne is a solo show starring the incomparable Paloma Nuñez; the play is a fusion of politics and comedy, two of my favourite things, and I invited Mike, one of my most politically astute friends, to come along.

Chile Con Carne is the story of Manuelita, an eight-year-old Chilean refugee who fled her country with her family in the aftermath of the 1973 coup d’état. Manuelita shares her experiences as a newcomer to Canada, the trials her family faces as refugees and political activists, her struggle with her shifting identity, her desire to fit in and her crusade to save her favourite tree, Cedar, from a destructive development plan. Continue reading Review: Chile Con Carne (Alameda Theatre Company) →