All posts by Megan Mooney

Megan loves being in the thick of all things theatre, but her ultimate goal is to promote theatre to the world of non-theatre people. It was the same when she was the theatre writer for blogTO, or the Fringe Correspondent for CBC Radio One‘s Here and Now, as it is as the founder of Mooney on Theatre. Her basic belief is that there is theatre/performance out there for everyone to love, they just need to find it. This is not to be confused with the idea that everyone should love theatre for theatre’s sake, in fact, as obsessed as she is with theatre, even *she* doesn’t love all types of theatre.

As You Like It – Canopy Theatre Company

Review by Adam Collier

as you like it I went to see the Canopy Theatre Company’s production of As You Like It, which is being staged outdoors, on the Philosopher’s walk. I had never been to a show outdoors before. The experience is pretty cool.

This play, especially because a big chunk of it is set in a forest, seemed to benefit enormously from being outside. There was spontaneity in the air. The sounds of the city –were all around, and for me, in the context of all this extra sound, the language of the play really hit.

It wasn’t the sounds – emergency sirens, raccoons cooing – that added significance to what was being said. It was because when the actors were really fighting to be heard, the words they choose to emphasize, and the way they spoke, carried very clear intentions for me.  I was easily able to follow what was going on.

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Under Milk Wood – Soulpepper

Review by Adam Collier

kenneth welsh

Before attending the Soulpepper production of Under Milk Wood, I was a bit concerned.  The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas wrote Under Milk Wood, so I was worried its language would be over my head.

I took it as a good sign when I learned that the title means what it says. Under Milk Wood is a reference to geography. The play is about a town, and if you were looking at a map it would appear … well, below a larger town named Milk Wood.

But doesn’t Under Milk Wood – that coupling of words – sound so nice? That’s the rub for me. When I hear words that seem to be so perfectly chosen to be next to one another, I always feel like I should look for more meaning.

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Toronto Theatre – Is it just a bunch of friends playing together?

By Megan Mooney

So, it’s no secret that I wish theatre could reach a wider audience.  In fact, that’s some of what prompted me to start this blog.  Of course, it has no doubt become just another place where people already involved in theatre come, I’m not that delusional…  In fact, if I were being honest with myself, I’d have to note that really, this whole post assumes people know about the Toronto Theatre scene.  But we can just ignore that for now…

I know people who are not involved in theatre who feel like they can’t go to shows other than mega shows.  They aren’t comfortable going to a place like Theatre Passe Muraille, or Factory Theatre, or Buddies and so on and so on.  They can make their way to a Mirvish production, but at $70 a ticket, it’s a once a year at most endeavour.  Stratford and Shaw, sure they’ll go there, but usually that’s not even once a year, given that for most people it’s a day trip.  Well, unless you live in Stratford or Niagara-on-the-Lake I guess.

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Theatre folks – We're nothing if not passionate

Okay, so, it’s possible that you already knew this, but theatre people?  They have a tendency to be passionate about things.

Not all things.  But some things.  And there’s not a specific list of what those things are, it in fact (as you would expect) differs from person to person.  But here’s the thing, when I theatre person cares about something, they seem to do with it with gusto.

Take for example the comments raging at the Summerworks blog over a promotional video called Expression.

People REALLY care about this.  They are raging, some at the video, some at the other commenters, some likely at the world.  Is it bad that this makes me laugh a little bit, or does it just mean that as a member of the theatre community I can appreciate our quirks?

The second promotional video release was Interpretation, it will be interesting to see what kind of a reaction it gets.  Someone named Naomi has already left a comment that made me giggle, but I’m concerned that people won’t realise it’s a tongue in cheek answer.

Time will tell…

One Woman Show

review by Megan Mooney, cross-posted from blogTO

 

20080723_onewomanshow If you were following the Fringe coverage, you already know that I surprised myself by liking One Woman Show a lot.  So did a lot of other people. I figured since it was the patron’s pick, and managed to get one of the much coveted ‘Best of the Fringe’ spots and opens tonight at Diesel Playhouse , that it was worth re-visiting.

So, why did people like it?

It’s a good question. One Woman Show is a parody of one-woman shows, written by three men with a man playing the Eileen , the ‘woman’ who’s show it is. Sounds a bit scary, doesn’t it? When I first read about this show I rolled my eyes and figured it was going to be painful. Happily, the show proved me wrong.

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