Mike was that kid who walked into the high school stage crew booth, saw the lighting board, and went ooooooooooooh. Now that he’s (mostly) all grown up, Mike keeps his foot in the door as a community-theatre producer, stage manager and administrator. In the audience, he’s a tremendous sucker for satire and parody, for improvisational and sketch-driven comedy, for farce and pantomime, and for cabaret of all types. His happiest Toronto theatrical memory is (re) Birth: E. E. Cummings in Song.
Jacob Two-Two is holiday theatre perfect for audiences young and old, on stage in Toronto
Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang is an absolute knock-out, packed full of theatrical goodies to please all ages. The Young People’s Theatre could not have found a better crown jewel for their 50th season, and parents who want to steer clear of the usual Disney-on-Ice holiday treacle should run straight to YPT’s busy box office; just get to Front and Berkeley, then walk in the direction of the extremely busy cash registers.
The NAGs breathed new life into Perfect Crime on stage at the Tranzac Club in Toronto
You’ve probably never heard of a play called Perfect Crime, which has been running off-Broadway since the Reagan administration. And that’s fine: the script is a wreck, the thrills mostly cheap, and the mystery less a “whodunnit” than a “Jesus Christ, who even CARES?!”
But the NAGs (a local community troupe who’ve played out of the Tranzac even longer) are determined to salvage it through camp alone, playing it as an over-the-top soap opera every bit as unhinged and ridiculous as the script. And as it turns out, there is some life in this hoary old play.
You’ve probably already seen The Trouble with Mr. Adams, most likely as a movie-of-the-week: middle-aged teacher develops a crush on a student, disaster ensues.
There’s a tendency to treat this subject with kid gloves and ambiguities, emphasizing grey areas and he-said-he-said. Here, playwright Gord Rand and director Lisa Peterson go for the jugular, choosing to fully engage with the sleaze and messiness of this situation. It’s a bold decision, and a commendable one: lots of people squirmed in their seats at opening night.
Victorian-style ghost show thrills and chills on the Toronto stage
Séance is one of the tightest and tiniest shows you’ll see this season. Your host (co-creator Nicholas Wallace) lectures, guides, cajoles and creeps the audience through roughly 90 minutes of decidedly spooky parlour games. Presented in turn-of-the-century style, and supplemented with a heaping side of ghost stories, all the greatest hits are here: automatic writing, levitating furniture, spirit rapping, mediumship, and the grand finale, a full-blown manifestation.
I’m a skeptic. I went a skeptic, and I came away a skeptic. But even I was moved by the sheer visceral fingers-down-your-spine aspect of Séance — and if you’ve a more open mind than I, your experience will almost certainly be downright spiritual. (Inspired? Possessed?)
Castor and Sylvie is a tiny wee character drama set in Simone de Beauvoir‘s living room. Her lifelong companion and literary collaborator Jean-Paul Sartre has just died, leaving her stunned and unsettled. Can she go on without him? Can she write, can she see people, can she wake up in the mornings?
Through conversations with the devoted Sylvie Le Bon — the two are more than platonic friends, but less than lovers — Beauvoir parses her identity, regains her equilibrium, and raises unsettling questions about Le Bon’s own future.
This piece runs on two levels: as a portrait of not-quite-sexual female intimacy, and as a (heavily embellished) glimpse into Simone de Beauvoir’s final years. If either of those appeal to you, Castor and Sylvie has something to offer. If they don’t, you’ll probably just find it tedious.
