Tween-friendly theatre dealing with death and race, Pacamambo is playing at Toronto’s Citadel
I was pleased to be able to borrow a real live young person to attend The Canadian Rep Theatre’s production of Pacamambo, by Wajdi Mouawad. It’s a play written for young people – advertised as being for ages 9 to 99 – but it deals with some very dark subject matter. Julie, played by Amy Keating, is a young girl who adores her grandmother, played by Kyra Harper. She is staying at her grandmother’s apartment one night when the old woman dies. Julie barricades herself into the basement of the building with her faithful dog Growl, the corpse, and a backpack full of perfume that she uses over the next nineteen days to mask the stench of decay. The story is told in flashbacks as she relates it to a psychiatrist. Continue reading Kid +1 Review: Pacamambo (Canadian Rep Theatre)→
A song cycle tells the story of a boy and his grandmother in The Way Back to Thursday at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille
The Way Back To Thursday, playing at Theatre Passe Muraille, is about a boy and his grandmother who develop a special relationship in his formative years as they bond over old Hollywood movies. When Cameron comes of age, he moves across the country to separate the secret of his sexuality from his grandmother. She tries to maintain the relationship and he evades it with devastating consequences. By the end, Cameron takes a shot at redemption and the final moments are utterly heart-wrenching.
Canadian Stage presents Alecky Blythe’s quirky verbatim musical experiment London Road in Toronto.
In 2006, the bodies of five prostitutes were discovered in Ipswich, England. A man named Steve Wright, of 79 London Road, was convicted of the murders and the glare of the media spotlight was cast on this nondescript street in the quiet, rural town. In the aftermath of the trial playwright Alecky Blythe conducted extensive interviews with the residents of London Road. The recordings of those interviews are the basis for London Road.
Deanna Jones’ tribute to rock legend Keith Richards is playing at Toronto’s FIXT Point Studio
The Keith Richards One Woman Show by Suitcase in Point begins with what you would expect. There was a woman on the FIXT Point Studio stage and she loved Keith Richards, the ultimate rockstar from the Rolling Stones. This woman did not just love Keith Richards. She idolized him. He was the rock and roll God that she worshipped with religious fervor and Jack Daniels. As funny of a concept I found this, I was still skeptical of how a super-fan’s obsession for an old junkie guitarist could entertain me for more than five minutes.
Atom Egoyan brings Mozart’s Così fan tutte to vivid life at the Canadian Opera Company
A larger than life reproduction of The Two Fridas by Frida Khalo commands the stage during the overture of Atom Egoyan’s highly symbolic interpretation of Mozart’s Così fan tutte. The opera’s title can be loosely translated as “they are all like this” and it’s a battle-of-the-sexes play wherein a cynical bachelor sets out to prove that all women are too fickle to be capable of fidelity. Continue reading Review: Così fan tutte (Canadian Opera Company)→
