PLAYBOT: Theatre Network tackles birth control in edgy new play
It’s hard to believe that with the continuing struggles for women’s rights, there are still politicians who preach abstinence as the best form of birth control. Also Popes.
Would they have us go back to the Stone Age? Or the 1920s, say, when women would have many unwanted babies; some mothers and their babies would die in childbirth – and all because they didn’t have access to birth control. It was illegal. Abortions, meanwhile, were very illegal, yet desperate women had them anyway – often homemade affairs that ended badly.
This is the engaging theme of Theatre Network’s season opener: Hannah Moscovitch’s What a Young Wife Ought to Know, playing Nov. 13-Dec. 2 at the Roxy on Gateway. Previous productions of the 2014 play were said to cause audience members to faint. So be warned.
The playwright was inspired by a book by early 20th Century birth control crusader Dr. Marie Stopes, containing letters from women describing all manner of horrors and asking for help. Back in the day, only the rich flappers could afford the black market condoms made from sheep’s intestines, and could have all the sex they wanted. For the poor, the results of sex were predictable: unwanted pregnancies. What a Young Wife Ought to Know focuses on one young woman named Sophie who’s already been pregnant four times. One of her babies died, another was handicapped, and so her doctor told her to stop getting pregnant – offering “stop having sex” as the solution. Of course that just won’t do for Sophie and her loving husband Jonny – and things start to get edgy as they start looking for a way out of their dilemma.
Henry Sir
Making fun of hipsters and their lingo like “I’m hella-stoked, dude!” comedian Henry Sir observes, “You’re in Canada, you’re not hella-anything.” Turns out that this Edmonton comic used to be an all-star university basketball player, so you can imagine he’d have some sports material in a set brimming with gentle wit and a personable style that have had him working all across North America.
This weekend Sir Henry is at the Grindstone Comedy Theatre for a live stand-up comedy recording; the Friday, Nov. 16 show sold out, so a second night has been added for Saturday, Nov. 17.
Off Book: The Improvised Musical
You just knew that with the Rise of the Musical there’d be spin-offs into the improv world.
At the Citadel Theatre Saturday, Nov. 17 at 7:30 pm, Rapid Fire Theatre listened to popular demand and booked this perennial Fringe hit. It is what it says it is: An improvised musical. Suggestions from the audience start off an entire production made up on the spot, complete with songs, choreography and even a plot. It’s never the same way twice – and that’s the magic of improv.
Canada 151
Apparently some hosers forgot about the Canadian sesquicentennial party and decided, “Oh, well, f*** it! Let’s celebrate Canada one year late!”
Any excuse for yet another jukebox musical, eh?
This one, on stage at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre until Jan. 27, is an oh-what-a-feeling, an oh-what-a-rush. Music by Bryan Adams, Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Anne Murray, the Guess Who, Alanis Morissette, the Tragically Hip and many more is presented in a fantasy musical celebration that hits all the bases of the Canadian musical canon in a breathless two-and-a-half hour show. A great band, as always, does a fine job replicating all the different artists in their eras of history. Highly recommended.
Viscosity
We live and die by oil prices – but what of the people who actually work in the oil industry? It’s a dirty job and someone has to do it. Where are their voices?
Cue a new play by Yes Theatre called Viscosity, named for a property of oil and built on real interviews with real Alberta oil workers from every age and culture. The results may surprise you.
Taking place until November 17 at the Backstage Theatre in the ATB Financial Arts Barns, this is less a traditional play than a “performance installation” where audience members may come and go as they please. No touching the actors, please.
