PLAYBOT: Last call for Carol!
You will be visited by three ghosts! The first will arrive when the clock strikes one. The second … hey, what? Where are you going? Come back here! You’re not supposed to flee the visitation! … damn it, he got away … curse these chains.
Aaaaand … scene!
You think the Citadel Theatre would give it one more year with the current dependable production of A Christmas Carol, so they could make it an even 20. But no: this year, the 19th annual, will be the last performance of the Dickens tale adapted by Tom Wood, husband of the Citadel’s former artistic director Bob Baker. Wood played the lead when it premiered in 2000, and for a number of years thereafter. Other Scrooges include Glenn Nelson, John Wright, James MacDonald, and the current Scrooge Julien Arnold (pictured). Lions of Canadian theatre all! A Christmas Carol opens Friday, Nov. 30 in the Maclab Theatre.
The imagination runs wild at what version of A Christmas Carol they’re going to come up with next (it is a closely guarded secret), but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. This A Christmas Carol is a well-oiled machine from the olden school. It requires no fixing because it ain’t broken. It’s a comfy sweater you can’t bear to throw away. It’s all here: The miserly Scrooge, the put-upon Cratchit, and poor little Tiny Tim; cue the three ghosts, Past, Present and Future, four if you count Jacob Marley, and all the other characters in a personal hallucination of a life almost misspent, and repented just in the nick of time. We all learn something in the end – especially Scrooge. Very heart-warming, tear-jerking, life-affirming, Christmasy-spirit material here – and the story still holds up 175 years later!
Mess with Dickens at your peril.
Matara
The sad and confounding saga of Lucy the Elephant is the inspiration for this new play by Edmonton’s Conni Massing. As in real life, the characters in Matara butt heads over what to do with a solitary elephant in a small zoo – the zoo in this case in danger of being flooded, so time is running out for the lonely pachyderm.
This play started at Workshop West’s “This is YEG: New Plays for a Changing City” project in 2015. Massing was “embedded” at the Valley Zoo, in contact with zookeepers and presumably Lucy herself.
Sure to ignite the debate anew, Matara stars Elinor Holt, Patricia Zentilli and Minister Faust (a local writer, actor and broadcaster you don’t often see on a theatre bill), and also features a life-sized moving elephant created by puppeteer Randall Fraser and set designer T. Erin Gruber.
Matara will see its full-length debut at the Backstage Theatre Nov. 29-Dec. 8.
On the Verge
Travel the deepest jungles, the highest plateaus, the coldest tundra, and the most frightening trek of all – America in the 1950s! This is the premise for what is said to be Eric Overmyer’s most popular stage play – though of course he is best known for his TV writing, including St. Elsewhere and Law & Order. Dun-dun …
In On the Verge, a U of A Studio Theatre production at the Timms Centre of the Arts Nov. 29-Dec. 8, three adventurous 19th Century ladies embark on an epic journey – apparently a time-traveling one since they end up in the ‘50s – and “discover themselves” in the process. Did you ever wonder about this? Discover yourself? Why, I’ve been here the whole time!
9 to 5: The Musical
It’ll be interesting to see how this Dolly Parton vehicle will fly today – in an age when workplace sexual harassment is under such scrutiny. People remember the 1980 film as a harmless frippery with bad hair, a light-hearted office comedy about women hitting the glass ceiling and getting revenge on their horrible boss – and this has special resonance today.
Dolly, a great talent with a big heart, wrote the music and lyrics for the musical that premiered in 2008 and enjoyed a short run on Broadway. Now the MacEwan theatre students are taking a crack at it. 9 to 5: The Musical plays Nov. 28-Dec. 4 at the Triffo Theatre at Allard Hall.
Fallen Angels
Isn’t it funny how comedy can so cleverly disguise political comment? The downside is that a lot of people aren’t going to get it. Oh, well.
Certainly not in the 1920s – a thoroughly horrid time, by all reports. The great playwright Noel Coward took a mighty poke at the sexual politics of his day with Fallen Angels, another comedy of (bad) manners being revived by Edmonton’s Bright Young Things company, and playing at the Varscona Theatre until Dec. 1. The theme is – gasp! – housewives getting drunk enough to flirt with a Frenchman. Scandal!
Dubbed the Roaring Twenties Desperate Housewives, this play stars several veteran local actors, including the real-life husband-and-wife team Mark Meer and Belinda Cornish, along with Vanessa Sabourin, Rachel Bowron, Nathan Cuckow and John Ullyatt. In the press release, producer Jeff Haslam promises to “hit the perfect blend of high class writing and high class acting.”
Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley
Mary, the forgotten “middle child” in the famous Bennet family (in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice) is the central character in this holiday favourite. It’s said to be a “sequel” (with air quotes) to Pride and Prejudice. Mary, to put it bluntly, is a nerd. She likes to read books and play the pianoforte (an earlier inferior version of the piano), and seems doomed to spinsterhood until a man named Arthur comes into her life. He’s a nerd, too.
Cue heartwarming Christmas romance at the Citadel Theatre until Dec. 9.
Tuck Everlasting
Here’s a deep existential question being posed in what is supposed to be a kids’ play: Who you chose to be immortal, or would you grow bored of life after a while?
Based on the Natalie Babbitt novel, Tuck Everlasting tells the tale of the little girl named Winnie who encounters a mysterious, isolated family in the woods. Apparently they’d all ingested some sort of “miracle water” and now live forever – so of course the family sealed themselves away from the rest of society. Why? Winnie soon finds out in this enchanting musical adventure produced by St. Albert Children’s Theatre until Dec. 2 at the Arden Theatre.
What a Young Wife Ought to Know
Another play set in the 1920s, this one not so cheery: A Hannah Moscovitch play that deals with birth control rights. Don’t forget: Both birth control and abortion were illegal in those days. Doctors preached “abstinence.” Suffering and death were the results.
What a Young Wife Ought to Know 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. The story focuses on one young woman named Sophie who’s already been pregnant four times. One of her babies died, another was handicapped (and her sister died of a botched abortion), and so her doctor told her to stop getting pregnant. “Stop having sex,” they were told. Being poor Irish immigrants, they couldn’t afford black market condoms, and the story takes an edgy turn as Sophie and her loving husband Jonny start looking for a way out of their dilemma. With brilliant performances and spot-on direction, the result is a heart-wrenching drama in this Theatre Network production playing until Dec. 2 at the Roxy on Gateway.
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 oh-what-a-rush doozy of epic proportions. 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.
