EDMONTON THEATRE: Stuck in the House
If we are to believe the video posted on the Citadel Theatre’s website (above), it was Executive Director Chantell Ghosh’s idea to institute a series of short videos featuring local performers who suddenly found themselves out of work during the COVID-19 lockdown. From at home in her closet – “It’s the only place where I […]
REVIEW: Romance is the Uncertainty Principle in Delightful Love Story
Werner Heisenberg was a German physicist who in 1927 postulated that it was impossible to measure both the position and momentum of a sub-atomic particle with absolute precision – because the observation itself affects what is being observed. And what a remarkable template this complex scientific principle serves in Heisenberg, a new play by Simon […]
REVIEW: Won’t Someone Think of The Children? Apparently Not
The Children is a new eco-thriller from British wunderkind Lucy Kirkwood about the coming Apocalypse – and the responsibility this generation must assume for the carnage we have left. It’s given a slow burning but harrowing mounting by Wild Side Productions as part of the Roxy Performance Series. The ripped-from-today’s-headlines play will run in the […]
Mercury Opera Stages Grand Puccini in Strangest Space Yet – a Legit Theatre!
It’s not that Mercury Opera impresario Darcia Parada hasn’t produced Puccini’s beloved potboiler La Boheme in strange venues before. Back in 1994 she staged Act I of the heartrending opera in a loft in New York’s Tribecca neighbourhood. The producer-opera singer-designer-international entrepreneur has made a career out of staging grand opera in exotic locales (which […]
MUSICAL REVUE: Plain Jane’s Reign Falls Mainly on the Refrain
We owe a debt to Plain Jane Theatre’s Artistic Director Kate Ryan. Who knew it? While Curley was out there singing Oh, What a Beautiful Morning in Oklahoma – waiting in his hovel was a guy called Judd who was going to sing Poor Judd is Daid. While Robert Weede was warbling The Most Happy […]
REVIEW: Colin MacLean Loves As You Like It, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!
At first it seems rather absurd: a mashup of Shakespeare and the Beatles. But let’s look at this: Shakespeare is the English language’s greatest dramatist, and the Beatles is the most popular band in music history. The two share a romantic sensibility. Upon closer examination the free-spirited music of the Beatles begins in the exuberance […]
REVIEW: Big Stage Musical Offers Insight Into Serious Teen Struggles
Dear Evan Hansen arrives at the Jubilee Auditorium trailing a tsunami of audience love, a sheaf of great reviews and six Tony Awards – and it’s a musical that deals with mental health. It runs through Feb. 16. Totally contemporary, it’s the story of Evan (Stephen Christopher Anthony), an anti-social, awkward and painfully shy 17-year-old […]
Studio Theatre’s Dog Tale Shows Shakespeare’s Human Side
William Shakespeare used dogs as a metaphor over 200 hundred times in his plays – but there is only one role for an actual dog. It’s Crab, which makes a brief appearance in The Two Gentlemen of Verona and is described by his clownish owner Launce as “the sourest-natured dog that lives.” So it was […]
Catalyst Playwright’s Artistic Vision Comes to Life in Stunning Spy Thriller
Edmonton’s edgy and adventurous Catalyst Theatre has been pushing toward its new production The Invisible – Agents of Ungentlemanly Warfare since its earliest beginnings. Over the years it has excelled in award-winning forays into Gothic thrillers (like Frankenstein, Hunchback, and Nevermore) and with its last production here about the Black Donnellys (based on the 19th […]
REVIEW: The Farce is Strong With Manic Mayfield Comedy
Michael Frayn’s backstage comedy Noises Off premiered in 1982 and has gone on to become the ultimate classic farce and theatrical in-joke – displaying to hilarious effect how private passions can intrude on public performance. The comedy has been around for so long that anyone who spends much time in the theatre will have endured […]
John Ullyatt Soars in Life-Affirming Theatrical Experiment at the Citadel
Every Brilliant Thing is another effort by the Citadel to pry open our concept of what theatre is. Part of the “Highwire Series” of small experimental productions, it’s a one-person show featuring Edmonton actor John Ullyatt. It runs at the Citadel’s Rice Theatre through Feb. 23. The show was originally a big hit at the […]
REVIEW: Walterdale’s 1984 Doubleplus Good!
In the last two weeks Edmonton theatre has presented two remarkably prescient stories of how easily corruption, dehumanization and fear can overtake a society. Both were written in the past, and chart many misuses of power that are so sadly obvious today. MacEwan’s drama department is currently running an excellent version of Arthur Miller’s 1954 […]
