Vow of celibacy FAIL in Shakespeare sex farce
Love’s Labour’s Lost may be the least produced of Shakespeare’s plays. At one time it disappeared from the stage for 200 years. However, many of its pleasures have been rediscovered in recent times. Perhaps that’s because the play, with its sense of fun and zany infectious humour, blending high-flying Shakespearean iambic pentameter with puns, groaners […]
Romeo and Juliet jazzed up in the park
Those two lovestruck teenagers are at it again out there under the moon – which is this time hung over Hawrelak Park for a zesty, stripped-down production of Romeo and Juliet. It’s part of the Freewill Shakespeare Festival until July 16. We are told that this is the third most popular of Shakespeare’s plays and […]
REVIEW: Rustic, dated comedy pokes middle age marriage
Watching the Mayfield Dinner Theatre’s new production of Henry & Alice: Into the Wild, you may find the ear worm theme for the 1960’s rustic sitcom Green Acres rattling around in your head. “Green Acres is the place to be! Farm living is the life for me!” sings a former Wall Street millionaire – while […]
REVIEW: Stephanie Wolfe takes on Lily Tomlin
There are one-person shows that are linked to certain famous actors, such as Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain or, more recently, Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston as LBJ. In 1977, Lily Tomlin, then a recent grad from the television series Laugh In, brought her one-person show The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe […]
Young cast soars in Rent revival
The story of the first night of the rock musical Rent in 1993 could be an opera on its own. The music, lyrics and book were all written by Jonathan Larson, whose day job up until opening night was working in a fast food joint in New York City. He died of a heart attack […]
REVIEW: New Lemoine an absurdist delight
I’ll bet you didn’t know there was a tiny, forgotten kingdom, called Cynthia, near Lodgepole, Alberta. It’s only about 50 acres but it functions as a real principality. There’s a King, a Chancellor of the Interior and a small population of Cynthonian citizens. The kingdom was discovered by a Canadian census taker in 1956. All […]
Varscona Theatre REBORN!
A packed house of enthusiastic friends and supporters helped raise the curtain on Edmonton’s newest theatre on Saturday night – the new Varscona. The curtain is more than a metaphor. For the first time in its history the Varscona actually has a curtain – a large, voluptuous wine coloured velvet drape that splits apart to […]
REVIEW: Who’s converting who in The Conversion?
The Conversion is a powerful new play from Edmonton’s small but feisty theatre troupe, “Kill Your Television.” The company has only produced about one play a year in its 15 years, but has won an astonishing number of Sterling Awards (seven so far). Past successes have included Eric Bogosian’s SubUrbia and the gothic Fringe hit, […]
Moby Dick comes alive in brilliant Studio Theatre play
Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick; or, The Whale was published in 1851. It may have flopped then, but we have not escaped this watery tale of Captain Ahab’s obsessive quest for the white whale since. There have been many movies, television shows, adaptations, plays, college English essays – even Orson Wells became obsessed with it, but that’s […]
THEATRE: Gordon the bleakest of black comedy
Director Bradley Moss’ production of Morris Panych’s play Gordon is billed as a black comedy – but might be called a bleak comedy because they don’t get much bleaker. Gordon is not for the faint of heart. It’s full of violence, both implied and real, awash in profanity with sudden death just a faltering heartbeat […]
REVIEW: ELOPE tackles City of Angels
For 33 years ELOPE (Ensemble for Lyrical Operetta Productions Edmonton) has been presenting musical entertainments for Edmonton audiences. They are not a professional or even semi-professional troupe. They come completely out of the community and represent an opportunity for those who might not find it elsewhere to plant their feet on a stage and sing. […]
REVIEW: Annie old, not tired
You might be thinking that the Broadway Across Canada production of Annie currently at the Jubilee Auditorium might be a little old and tired. You might think that in Edmonton, near the end of its long run of road shows, the cast might be phoning it in. Well, it doesn’t take more than 20 seconds […]
