FRINGE 2019 OPERA: Gianni Schicchi è un’opera deliziosa!
Gianni Schicchi Stage 16 (Holy Trinity Sanctuary Stage) Those agile artists known as “Pop Goes The Opera” are back at it. After captivating and ingeniously staged Fringe productions, including Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana, this time they are floating Puccini’s last opera, Gianni Schicchi. The pocket comic opera with its madcap characters and humorous plot were […]
FRINGE 2019: Go to bed or BABA YAGA will get you!
Baba Yaga Stage 6 (Strathcona Community League) Baba Yaga is a fearsome creature used for centuries to frighten Slavic children just before bed. She is described as a witch but has assumed many shapes and forms. and is probably best known for living in the forest in a house on chicken’s legs. The Alberta Opera, […]
2 MASTERS OF FRINGE 2019: British lust and off-the-wall wit abound!
The Bald Soprano Stage 12 (Varscona Theatre) Back in the ’50s, it’s no wonder that audiences left Eugene Ionesco’s short play The Bald Soprano scratching their heads. “What was that all about…?” Well, it’s about 90 minutes of disconnected abstract satire that doesn’t make much logical sense. What they were attending was the birth of […]
FRINGE 2019: T.J. Dawe God of the Fringe
The Slipknot Stage 16 (Holy Trinity Sanctuary Stage) The title “Fringe God” was probably coined for T.J. Dawe. In the early 2000’s the Vancouver playwright and performer edefined the solo stand up. A gangly young man with an earnest chipmunk manner and a lively sense of humour, he was everyman. All he needed was a […]
FRINGE 2019: Gordon’s Cream of Improv
Gordon’s Big Bald Head: Usurpermen! Stage 12 (Varscona Theatre) For this year’s episode of the long-running Fringe hit Gordon’s Big Bald Head, a trio of master improvisers stride on stage. “Greetings, people of Earth!” they intone. Apparent they are “strange visitors from another planet.” Anyone who has witnessed the supernatural abilities of the three to […]
MASTERS OF FRINGE 2019: No mean girls allowed at inspired drag show
Flora & Fawna Have Beaver Fever (And So Does Fleurette) Stage 12 (Varscona Theatre) We are privileged to be allowed to attend the annual meeting of the NaturElles. When we first met the two founders Flora (Darrin Hagen) and Fawna (Trevor Schmidt) and their largely silent companion Fleurette (Brian Dooley), they were but eight years […]
MASTER OF FRINGE 2019: TWO an impressive acting duel, in a pub
TWO Stage 12 (Varscona Theatre) Jim Cartwright is a British screenwriter – penning such hits as Road and Little Voice. A couple of years back, he wrote a play called Two, a nostalgic tribute to that venerable British institution, the neighbourhood pub. The play is described by the author as, “No scenery, no props, no […]
FRINGE 2019: 1 marvelous magical mystery
Minerva – Queen of the Handcuffs Stage 17 The name Houdini still hovers over the world of magic – almost 100 years after his death. The master of “escapology” took the hocus pocus out of the ancient prerogatives of priests and charlatans and turned it into show business gold. There weren’t many females in the […]
REVIEW: Carmen gets a gritty makeover in Mercury Opera production
The last time I was at Chez Pierre, about 25 years ago, I covered a mud wrestling match between two female behemoths. The venerable Edmonton institution was founded by a gentle, cultured Belgian fellow named Pierre Couchard. The club was the first in Edmonton to go topless (and then bottomless), introduce male nudity, stage the […]
REVIEW: RING OF FIRE: The Music of Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash was born in a shack in Arkansas and grew up on a hardscrabble farm. He started his career as a rockabilly singer in Memphis but from then on followed a path that was all his own. He defiantly turned his back on the growing glitz of what was called “country” music to join […]
Teatro la Quindicina embraces The Bad Seed
Rhoda Penmark is the perfect child. She’s 8 years old and the ideal 50’s realization of what ’30’s movie moppet Shirley Temple might have been in those times. She’s modest, intelligent, sweet, loving and with her perfect braids and freshly pressed dresses, she is a proper daughter for her loving parents. At school she gets […]
Italy comes alive in Walterdale romance
The Light in the Piazza is a rarefied experience. It’s not a brash, glitzy Broadway show. Although some of its demands are operatic, it’s not an opera. It’s more of an operetta. Adam Guettel’s music is lush, but quite complex with unsuspected harmonic shifts. To give you an idea of what it calls for in […]
