REVIEW: Smart Art
Art, a French language work by Yasmina Reza (translated by Christopher Hampton) opened in Paris in 1994 and quickly became one of the most produced plays in the world. It has won awards everywhere (including the Oliver in Britain and a Tony in America) and was a sure-fire audience hit. Shadow Theatre and veteran director […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Descendents upon us
The famous Descendents clamber out of the punk trenches to spread their raucous tribute to local fans at the Union Hall Sunday night. The California punk rock act was formed back in 1977 by guitarist Frank Navetta, bassist Tony Lombardo, and drummer Bill Stevenson. They became an integral part of the early 1980s hardcore punk […]
PLAYBILL: Bonnie and Clyde get musical therapy
If only Bonnie and Clyde had gone into couples therapy before things got out of hand. They could’ve unpacked all that co-dependent bank-robbing-shooting-people-running-from-the-cops behaviour, and come to some resolution that didn’t involve getting killed. Maybe they could’ve gone straight and counseled wayward youth on the perils of robbing banks, shooting people and running from the […]
Citadel’s Austen powers a ripping yarn
In 2008, the Citadel Theatre charmed Edmonton audiences with a memorable stage version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Beyond the main element of Austen’s durable book (published in 1813 and her best known work), the success of that production was something of a tribute to the theatre’s ace production unit working at full, flat […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Rock (and rap) Against Racism
“I love and treasure individuals as I meet them; I loath or despise the groups they identify or belong to,” said the late George Carlin – and he may have been onto something there. In other, gentler words (Carlin was a bit of a grump), if you judge people one by one, and truly don’t […]
PLAYBILL: Art for art’s sake
Any artist who’s ever been turned down for a grant should feel their blood boiling over Art. As will the characters in Yasmina Reza’s play – the English translation at the Varscona Theatre April 26-May 14. Starring local familiars Glenn Nelson, John Sproule and Frank Zotter in this Shadow Theatre production, the story revolves around […]
Last Toke in the Big Pink
With weed about to become legal in Canada, I’m comfortable with a full disclosure: I smoked a lot of dope inside MacEwan University’s Jasper Place building when I was a music student there in the early 1980s. After a farewell party on April 28, the campus will be abandoned, the arts programs moved downtown. A […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Downtown Mr. Browne
Jackson Browne has turned his early success into an epic career now spanning six decades and 14 studio albums. The most recent of those, 2014’s Standing In the Breach, still, after all these years, found its way to No. 15 on the US chart. Playing Monday night at the Winspear Centre, Browne originally came to […]
REVIEW: Cinderella a real Cinderella story
In 1957, I joined over an astonishing 100 million North Americans to watch a live, black-and-white telecast of a new Rogers and Hammerstein musical Cinderella. The show featured that rising new Broadway star, a pre-Oscar Julie Andrews. The design was spectacular and the music was lovely – although not really up to the best of […]
