The Upstage Interview: Christopher Moore and Gabrielle Soskin on To Be

To Be To The World First

Upstage Host Eric Sukhu spoke with Artistic Director Gabrielle Soskin & Director Christopher Moore about Persephone Productions presentation of To Be. Below is an abridged version edited by Estelle Rosen, CharPo Editor-in-chief.

UPSTAGE: Tell us about To Be, I understand it’s a new musical.

GABRIELLE: I was thrilled when Christopher Moore presented me with this script. He asked if I thought Persephone should produce something like this. I read it. I listened to the music. And I said let’s go for it.

It’s a world première. The 3 young men who composed this musical are really admirable. It’s a big and brave undertaking to put together a full length musical with a score, books and lyrics the way they’ve done. It’s also enchanting because Trevor Barrette who wrote the book and lyrics has linked extracts of gems of Shakespearian text as though the heightened language expresses the passion of a love affair between two young men.

Review: Sala XVIII

Davide Chiazzese in Sala XVIII (photo credit, Sylvie-Ann Paré)

By Gaëtan L. Charlebois

Andrew Cuk's new play, Sala XVIII is a dense, difficult work which is performed letter-perfectly by a well-rehearsed cast and that, my friends, is the problem.

What went drastically missing this evening was the crackle of an opening night, the excitement of the premiere and, finally, the spontaneity of a cast which is still wrapping its mouths and heads around words which flow like rich, red wine. What was missing was spontaneity. 

Don't get me wrong: the core of this work is a fine thing indeed, and it's presentation has moments of brilliance (the mix of Noh, Kabuki, stylized ancient Greek and modern theatre offers some very beautiful images). But then there are the words which, no doubt, are quite lovely on the page but which, somehow, seem to hover over the actors heads—just out of reach of human expression; when the play relies mostly on its words it has an arch, artificial feeling and one suspects that the actors—the human beings—are secondary to recitation of those words.