Review: Red

Randy Hughson (photo credit: Andrée Lanthier)

Art about an artist doing art
by Jessica Wei
@autobiographica

The first thought I could successfully pull together after coming out of seeing RED by John Logan at the Segal Centre: I want a fucking cigarette. 

To simplify this play would be to say that it's about a more-than-mildly disturbed artist in the '50s who waxes on prosaically, manically, to his young protegé/assistant while smoking furiously and pacing around his New York studio. To add some specific context, it's about Mark Rothko (most famous for his paintings of bright squares) at the height of his fame, knee-deep in red paint, working away at a series of murals for the wildly expensive Four Seasons restaurant. 

This play is a piece of art about an artist who is creating art and also coming to terms with what art is. 
And it's impeccable. Logan's script succeeds in its two primary functions of helping the audience understand the thought process behind these bright squares on canvas and sending us out those clearly marked exits feeling like philosophers (as Rothko says, “Painting is 10% putting paint on the canvas – the rest is waiting and thinking.”). We walk out murmuring, “Oh that's interesting”, we debate the luxury of art, we realize that money is not the villain and nor is the pursuit of it, and we muse, understanding, at least theoretically, the sacrifice of compromised integrity, feeling as if we could have been on that stage and in that studio pacing around with arms dripping with paint and a red-stained cigarette dangling from our lips, ranting and raving. This reaction, for the playwright and also everyone else backstage, is the endgame. 

Review: Guys and Dolls

Tracy Micailidis with ensemble (photo credit: Andrée Lanthier)

WE'RE JUST A CRAZY BUNCH OF GUYS AND DOLLS
by Jessica Wei

Warm lights, jazzy American pop music, and New York in the 1940s – is there any better setting after walking around in cold Montreal wind and rain? 

After having seen the Segal Centre's production of “Guys and Dolls”, I'm convinced there isn't. Marking Diana Leblanc's directorial return to the Segal Centre and starring seasoned CanCon musical theatre vets Scott Wentworth, Frank Moore, Susan Henley and others, this musical tells the tale of star-crossed lovers in the Broadway everyone dreams about (underground gambling, sassy showgirls, snappy rhetoric and even a few zoot suits). Nathan Detroit (Moore) mans a news stand by day, runs a floating craps game at night, and when he's not doing either, he's trying to keep his showgirl fiancée Adelaide (Henley) happy with evasive promises of marriage. Having encountered some financial problems – enough to threaten his circuit – he makes a bet with fellow gambler Sky Masterson (reprised by the dashing Wentworth) a bet that seems almost fully guaranteed in his favour. A thousand buckaroos says Masterson can't convince a beautiful Christian missionary to go to Havana for a date. But as any man with a pair of dice in his pocket knows, life is a gamble. 

Review: Where the Blood Mixes

(photo credit: Mateo Hernandez)

the bitter winter seeps in through the cracks
Teesri Duniya forces us to pay attention
by Jessica Wei

Canada's a fairly unassuming country. We're known for confusing politics, casual beers, icy temperatures and warm smiles. However, any true Canadian – especially anyone who lives in Quebec – knows, when it's hot, it's sweltering and when it's cold, it numbs to the bone. Some of our history is like that, too. We love our proud moments in history: the invention of insulin, the Battle of Vimy Ridge,  passing universal health care in '62, our tumultuous road to victory during the Summit Series in '72 against the Soviets, the entire Vancouver Olympics in '08 (including our tumultuous road to victory in Men's Hockey)... warm, friendly, glowing moments engraved on our currency, celebrated in our newspapers on anniversary years, boasted in our textbooks. 

But the bitter winter seeps in through the cracks. Those are times we just don't comment on the weather. If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all, and most of us just don't say anything at all. 

Review: Taming of the Shrew

Rasmussen and McCooeye (photo by Antoine Yared)

First there is the problem of the play

Can our critic get over the fact that Shrew is "egregiously outdated"?

by Jessica Wei

Sometimes you have to regard Shakespeare as your octogenarian grandfather at family dinners who likes to get bourbon-drunk and spout remarks less than 21st century politically correct that you kind of have to just smile and shrug through, like, “I'm pretty sure she was actually Japanese, and probably not a communist, necessarily, but then again you've been through a war and, y'know, can't teach an old dog new tricks, sooooo.....”

My point is, it is very difficult to enjoy Taming of the Shrew. It has its uncomfortable lulls. The political message hasn't quite transcended the five hundred years since it was written. Women with sharp tongues don't need to be “trained” anymore, especially not by gold-digging courters who have to run a business arrangement through rich old papa before sliding into first base. This is just a fact, and when one is slouched in a lawn chair at Mount Royal Cemetery, trying to enjoy this egregiously outdated play, one needs to first get over the fact that in Elizabethan England, sexism just didn't really exist.

The Friday Five, July 29, 2011

FIVE BOOKS THAT THE CENTAUR SHOULD BASE A POSSIBLE MUSICAL ABOUT

...and you're welcome.

by Jessica Wei

The Friday Five, July 22, 2011

Schwartz's: The Musical (photo: lucetg.com)

FIVE CHEAP PLOYS TO GET (MORE) YOUNG PEOPLE INTERESTED IN MUSICAL THEATRE

Just because the movie worked, doesn't mean that cramming it up the ass with dancing hobbits and LED lights will.
by Jessica Wei

It's not an old problem, not enough people do go see theatre of any kind. However, the high production value of musical theatre, and the fact that it's intellectually the most accessible kind of performing art (simple story lines, catchy songs) makes that particular genre an easier one to sell. But in the past few years, we've seen an influx of shameless advertising ploys in favour of Broadway never before employed. From shitty television to adapting cinematic classics to the stage, these big-shot producers are really gunning for this generation of teenyboppers. So hold on to your wallets, people, because what's coming up is merely a warning for what to avoid if you don't want to get caught in the Broadway trap. Here's Five Cheap Ploys To Get (More) Young People Interested in Musical Theatre. 

The Friday Five, July 15, 2011

FIVE REASONS YOU SHOULD BE NICE TO STAGE MANAGERS

I stage manage. And if you're wondering what that particular role consists of, let me give you a rundown.

By Jessica Wei

So, I should admit something while I'm cozying into the whole “Friday Five Columnist” role. The fact is, I write a lot about performers (for obvious reasons, like this being a theatre blog) and sometimes very cynically, but I am not an actor by most conventional standards. I've had a few on-stage roles in the past, but honestly? It's not really my thing. Something about the bright lights and memorizing 60 pages of script. I'm less “cast”, more “crew”. So this column's my shout-out to the people who are in the productions but never on stage, the people who work around the clock to make the stars shine and keep the director happy. And isn't that the most important thing? Feeding the egos? (Just kidding.)

The Friday Five, July 8, 2011

BROADWAY: WHERE POPSTARS GO TO DIE. 
...washed up has-beens who were able to leave their former careers quietly and still get paid to dance and sing on Broadway...

By Jessica Wei

Pop music: it's a risky business. Remember the late '90s? 13 year old preemie bimbos lining up at the MMVA's with “I HEART JUSTIN” scrawled on fluorescent pink Bristol boards; the loopy, heart-dotted I's and swirly E's? The sex scandal of the day came in the form of questions buzzing around about Britney's virginity, which only seemed to propel her career. On stage, a group of men – boys, really – clad in matching track pants and headsets, danced and harmonized in almost creepy unison, while the crowd that gathered in front of them chanted their names and pretended each song was uniquely directed at them. That was the life. And then the honeymoon, with the same fleeting swiftness with which it had arrived, ended, and all the sign-flailing 13 year olds turned into college students who would scoff at those giggly star-struck years of their youth. Those pop icons would invariably either continue to pander away at a dwindling public with rumours of going into space (Lance Bass), lead short-lived solo careers before settling down into reality TV (JC Chasez and Chris Kirkpatrick), or actually break out and become international pop sensations on their own (Justin Timberlake). And then there's the less reputation-destroying, more humbling option: Broadway. And that's where we last heard of Joey Fatone, who took to the stage as Mark Cohen in Rent. 

The Friday Five, July 1, 2011

FIVE FICTITIOUS ONE-PERSON PLAYS THAT COULD ACCURATELY REPRESENT 80% OF ALL ONE-PERSON PLAYS

by Jessica Wei

Being that this is a theatre blog, it's not a wild guess that if you're reading this, you hold a certain amount of interest in theatre, particularly theatre in Montreal. Based on that assumption, it wouldn't be unreasonable to then conclude that you've probably been to a Fringe show. And if you're a regular reader of this blog, you're probably a little bit over the Fringe buzz – after all, theatre does exist outside of the festival circuit.  

So I'll say very little about the Fringe, except for this – a large percentage of Fringe shows? They kind of sucked. That's okay. They're supposed to suck. Great scripts are never finished, they're abandoned (someone really smart said that). The Fringe is just where many scripts face the chopping block. Say you're a few drafts deep in a script. You think it's pretty good, so you take it out for a test run in the Fringe. If you get picked, you then have a super-elaborate focus group to tell you if your show really must go on. Theoretically, if 40 people show up per performance and you get semi-dece reviews in some alternative papers, why shouldn't you take that script, tweak it to your best ability and go a little bigger? 

Review: Remember Ezra (Fringe 2011)

Reviewed by Jessica Wei

Remember Ezra is an interesting show in all of its contradictions. It is, invariably throughout the play: funny yet stiflingly dark, touching but cold, charming and then completely unappealing. The plot is convoluted but cliché, the script overwritten but at the same time, painfully obvious.

Review: Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Fringe 2011)

Reviewed by Jessica Wei

Crushing. This is the only word to describe “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea”. In an empty bar in the Bronx, Danny and Roberta meet and immediately begin to share their own respectively messed up pasts. This play is dark, angry, violent, tender as a raw scrape, yet perforated with optimism. As Roberta and Danny's night unravels, moving from the bar and into the bedroom, the audience is intimately introduced to these two deeply psychotic characters, who are so down on their luck they can lick the salty gravel of rock bottom, just waiting to be saved. So crushing one can't even take their eyes off the stage. Daniella Forjè, as Roberta, is a magnet on stage. She's charming, heartbreaking, and she's got a flawless New Yawker accent. Danny, played by Jonathan Shatzsky, is brooding and a little too angry, but keeps up well. 

Review: Slut (R)evolution (Fringe 2011)

Reviewed by Jessica Wei

Slut (R)evolution is a witty, original, often uncomfortable, and raw one-act biographical window into the makings of a self-professed slut. From a cozy red loveseat in Café Soufflé, Cameryn Moore invites her audience into her world of Mormon beginnings, fetish clubs, BDSM tents, and train cars in Russia with mysterious strangers. In other words, it's the quintessential Fringe experience. As an actor, Moore has some difficulty forming a connection with her audience in the first half of her performance, but once her eyes unglue themselves from the top left corner of the cafe window-front and her disjointed stories weave together, the intensity hits its climax. And you feel it. And it's uncomfortable. 

Her past is pretty much what one might expect – “Casual Encounters” on Craigslist, hook-ups with sexually ambiguous fetishists, and, of course, drugs and sex (but usually not both of them together). The writing ranges from provocative and gut-wrenching to just plain cheesy. But what sets this play apart from the great many one-person performance Fringe flops is that Moore - actor, character and genuinely interesting human being - is just so damned likable. You don't have to be from her world to want to sit down and have coffee with this person. And you certainly don't need to have experienced her types of sex-capades to relate to her inner insecurities. All in all, Slut (R)evolution is a adequately-executed look into an thoroughly fascinating life that will leave you either running into or away from the nearest fetish shop. 

Rating: 

Show Info

For much more info on the Fringe see the CharPo Fringe Aggregator