Beyond Our Fourth Wall, January 11, 2012

How Ukrainian actor Sasha Samar copes with the Soviet Union coming apart.

Moi dans les ruines rougees du siècle

Jan. 10 – Feb. 4 Théatre d’Aujourd’hui

Theatre…en français

by Estelle Rosen

Brecht’s Threepenny Opera- five states of human misery…

L’opéra de quat’sous

Jan. 24 –Feb. 11   Usine C

Following a fire, two ornithologists dig through traces of their secrets in the rubble of their nest.

Le Nid

Jan 16 – 27 A La Petite Licorne

Remount of Brecht’s La Noce; wedding meal reunites 8 family members.

La Noce 

Jan 24 – Feb. 11 Théatre Prospero

After Dark, January 10, 2012

The Tempest Which is Coming (or may already be here)

Technology must be accommodated but must first be understood and tamed

by Gaëtan L. Charlebois

One of my favourite comics, Patton Oswalt, fought an unpleasant battle in the live vs. tech war this week. He was in a club, working for free, testing new material. He noticed someone started filming him. It threw him off because the material was so raw, the taping had begun well into the bit and he didn't want it being exposed to the world before it was ready. All good reasons for being perturbed. But Oswalt, despite his bitter onstage persona, is a fairly decent person who, right that moment, became (reportedly) a little undecent at the filmer's, a woman's, expense. 

The Upstage Interview: Alex McCooeye on Pit and The Pendulum (Wildside)

Quoth the Raven...

Upstage and Charlebois Post contributor Sarah Deshaies spoke with Alex McCooeye  about his adaptation of The Pit and the Pendulum presented as part of WildSide Festival. Below is an abridged version edited by Estelle Rosen, CharPo editor-in-chief.

UPSTAGE

You’ve adapted one of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories The Pit and the Pendulum. Are you a big fan of Poe?

McCOOEYE

I loved Poe as a kid, curled up under my blanket with my flashlight looking up words. I sort of think of him as the Shakespeare that never wrote plays or much about love.

The Pit and the Pendulum is one of his middle of the ground lesser known stories. It’s not The Raven, but was popular once. It’s been done a couple of times on film. Vincent Price did a lame version; there was a film in 2009. Sort of a teen horror sexy film that was awful so I want to do justice to the title.

Ford's Focus: Quincy Armorer

Just Hitting His Stride

It begins with a conversation in a kitchen...

by Barbara Ford

Like many parents, Quincy Armorer’s hoped their sons would become successful lawyers, doctors and businessmen and Armorer gave it an honest shot. Though he was excited by the text and language acting in MacDonald Cartier High School Shakespeare productions on the South Shore, he made good use of his high school math and science scores to register in Health Sciences at CEGEP, with the intention of eventually becoming a doctor. After a year, “I just knew it wasn’t me.” So as not to lose the time he had already invested and the credits he’d accumulated, he pragmatically switched to commerce, which allowed him to take a few minor courses in arts and still finish in the usual two years.   

Review: Dick Powell's In the Mood For Jazz (Wildside)

In The Mood For Satire

Sidemart and their wash-ups

by Nanette Soucy

SideMart Theatrical Grocery’s contribution to the 15th annual Wildside Festival, Dick Powell’s In The Mood For Jazz is intended to be a spoof on 1950’s lounge acts and the characters in them. Dick Powell, as played by Graham Cuthbertson’s skeezy moustache, is the entitled alcoholic crooning front man to the 5-tux strong Buck Wheaton Trio, brought together at the whim of an obscurely famous Jazz critic to sing a series of duets with his trite and gay as a daisy in May, living cliché of an ex-wife, Laura Thornton for whom he’s been carrying a torch for 22 years plus a day.

Theatre For Thought, January 7, 2011

A GLANCE DOWN THE ROAD: WHAT TO SEE IN 2012
joel fishbane


Nothing like the first week of the New Year to go through all those annual traditions, like breaking your resolutions, avoiding your credit card bill and wrestling with that eternal question: just how long do you keep saying “Happy New Year” to people? As for me, I took the crystal ball out of storage in order to look ahead to what Canadian theatre has to offer for 2012. The most frustrating thing about doing this is the silly “season” that theatres have: except for Shaw and Stratford, most theatre seasons run concurrent to school years and so any crystal ball gazing past the summer is almost impossible. Nonetheless, here’s what I’m excited about, at least until June:

Review: Queen of Hearts (Wildside)

Queen of Hearts mimes the ravages of war

Statements understated

by Sarah Deshaies

An unnamed war breaks out, with clashes and explosions ridding a city of all its people. All of them flee the destruction, except two women unwittingly clinging to one another in a small room in an abandoned asylum.

For a 55-minute play, Queen of Hearts is stylishly powerful. It expertly mines the skills of its main actresses/clowns/mimes Manon Beaudoin and Lois Anderson, who are both on point as a mad patient and wounded nurse, respectively. Both are trapped in this one, bare room, where they simultaneously anticipate their rescue and devolve into craziness. By the end, we’re not sure who’s nursing who.

Review: Bifurcate Me (Wildside)

CRUSHED BY ITS OWN AMBITIONS

That the metaphor isn’t exactly clear is part of the great struggle for anyone watching the play

joel fishbane

With a nod and wink to the work of Beckett and Sartre, Bifurcate Me opened at Centaur’s Wildside Festival to kind laughs and some bewildered applause. This probably isn’t all that surprising for a show whose title most people can’t define. For the record, bifurcate is a fancy word for the fork in the road: it can refer to the split in rivers, blood vessels or scientific systems. 

The Friday Five, January 6, 2012

FIVE REVIEWS OF WILDSIDE FEST SHOWS BASED ON THEIR TITLE (I HAVE NOT YET SEEN THESE SHOWS)

I'm not even going to read the previews, or any captions or descriptions of the shows. I'm simply going to review what the titles imply.

by Matthew Raudsepp of Matt and Kyle and Matt

CharPo's Real Theatre, January 6, 2012