Strange and elusive energies crackle with abandon on the Tuesday Night Café (TNC) stage in Caryl Churchill’s unnerving Blue Heart, a production of two one-act plays performed as a set. Teasing apart cruel dimensions of language and longing in a theatrical experiment in form, the self-sabotaging construction of the play suggests[Read More…]
Theatre
Shaking up Shakespeare: Players’ Theatre gives new spin on timeless classic in Fortinbras
Centuries after its composition, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet remains a powerful cultural force in the world. Its oft-quoted words, “to be or not to be” are particularly salient with the approach of final exams. The breadth of its impact on popular culture, ranging from James Joyce’s Ulysses to Paul Cernea’s Hamlet[Read More…]
Laughs in the loft at the Danger Dulgar Comedy Show
The Danger Dulgar Comedy Show gathers a wide variety of Montreal comics together for one Sunday every month to showcase their material to whoever will listen, and throw a few dollars into an empty pitcher. It offers comedy at its rawest, with no lights nor even a stage—just a comedian,[Read More…]
Play Review: Butcher question ideas of justice, revenge, and love
Playwright Nicolas Billon premiered Butcher last year in Calgary, having previously won the 2013 Governor-General’s Award for Fault Lines, a work of three plays including Greenland, Iceland, and Faroe Islands. While Billon’s previous plays have had darker themes, they look like comedy sketches in comparison to his latest work. Butcher[Read More…]
Little Women grow up from the page to the stage
Little Women, Opera McGill’s first production of the season, is based on the beloved novel by Louisa May Alcott, as well as the opera written and composed by Mark Adamo in 1998. Set in Massachusetts in the 1860s, Little Women is brought to the stage in a way that celebrates[Read More…]
TAME: In a world of their own
TAME, a new exhibition showcasing dance by choreographer Lara Kramer immerses its audience in a world of dreamy experimentation through unconventional movement. The set of TAME was reminiscent of a first apartment, stuffed with the gleeful accumulation of garish, yet cohesive ‘70s and ‘80s ephemera. Crowded with clothing and magazines, the[Read More…]
The Viewpoint: SIN – halloween haunted house
SIN: Halloween Haunted House at the Theatre Sainte-Catherine was an intense and disturbing experience, unlike any other haunted house. The theatre’s small space was transformed into a formless nightmare that played with the audience’s vulnerability. The experience began with the participants being attached to a rope by the wrist, while[Read More…]
Players’ Theatre makes a killing with Dial M for Murder
Dial M For Murder, written by Frederick Knott and directed by Ali Aasim, is a sensational start to the Players’ Theatre’s 2015-2016 season. Filled with moments of suspense and meaningful dialogue, the show keeps the audience guessing right until the final moment. Set in New York City during the 1950’s,[Read More…]
Beyond the lens: Grey Gardens places audience within 1975 documentary
Tuesday Night Café ’s (TNC) inaugural play of the season, Grey Gardens, concerns a little-known facet of American history. In the aftermath of the assassination of U.S. president John F. Kennedy in 1963, it is easy to forget the role that his wife—first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis—came to play for[Read More…]
Beyond street dance
An amber glow cut through the darkness, illuminating only part of the stage between floor and ceiling. Music began to thunder, and hands suddenly shot up, puncturing the glow, writhing on their own for a few moments before their bodies joined. This is not contemporary dance; this is dance in[Read More…]
