Sharon Pollock’s award-winning play Blood Relations, currently showing at Moyse Hall, was directed by Professor Sean Carney and produced by the McGill Department of English. The story is a bone chilling, pulse-quickening, and thought-provoking examination of one of the most notorious cause célèbres in history. Set in 1902, Blood Relations takes place[Read More…]
Theatre
TNC’s ‘Autobiography of Red’ is enchantingly poignant
Adapted by writer/director Phoebe Fregoli (a fourth-year Concordia student studying women’s studies and creative writing) from the Anne Carson novel-in-verse by the same name, Tuesday Night Café Theatre’s production of Autobiography of Red is a Greek myth transposed to mid-20th century rural southern Ontario. According to ancient legend, the play’s protagonist,[Read More…]
McGill Drama Festival showcases all that McGill student theatre has to offer
For thirty years, Players’ Theatre has played host to the annual McGill Drama Festival. The 2018 edition featured six student-written, -directed, -produced, and -performed plays, with three running each night. Tackling themes ranging from religious fanaticism to quarter-life crises, these plays exhibited an energetic, bold diversity representative of Montreal student[Read More…]
Poignant opera on the Kennedy family debuts in Canada
An opera in three acts, JFK offers a compelling insight into the private lives of the fabled Kennedy family. A collaborative undertaking by the Opéra de Montréal, the Fort Worth Opera, and the American Lyric Theater, JFK is a personal drama exploring the costs of being a public figure. The narrative traces[Read More…]
AUTS’ ‘Into the Woods’ offers comical and action-packed escapism
Lately, it seems we’re all forced to face a little darkness every day. When the sun sets at 4 p.m., and January feels never-ending, students can use a good chuckle and a few dance numbers—all of which the Arts Undergraduate Theatre Society (AUTS) provides in spades with its wonderfully charming[Read More…]
TNC’s FUSE finds meaning in confusion
Tuesday Night Cafe Theatre’s (TNC) FUSE is a confusing play. It includes little in terms of conventional plot structure or character development, and several days after seeing it, I am still having a hard time knowing what to make of it. If you like linear narratives and happy endings, this play[Read More…]
Rhinoceros tramples into Players’ Theatre
Rhinoceros begins with stillness. While the rest of the production is full of chaotic and frantic energy, the play opens simply, with all seven cast members onstage, clad in identical white jumpsuits, eyes closed, exemplifying the ideal tabula rasa—a blank slate. As a green light dims, Berenger, played by Emily Sheeran[Read More…]
‘The Cradle Will Rock’ offers a snapshot of American socialist history
The McGill English Department’s production of The Cradle Will Rock will show Thursday, Nov. 30 to Saturday, Dec. 4. at Moyse Hall. Today, Marc Blitzstein’s musical The Cradle Will Rock (1937) is remembered not for its content, but for the outrage sparked by its original production. Directed by Orson Welles (Citizen Kane),[Read More…]
‘Fables’ teaches us about the beauty in life’s relationships
One of the most beautiful aspects of life is our ability to form relationships with the people around us. Whether they be platonic, professional, or romantic, these relationships shape who we are and determine who we will become. Players’ Theatre’s production of Fables explores interpersonal dynamics. Canadian playwright Jackie Torrens depicts[Read More…]
McGill’s first all black play tackles injustice with poetry without mincing words
“I was missin’ something,” begins Munyaradzi Guramatunhu’s note, introducing her rendition of the play for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf in Tuesday Night Cafe Theatre’s (TNC) black and white program. “Something so important, something that ought to exist.” Though the words were adapted from the play’s[Read More…]
