A Streetcar Named Desire
July 2018
A Streetcar Named Desire
Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. 1947. New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2004.
Cultures collide when a refined southern belle is forced to live with her sister in a lower class neighbourhood of New Orleans in the late 1940’s. Blanche is a broken woman, she has lost everything but her little sister Stella and is desperate for some sort of peace in her life again. But her plans are threatened by Stanley, Stella’s blue collar husband who doesn’t understand where Blanche is coming from and sees her only as a threat to his marriage. Streetcar Named Desire is American Realism at its best, showing complicated people in a gritty environment. Blanche is almost immediately unlikable as she tiptoes her way around everything and shows clear disgust for her sister’s lifestyle. Stanley seems to be the protagonist of the story - an all-American war veteran who is doing his best to provide for his wife and their unborn child, but as the play unfolds it causes the audience to question their allegiances and challenge assumptions. I see this play it is a warning against the popular assumptions that we have about what will “fix” our problems. Blanche was an upper class character, who carries herself with an air of authority, but she is taken down by Stanley in an utterly violent and horrifying way. It is clear that the ends do not justify the means in this case - which causes us to question when our desires take us down a darker road than we would have intentionally walked, and if there is any going back afterward.
The Wolves
July 2018
The Wolves
DeLappe, Sarah. The Wolves. 2016. Samuel French
The Wolves is a groundbreaking play that captures the essence of teenage conversation when there are no adults around. It is challenging, fascinating and I would love to see it staged at some point. It is written so that several conversations happen at the same time, and really juxtaposes the rigid warm ups of a highly competitive soccer team with the conversations that they all have with one another. 14-16 year old girls navigating social justice, sex, and college scouts all while trying to play soccer as a team that has been together for years. The success of The Wolves comes from the characterization, the playwright seemed to have a very clear understanding of the different types of girls that might be on a soccer team, and seemed to have a lot of fun throwing them all together, it happened so naturally that the play seems more like a window into the lives of real teenage girls than it does a scripted drama.
Miss Julie
It all begins with an idea.
July 2018
Miss Julie
Strindberg, August. Miss Julie. Translated by E.M. Sprinchorn. Chandler, 1961.
Miss Julie was a show created to bring about Naturalism, a theatrical form that went further than realism into the mixed motivations and power struggles both within people and between people of different genders and classes. It tells the story of Miss Julie, the daughter of a Count, who seduces her father’s steward and must deal with the consequences of her decision, which she immediately regrets. While the play is intended to show the natural progression of thoughts and emotions, and to deal with the conflicting motivations of sexual allure, ambition and those in authority I found it to be a bit of a “straw man” argument for all of these things. Had Strindberg written the play without prejudice I would have liked it more, but it was clear that he had a very low opinion of women and I couldn’t help but feel that Miss Julie was created as an archetype of all the things that Strindberg didn’t like about women, simply so he would be able to cause her demise once the play ends. She is equally authoritative and utterly needy, sexually promiscuous but feeling like the sexual encounter she was seeking ended up destroying her life. I did not find her “natural” in any way, but a shallow look at women with no desire to understand them.
Hedda Gabler
It all begins with an idea.
July 2018
Hedda Gabler
Ibsen, Henrik. Hedda Gabler. 1890. Translated by Jens Arup. Four Major Plays. Oxford World's Classics, 2008.
Hedda Gabler highlights the complexity of human motivation by creating a character that does not have clear motives. The play is an unsettling look at a woman’s lack of control in the 1800’s. Hedda is a complex character that is still hard to interpret 100 or so years after the play was first written. She returns home from her honeymoon with a man she barely tolerates, confides in an ex-lover that she seems to hate and ruins the life of the man that she used to love, who she is possibly still in love with. Her lack of clear motives and her complexity as a character was a huge step forward for Realism as a theatre movement. In Hedda Gabler, Ibsen is clearly saying that people are not as simple as they had before been represented on stage, and that the world is not so black and white. Hedda Gabler is a powerful play that offers a window into the mind of a complicated woman and speaks to the dangers of suppression and societal expectations on someone who wants nothing but to be free of them.
A Doll’s House
It all begins with an idea.
July 2018
A Doll’s House
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House. 1875. Translated by James McFarlane and Jens Arup. Four Major Plays. Oxford World's Classics, 2008.
When the final door slammed in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House theatre was changed forever. A play that refused to comply with the expectations and unspoken rules of its day. Instead of showing a happy wife and family, A Doll’s House highlighted the deep gap between the upper and lower classes through the metaphor of a husband and a wife. Nora’s powerlessness is what causes the issues between her and her husband Torvald but it is also a weapon that she uses to manipulate him. At the beginning of A Doll’s House she is happy with her situation because she is convinced of her husband’s love. But when it becomes obvious that he cares more about his reputation than he does about her, she realizes that their life together has no substance and she chooses to leave him so she can learn how to be independent and find her own strength. Her words to Torvald might as well have been the cry of the 20th century working class, no longer willing to be beaten down by the upper class who were so out of touch with them, and developing a mistrust in their leaders that has only become more apparent in the years since the development of tv, and now of social media.
A Doll’s House speaks with the people of an era, but like the idealists behind communism and radical social reform, the play does not address the fallout of decisions made. Nora’s defiant choice to leave Torvald was brave, yes, but my practical brain could not but immediately wonder how she would do. She is a single woman with no useful education who is very used to the comforts of an upper-middle-class lifestyle, I suspect she may find that life without Torvald is much harder than she anticipated, and history has shown that the social reform she symbolizes is equally complex.
The Cherry Orchard
It all begins with an idea.
July 2018
The Cherry Orchard
Chekov, Anton. The Cherry Orchard. The Complete Plays. 1901. Translated by Laurence Senelick, 2006
Anton Chekov’s longest play, The Cherry Orchard was instrumental in introducing subtext to theatre and was also shows an early blossoms of Symbolist theatre. It follows the story of a wealthy family who is about to lose their estate, but they will not update it so that it can be saved. This creates a stark look at what happens when the “old guard” of nobility or influence refuses to keep up with a dramatically changing world. I found The Cherry Orchard beautifully haunting and pleasantly entertaining. Chekov intended that the play be a comedy but it became much more of a drama than he intended, possibly because of the illness that he suffered while it was being written. While it talks about the importance of letting go of the past in order to take hold of the future, The Cherry Orchard holds the past with much more reverence and respect than a lot of other artists and writers have been willing to give it. The cherry orchard in the play is a clear symbol of the past. It is stunningly beautiful, extremely delicate and beloved by the family that owns it. All at the same time as it is useless and must be torn down to save them.The symbolism is clear, even while the play does not present a satisfying answer. The characters also show a similar type of depth as the setting and conflict, they have mixed motivations, and non-evil characters have the capacity to do hurtful things. I believe that The Cherry Orchard is a significant play in theatre history, a love story to a past era in Russia, and at its heart it is a beautiful play.
Mother Courage and her Children
It all begins with an idea.
July 2018
Mother Courage and her Children
Brecht, Bertolt. Mother Courage and her Children. Translated by Tony Kushner, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009
Bertol Brecht’s near scientific approach to play creation is unavoidable in the sprawling epic Mother Courage. His alienation techniques come out full force as he creates representative characters that you really aren’t supposed to love. Mother Courage holds a mirror up to the atrocities of war by distilling them down to a single family of war-profiteers, run by the fierce and jaded Mother Courage herself. She is good and evil, she loves her children while constantly insulting them, she hates the war but always seeks to profit off of it. The complexity of the main character speaks to the complexities of the human relationship with war. That there is a war is clear, but the simple people that make up the story have no idea why. Something to do with a religion they don’t care about? Yet they continue to fight, because that’s what they do. The end of the play is a stunning picture of sacrifice, when a mute girl decides to speak up to save a town from destruction, the truest act of courage in the play. But what of Mother Courage herself? She continues on, a skeleton of what she used to be, hoping in the war even as it is killing her family. It leaves an audience wondering why we must have war, and perhaps the only way things will change is by the “voiceless” finally deciding to speak up.
Major Barbara
It all begins with an idea.
July 2018
Major Barbara
Shaw, George Bernard. Major Barbara. Penguin Books, 1979.
Who is more righteous, the Salvation Army Major who can offer a man just enough to convince him he should pretend to convert. Or the owner of a ballistics factory who has created a model town for his happy workers? This is the type of question that George Bernard Shaw was only too happy to address in the style of the beloved Comedy of Manners. Shaw does not let the audience off easy in Major Barbara, under a veneer of a light comedy about the upper class is a challenging question about what really helps make the world a better place. The Military Industrialist has a far greater impact on general society while his daughter, who is a major in the Salvation Army, has only a small reach and is dealing with people who are mostly lying so they can get something to eat that day. While the play is extremely witty, it is clearly written from a cynical point of view, both of religion’s ability to bring about internal change, and capitalisms ability to bring about societal good. Shaw tries to highlight the absurdity of social change through religion and capitalism, but creates straw-man arguments that do not take into account the real good that either institution has brought about. I found this play compelling in its arguments, and very well written, but would like to see Shaw wrestle more with the genuine good that religious organizations have brought about as well as the innovations of capitalism that have helped all of society, and not just a few workers. When you reduce religion and capitalism to nothing but a bad day at a single Salvation Army location and an ammunitions manufacturer, you are making the socialist mindset the only real choice, and ignoring the complexities of both economics and social good.
Tartuffe
It all begins with an idea.
July 2017
Tartuffe
Molière. Tartuffe. Misanthrope and Tartuffe. Translated by Richard Wilbur, Harcourt, 1965.
What do you get when you combine classical Commedia dell’arte characters with the rigid neoclassical play structure and infuse it with just a touch social critique? You get a hilariously entertaining play that can still resonate with audiences 350 years after it was written. Tartuffe tells the story of an upper middle-class family-man who has been utterly duped by the hypocritical con-man Tartuffe. He is so taken in that he has promised Tartuffe his daughter’s hand in marriage and goes so far as signing his estate over to the falsely pious man. His family tries to convince him of Tartuffe’s true nature and at the end of the day, the wise king saves them all. When it was written, Tartuffe challenged the religious hypocrisy that was rampant in France, and speaks of the difference between outward religion and true inner goodness.
The Way of the World
It all begins with an idea.
July 2017
The Way of the World
Congreve, William. The Way of the World. Astounding Stories, 2015.
The comedy of manners came into its own as a genre in the 19th century, but it has been beloved by the British for far longer, as is evidenced by “The Way of the World” which is a Comedy of Manners that dates back to the restoration period in the 1700’s. A product of its time, the play is a cynical look at love and friendship, with the clear winners being the wittiest and the most worldly. If you are used to modern playwriting The Way of the World takes quite a bit of grey matter to get through, the language is dense and the storyline is complex compared to what we are used to, but it is an excellent example of Restoration Theatre.
Richard II
It all begins with an idea.
March 2019
Richard II
Richard II. By William Shakespeare, Directed by Adjoa Andoh and Lynette Linton. Shakespeare’s Globe. Feb. 2019. Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London.
The social and cultural impact of this version of Shakespeare’s Richard II cannot be more clear - all of the actors were women of colour. The choice to give Richard II such treatment speaks to the current climate of theatre, people who have long been underrepresented are being given a moment; they now have a place on the stage and lines of text that they never expected to receive. It is the age of the downtrodden, a time when people are able to rise up and represent themselves, to find their voice.
It is an important cultural moment, and a necessary social experiment, but what suffered in this production was the story of King Richard. The story being told onstage was a tale of actors from minorities. The set and costuming all reflected the actors themselves, they all wore the clothing of their heritage and had photos of their grandmothers surrounding the stage. The rest of the set gave the impression of a tribal landscape, but with the costuming done to reflect individual heritage, that concept of tribalism did not infuse into the script. This emphasis on how the story was being told left me with a feeling of wanting more. I wanted these women to tell their own stories. The stories of their grandmothers, the stories of their heritage, their stories of being integrated into the England they were hoping to represent. And so for me, the social experiment continues. What does it mean to be part of two cultures at once? What does it mean to be a woman but to acknowledge the reality that the world has been male dominated for the last several thousand years? What does it look like to tell your own story and the story of another at the same time? I honour this brave group of women for taking a risk, but this production is the first step in a long journey that we must take before we can truly understand representation.
Tartuffe
It all begins with an idea.
March 2019
Tartuffe
Tartuffe. By Moliere, Adapted by John Donnelly, Directed by Blanche Mcintyre. National Theatre. Feb. 2019. Lyttelton Theatre, London.
A classic french farce reimagined for the twenty-first century, with just as much bite as it would have had for the religious leaders of France in the 1600’s, just redirected towards the modern upper class.
This adaptation of Tartuffe told the same classic story: a wealthy father plans to marry his daughter off to Tartuffe - the hypocrite - but her step-mother and maid try to reveal Tartuffe true character before it’s too late. All of the same tropes are there, the same stock characters and the similar storyline, but this Tartuffe manages to tell a totally different story. Choosing to focus on the difference in wealth and social status of the characters, this version of Tartuffe puts into question who the hypocrite really is. Adultery is fine for a wealthy man going through a midlife crisis, but not for a homeless man living off of charity. Treason is perfectly acceptable as long as someone is friends with the Prime Minister. In other words, all sorts of evil are acceptable as long as social order is maintained. In this production, Tartuffe’s greatest crime is his desire to elevate himself to a higher social state, his audacity to think that he could have just as much access to wealth and privilege as the family that he infiltrated. When he is stopped at the end it is not the clear cut victory of the Moliere original. It flips the story on its head and makes the audience suddenly see that the family they have been rooting for the whole time may not be “good” and the foolish Tartuffe may not be so “bad” as they originally thought. Is justice really served only when social order is maintained?
To me, this version of Tartuffe is an excellent example of honouring the past while looking to the future. John Donnelly chose to take a beloved French farce and make it relevant to twenty first century England. It had an important message for our time and revealed new ways to look at script adaptation.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
It all begins with an idea.
March 2019
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Adapted by Simon Stephens, Directed by Marianne Elliott. National Theatre. Feb. 2019. Piccadilly Theatre, London.
Theatre is at its best when it is telling the stories of those who are voiceless. Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime bravely entered the mind of an autistic teenager in a way that audiences empathize with him, and learn to better understand those with mental disabilities. Christopher, the protagonist, has been accused of killing the neighbour’s dog and his autism makes him an easy target for the ridicule and accusations of people who don’t bother getting to know him. Eager to clear his name and prove that he is careful with animals, Christopher begins to investigate the murder of the dog and unravels a family secret in the process.
The nature of Christopher’s disability makes him hard to understand, and harder to relate to, but the set and staging of the play offer a way in for the audience. The set is a simple grid of lights that constantly change to show what is going on in Christopher’s mind. At some points in the production it is full of numbers and lines showing a well ordered and organized thought process. Other times the light became totally overwhelming and it became clear that Christopher was unable to process a new situation. These moments of overwhelming chaos were emphasized by the choreography of The Frantic Assembly, which embodied Christopher’s chaos into stunning movement. These movement pieces, the set, and the monologues where Christopher explained his thinking processes taught me a little about autism, and I hope that this play has helped me understand the difficulties that a person with this disease go through. Evidence of the power of stories to bring people together.
Mark Twain’s: The Diaries of Adam and Eve
It all begins with an idea.
September 2018
Mark Twain’s: The Diaries of Adam and Eve
Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Adam and Eve. Adapted by Heather Pattengale-Zacharias, Morris Ertman. Directed by Morris Ertman, Rosebud Theatre, Sept. 2019. Opera House, Rosebud.
A whimsical journey from the garden of Eden, to the wilderness, and back (just not in the way you expect). This whitty play shows the innocence of Adam and Eve as they discover the wider world around them and begin to discover one another as well. It is a metaphor for all relationships, speaking of the innocence of young love, the delight in discovering someone else, like you, and even the bittersweet reality that we don’t really know how dear our love is until it is gone.
What struck me about this production is that it is so clearly an atheistic worldview, even though it uses biblical characters. What made the Garden of Eden paradise in the Bible was not the perfection of the physical space, but the daily presence of God among humanity. In Mark Twain’s version, this presence is reduced to a “voice” or a “feeling” that the two characters have and could just as easily be making up. The paradise of “God with us” is replaced by the love that Adam and Eve have for each other. This is made clear in the last sentence of the play, when Adam says that Eden was wherever Eve was. It’s a cute sentiment, but it speaks of a worldview that attempts to replace man’s relationship with the divine with a man’s relationships with a woman, which is a terrifying weight for any relationship to carry.
This production was clever, delightful, and imaginative, but for me the message was lacking. In my life I have discovered God as my friend, my comforter, and my greatest support. Even with a husband and a healthy marriage, there is no comparison between my earthly relationship and my relationship with the divine. And it was exactly that relationship that was missing in Diaries of Adam and Eve.
Drawer Boy
It all begins with an idea.
March 2018
Drawer Boy
Drawer Boy. By Michael Healey, Directed by Nina Lee Aquinto. Theatre Passe Muraille. Mar. 2018. Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto.
A story about the power of story, about friendship and the conflicts that can happen when we take the risk of letting someone in. A young and rather ignorant actor asks to live in the farmhouse of two grizzled war vets so he can do research for a new collaborate play he is working on with his company. He soon finds a friendship with bonds deeper than brotherhood, as one farmer has dedicated his life to taking care of the other, who experienced severe head trauma during the war and is forgetful at the best of times and unpredictable at the worst of times. As the young actor digs into their story, the story of the Drawer Boy, it becomes clear that not everything is as it seems. This uplifting, well crafted story was beautifully told by excellent acting, great set and a superb use of bologna sandwiches.
Bunny
It all begins with an idea.
March 2018
Bunny
Bunny. By Hannah Moscovitch and Sarah Garton Stanley, Tarragon Theatre, Commissioned by the Stratford Festival. Mar. 2018. Tarragon Theatre, Toronto
I fully expected to be offended by this production. When we received our tickets they came with a disclaimer, telling the audience in advance that there was explicit sexual content in the play. I went only because I had to, but I am very glad that I did. The show was written in a first person/third person style that framed the life of a woman named Sorrel with her own third person narration about herself. She talks to the audience about her feeling of alienation, her fear and her desperation to fit in. As her story progresses, it is clear that she finds her identity, her role in society, through her sexual relationships with men. Her realization at the end of the play is that these men she has fought for desperately in an attempt to be “normal” were not what she was really looking for. She realizes that a friendship she has had since college is far deeper and more powerful than the relationships that she has had with men, and that she never needed to be normal in the first place.
I found the message of this play powerful in our day and age, where most people are like Sorrel, seeing themselves as alienated and looking for life’s answers in their sexuality. I also loved the slightly stylistic way that the script was written, Sorrel is a professor of 19th century literature, and the script was reflective of this by being written in a similar style. As a lover of 19th century literature myself I found this to be delightful common ground with the character and a fun homage to beautiful works of literature. This play taught me not to trust my first impressions too much - I expected to be offended, but instead I met a broken, beautiful woman trying to find what we are all looking for - acceptance.
America is Hard to See
It all begins with an idea.
February 2018
America is Hard to See
America is Hard to See. By Travis Russ, Life Jacket Theatre, Feb. 2018. Here Arts Centre, New York.
The year 2017 saw an overwhelming amount of women come forward as victims of sexual assault in what is being called the #metoo movement. It was a historical moment of female empowerment, and a clear shift of societal expectations, raising awareness of systemic sexual assault and claiming it as absolutely unacceptable. There is so much positive change happening because of this cultural movement, but a clear danger is to reduce a sex offender to nothing but a sub-human monster. America is Hard to See refuses to take that position as it tells the stories of registered sex offenders as they are released from prison and try to get their lives back together.
It opened with a hymn and spoke very openly about the grace that was extended to the men by a female pastor, and through her, by God as well. It told the stories of deeply hurting men who knew that they had caused a lot of pain for other people, and it did so with a reverence that spoke to me as a holy moment. This play was, as the title suggests, hard to see. It is easy to hate sex offenders, and to colour them as something less than human, but this production did not allow you to do that. It challenged our tendency to push people into categories and force them to be only one thing. A documentary play that was similar to Laramie Project, I really respected the actors that were willing to enter the lives of these characters, all of whom were based on real people and real situations.
The acting in this play was excellent. A performance that stood out to me personally was Ken Barnett, who played Chad, a conservative Christian teacher who struggled with homosexuality and had abused one of his students. He, like all of the other actors, waded bravely into the pain and confusion of a very real person and connected deeply with the audience. America is Hard to See gave me hope for the future of live theatre, and its ability to challenge convention and continue to bring about societal change.
Once on this Island
It all begins with an idea.
February 2018
Once on this Island
Once on this Island. By Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. Feb. 2018. Circle in the Square Theatre, New York.
Entering the theatre to see Once on this Island it is immediately apparent that this will be like nothing you have ever seen before. Not only are there a live chicken and goat wandering around on the sandy stage, but there is a pool of water at one of the exits and a C-can as a major part of the set. You are transported to an island, but not to the sanitized beach resorts that are the playground of the rich and famous, you are placed on the beaches that tourists don’t go to. Where people have been living their lives the same way for hundreds of years, and where stories are passed from generation to generation - not through books, but around campfires on starry nights.
Once on this Island was a visceral experience, a play that had soul and seemed deeply connected to the islands that it was representing. It told a story of love from the perspective of the gods that challenged the notion of class structure. Especially between a conquering people and the “natives.” What I loved about this show was that it felt so human. It told a classic story of love, hate and class conflict, but focused on the joy and pain of the protagonist, a young woman who rises and falls with equal passion. This story is a classic myth that leaves you feeling more connected to the earth beneath your feet and the people around you.
The Band’s Visit
It all begins with an idea.
February 2018
The Band’s Visit
The Band’s Visit. By Itamar Moses and David Yazbek. Atlantic, Feb. 2018. The Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York.
“An Egyptian band ends up stranded in a small town in Israel, and nothing really happens.” The tagline of the show, as well as the very first moment, sums up this quaint story quite well. The play follows several different members of the stranded Egyptian band as they navigate the one night that they are stuck in the small Israeli town and how their presence changes both the town and the band for the better. What could easily have been a play that brought up racial tensions between muslims and jews refreshingly highlighted the similarities between people, not the differences. The best way I can describe this show was that it ended up sneaking up on me. Initially watching it I wasn’t overly impressed by the several mini stories that it put together, which were all very down to earth, dealing with the everydayness of life. The music was sensational, and a real tribute to middle eastern styles that are not common in North America, but I probably would have graded the show a “C” as I left the theatre. But the more I thought about it, the more I loved what this show was doing. It told small stories about real people’s lives, and addressed racial and religious tension through nothing more than the accents of the characters, while addressing what people can learn about one another if they simply sit down and talk. The show describes a Jewish family watching Egyptian TV as “a jasmine wind,” which is clearly a metaphor for the band members, and also how the production affected me, a refreshing, uplifting production about what brings people together, not what tears them apart.
Twelfth Night
It all begins with an idea.
February 2018
Twelfth Night: As Imagined by the Old Trout Puppet Workshop
Twelfth Night. By William Shakespeare. Old Trout Puppet Workshop, Feb. 2018. Max Bell Theatre. Calgary.
The brilliance of Shakespeare’s writing and his inherent understanding of universal human nature has kept his plays relevant for hundreds of years, but how do we take his works and interpret them for modern audiences? “Old Trout Puppet Theatre’s” Twelfth Night was a delightful combination of Shakespearean text and modern sensibility. This story of twins lost at sea was clearly and delightfully told through the mixing of live actors with puppet like sets and clever puppet-inspired staging techniques.
This performance was full of charming moments, when the creative stagecraft was revealed to the sheer delight of the audience. The set and puppet design presented a visual feast and helped the make the Shakespearean text more approachable. The puppet’s also made this comedy funnier just by the nature of being puppets. The staging messed with proportion and asked human logic to take a step back, forsaking realism and asking the audience to fully accept what the puppets represented.
Initially I was challenged by this clever and almost irreverent telling of a classic comedy. The puppets, with their very unique staging did seem to push the Shakespearean text to the background. Even though it was very well presented by the actors. But I remembered that in Shakespeare’s time this comedy likely was irreverent, intended to make audiences laugh with some innuendo and silly jokes that the modern viewer will not understand. This performance reminded me that Shakespeare may not have taken himself so seriously when he wrote Twelfth Night. And perhaps for us to enjoy his work as it was intended, we should be willing to have fun with it, and use modern creativity to give the story new life.