review. What I Call Her by Ellie Moon @ Crow's Theatre

Full Disclosure: I saw this show in the first preview, so aspects of the performances and staging may have changed since I saw it.

Ellie Moon follows up her verbatim play from 2017 Asking For It stepping out of the #metoo and Ghomeshi moment, and into a complex story of a family dealing with their history. The play centres on two sisters and their dying mother who we never see, navigating their relationships with one another, with her, and with the men in their lives. The only man we see is Kate (the older sister’s) boyfriend, though we also hear about their father, and their mom’s new husband.

I felt as though the first part of the play, setting up the relationship between Kate and Kyle, was sluggish and lacking in urgency. It lasted an extraordinarily long time and felt like it was trying to fit too many ideas in (I won’t give spoilers here…). It is when Kate’s sister, Ruby, arrives uninvited, that the play begins to sing. In my opinion, it could do with dramaturgical work that helps it cut to the chase sooner, because the complex tension between the sisters is what gets really interesting to watch, how their behaviour to one another and in the presence of one another is so clearly different than it is with others. Ellie Elwand sparkles with fiery intensity, and Michael Ayres is extremely likeable as the boyfriend stuck in the middle of the sibling hellstorm.

Director Sarah Kitz does well helping the actors navigate the density of the material and creating some nice relationships. The choice to use a thrust setup didn’t quite work for me; I could sense what she was going for…a voyeuristic sense that the walls have just fallen off this apartment, but with audience on 3 sides (though predominantly on 2) the actors had to serve too many angles, causing the blocking to come off as stilted. I think it could have benefitted instead from an alley, perhaps, giving the actors more freedom.

Overall I think there is a seed of an extremely interesting play in here, and I hope it will be uncovered through further development of the script.

review. The Assembly: Episode 1 @ Crow's Theatre & Porte Parole

The Crow’s Theatre and Porte Parole have come together again for a new piece of politically charged verbatim theatre, The Assembly. The premise is to take 4 people with opposing viewpoints and experiences, who on the internet would rage at one another, bring them into a room and have them discuss some of the most polarizing subjects of our day. Being verbatim theatre, this is then edited, spliced, and sewn together into a narrative. I’m speaking vaguely in the below, to avoid spoilers for anyone who might see it in the coming days (it runs to Nov 3)

Among verbatim pieces, I feel this works quite well; the premise and the conversations themselves facilitate the editing, which I often find so problematic in this sort of writing. The style, snapping through different times, rewinding at times, is like a live on stage manifestation of scrolling through your Facebook news feed.

The actors shared polished performances, and director Chris Abraham’s choices to juxtapose the hyper-real with the non-naturalistic (at times) movement helped amplify this feeling of a disjointed digital world. The use of cameras to zoom in or out underlined, at times, the responses (or lack thereof) of the other 3 participants. One touch I really enjoyed was that the curtains were open to the street on some windows, so when we heard a bus or truck drive by (impossible to avoid in this space), we could also see them not only in the changing light, but also in the camera picking them up behind actors….an ever-present reminder of the real world that this play is situated in.

All of that said, I couldn’t help but wonder about what was missing; there was only one person of colour represented (the character Hope), which meant that during in-depth discussions of “Muslim immigration”, the voice of Muslims in North America was starkly absent. Similarly, there was no reference to indigenous issues (notably, there was no land acknowledgement in advance of the show) and although positioned with Canadians, the discussion was highly US-Centric (perhaps a bit tellingly truthful of our own lives and thoughts). But most importantly, I worry that despite efforts to remind us that theatre does not exist in a vaccuum (through the open window, etc) the play, at least in the audience I saw it with, did actually; the audience felt inherently against the Alt-Right character Valerie, laughing at her responses in a manner that they did not laugh at other characters. I think that efforts to show Valerie and Shayne (the self-identifying queer, Jewish, anarchist) as foils to one another fell down in the presence of an audience who (based on their responses at least) seemed quite liberal. I would love to see this play amongst an audience who wouldn’t normally see this kind of play; people like Valerie, or even James, who as the other conservative character gets lots in the scuffle between Valerie and Shayne.

A lot to keep thinking about here, for sure, and in many ways some of the most effective use of verbatim theatre I have seen…however if we keep telling these stories into an echo chamber, are we really changing anything?

review. The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe @ Howland Company & Crow's Theatre

The Howland Company and Crow’s Theatre have put together an exciting young cast to share Sarah DeLappe’s Pulitzer shortlisted firecracker of a play, The Wolves, with Toronto audiences for the first time. Centred on a girls’ soccer team, DeLappe’s play gives us what pretty much no other play has; young girls, in their own element, speaking as they do, overlapping, multiple conversations at once, simultaneously ultra-serious and completely silly. This play is an important landmark in playwriting. Reading it the first time, the structure and language reminded me of first encounters with Caryl Churchill….fiery, searing, powerful, and undeniably female.

This production, directed by Courtney Ching-Lancaster, makes use of a thrust setup and minimalist turf setting, showcasing the all female cast and giving them nowhere to hide. Off the top the energy is a bit over-the-top, but within a few minutes, as the overlapping chatter begins, the actors settle in and we start to see the girls as they are. There are lots of reasons to be nervy as a performer, with a lot of ball manipulation required throughout, and extremely challenging dialogue. A standout is Amakah Umeh as 00, the perfectionist goalkeeper, who simply radiates, despite the fact that we hear very little from her.

The scenes are divided by movement scenes set to abstract electronic music; I hoped for a bit more in these sequences, ultimately they felt like filler rather than urgent and necessary….they detracted from the forward momentum of the script. On the whole, I craved more movement that was representative of soccer bodies in space. While the performers did move a lot, it somehow felt static, and not necessarily linked to the pace of the play. The most compelling moment was 00’s fierce repetition of man-makers, until you feel like she might vomit; an honest portrayal of the fierce determination of these young women to succeed. The overall pace was decent, however I felt it lacking a musicality in the build-up and release of tension as the voices and conversations move over one another, then disperse, from density to sparsity so easily. As a result, some of the tension building in final moments was, for me, a bit lacking.

All that, however, does not detract from the overall necessity and importance of this show. I saw the production with my 14 year old, who herself is among the elite soccer players her age in the province. She has seen a lot of theatre, so has some high expectations; it has been a long time since I have seen her as captivated and engaged in a story. It is such a telling demonstration of what representing experiences on stage can do for someone. Please, please; if you can take a young woman in your life to this play, do.

review. The Wedding Party by Kristen Thompson @ Crow's Theatre

It has taken me awhile to feel like I could write about this play. The Wedding Party is deliciously fun, tears in your eyes, gut-hurt funny. This isn't the reason it took me so long. In the days following my attendance at this hilarious, intelligent, beautifully written and expertly performed production, it felt as though the world was falling apart. Trump began a daily barrage of executive orders that upended what we think about human decency and caring for others. In the face of this, how could I reconcile a play that was by contrast, seemingly so light in subject and tone? 

It came to me the other night, however, on one of my late night dog-walks, seeing people come out of the theatre with huge smiles on their faces (I live upstairs of The Crowsnest). Seeing those faces of pure joy as they walked toward their cars or transit. Hearing them recalling favourite moments, that they'll "never look at a dog in the same way" or "windbreaker of lies" followed by shared laughter, it occurred to me that the point of this kind of play is to be a release. A release from the drudgery, the sadness, the despair. And it is so utterly necessary sometimes to just laugh. To laugh at the idiosyncrasies of an elderly grandmother, or a young boy, or hilarious twin brothers with opposing personalities. To laugh when we see ourselves, our own humanity in these people. 

This post is less about the production (which is fantastic, and I 100% recommend to anyone, anywhere) but rather about why this sort of play, which might feel frivolous in these times, is still important. We still need to laugh. To laugh is to remind us of our humanity. 

Also, seeing Tom Rooney in a scene with himself is something that everyone should experience. 

review. The Watershed by Annabel Soutar @ Tarragon / Crow's / Porte Parole

As a lover of theatre, I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about verbatim plays. On one hand, I find they are an amazing way to explore contemporary and political stories that feels real and connected, unlike purely dramatic fiction which can come across as issue-based, single-sided, and staid. On the other hand, I struggle with issues of ethics in the story (eg: including the conversation where someone asked not to be included, or highlighting as a plot point the refusal of those with opposing opinions to participate). That said, I found Soutar's script to deftly avoid many of these potential roadblocks, to create a fast-paced and engaging story about something extremely important -- water. 

The performers of this re-mounted production were uniformly outstanding, most of whom played multiple tracks of parts with quick change timings that would make a stage manager faint. Juliet Fox's outstanding modular set demonstrated both utility, and an overwhelming sense of the fragility of our current situation portrayed through the play, by situating the actors on a set completely constructed of pallets. 

There were definitely bumpy moments for me, from a dramaturgical perspective, including the inclusion of former Prime Minister Harper as a character (though great comic relief) and quite a lot of same-idea pushing businesspeople and politicians -- I felt the script might have benefited from a tightening to focus on what I found the most compelling, the story of the 3 little girls. Hearing the interview questions asked of adults "just doing their job" from the mouths of intelligent young children was jarring, and demanded we pay attention to what and how we answer. An excellent production and script overall, I just felt that this broadening of scope potentially missed the opportunity to really hit home by asking us real and difficult questions. Most adults have been in that position -- where a young person you love and care for asks you a question about something that even you don't understand in the world. When this happens, we are compelled to answer and yet know that there are no words that can answer their unending "why". This was the power of The Watershed, in my opinion. Young voices asking WHY. 

The Watershed runs to Oct 30 at Tarragon in association with Crow's Theatre & Porte Parole.