Dysfunctionally Happy Together In her notes in the program, Director Alisa Palmer compares Noel Coward’s Hay Fever to the TV show Seinfeld. It’s a play about nothing, just as the Seinfeld creators said about their show. And like Seinfeld, Hay Fever is a group of quirky, eccentric people who pretend they are normal. The Bliss […]
Violin Rock ‘n’ Roll for Baby Boomers Last year, Victoria Playhouse presented Fiddler on the Loose and billed it as Country, Celtic and a Dash of Classical, making it a show all would enjoy. This year, they are reaching out to baby boomers with a rock and roll fiddler. Don’t worry, they throw in a
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Intriguing Farce Spies, surreptitious characters, secret passwords and clandestine meetings: With James Bond music playing as the play begins, you might think you are in for a thriller. Instead, Look No Hans is a door-slamming, silly British farce. Of course it has all the elements of a spy thriller but nonsense soon takes over, on
She is Yar The Philadelphia Story, on stage at the Shaw Festival, takes the audience back to 1939, to the wealthy who have survived the Great Depression. Survived? It looks like they flourished! The audience applauds the luxurious set as the curtain is raised. Everything is gold, silver and white – a lavish grand
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Love & Prejudice on a Tropical Island South Pacific is a big musical: in true Rodgers and Hammerstein style it has everything. There’s comedy, tragedy, war story suspense, unrequited love, and a lesson in the evils of racism. The production, now on stage at Huron Country Playhouse in Grand Bend, does justice to this old
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A Wedding Day Party The first hint that this was going to be a different sort of Midsummer Night’s Dream was obvious when we entered the theatre. Puffy white bows adorn some aisle seats – we are guests at a wedding. On the stage are the wedding guests, tipping back beer bottles, sipping from wine
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An Alternate World Yes, Alice, there is another world on the other side of that mirror…and it’s made for kids! In an effort to reach out to families and little children, Stratford is offering something to keep the attention of the 12 and under crowd. Big colourful costumes, zany situations and audience participation will make
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The Burden of Sanity In keeping with the theme of madness, Stratford Festival is offering two shows where the main character has dementia. King Lear is about the dark side of dementia, where the sufferer slips in and out of reality, frustrated, angry and hopeless. The polar opposite, Don Quixote is quite happy in his
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Nice Work – and they got it! If you like musicals with amazing dancing, powerful singing and farcical comedy – and who doesn’t? – get your tickets now for Crazy for You, on Stratford’s Festival stage, as this show will sell out this summer. Crazy for You is an interesting invention. George and Ira Gershwin’s
When Unconditional Love has Conditions Extended to Oct. 25. This production of Lear is now joining the ranks of Christopher Plummer’s Tempest in 2010, and William Hutt’s farewell Tempest in 2005 as the most popular Shakespearean plays of all time at Stratford Festival. Love between parents and their offspring should be unconditional. As soon as King Lear puts conditions
