The best of new native theatre gets a showing at the annual Weesageechak Begins To Dance Festival this year’s 24th edition, presented by Native Earth Performing Arts, includes workshops of six scripts, pieces by young writers and several sessions of professional development.
The performances start with Angela Loft’s Hoofs, based on a legend of the seductive Hoof Lady, and Clifford Cardinal’s Huff, a story seen through the eyes of an eight-year-old, spell-casting guy (both on Wednesday, October 26). The next night features a Keith Barker double bill, From Nothing and This Is How We Ended Up Here (October 27).
Next up are works by new playwrights, members of the Animikiig Program, and by Thundering Voices, a group of emerging playwrights working at the next level of artistic development (October 28).
The final day’s presentations are Darrell Dennis’s Where Have All The Warriors Gone?, an exploration of native archetypes in post-contact Canadian society, and Kenneth T. Williams’s Deserters 110910, a futuristic tale about a war-filled world in which most of the male population has been wiped out (October 29).
Also part of the fest is a music performance by Tamara Podemski (October 26), Michelle Latimer’s film Choke (October 27) and a closing-night party.
You can also take part in several discussion groups and talks. They include artistic visioning with Denise Bolduc, Barker (Native Earth’s current playwright-in-residence) and Williams reflecting on their growth as playwrights and an indigenous design round table with Andy Moro. All are welcome, but registration is necessary (October 25 and 26).
This year’s Weesageechak Festival is at Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson). See listings or nativeearth.ca.
Haunted rooms
If you like to get up close and personal with a play’s action, you’ll love Murder On Ossington.
Limited to 10 people a night, the Pandemic Theatre production takes place at a secret, site-specific location that, despite the mystery surrounding it, has an intentionally plain, everyday feel.
This season Pandemic is exploring themes of violence so far they’ve presented Vampire Lesbians Of Sodom and This Wide Night. Murder On Ossington, written and directed by Tom Arthur Davis and Alex Rubin, continues the exploration of brutality in our day-to-day lives, with vignettes that look at domination, jealousy, assault, racism and robbery.
Every house has its share of memories, says our grim-faced guide (Rubin, ingratiating in his ad libs) at the evening’s start. He demonstrates his thesis during the hour-long show as the audience, divided into different groups, moves from room to room.
While there’s a kinetic excitement in some episodes and a bit of emotional subtext as well, on the whole the scenes are too short to make much of an impact. The exception is a power-play two-hander (with Tara Grammy and Ron Kelly) in which control and the desire for shared affection are at odds by the time the scene’s over, we feel a complex sympathy for both characters.
See listings.
Theatrical Marathon
Lots of marathons fill Toronto streets in autumn, but only one of them is driven by art.
The fall Off Bathurst Theatre District Marathon on Saturday (October 22) again involves three theatres that lie just off the Bathurst strip: Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille and Factory Theatre.
The day starts at 2 pm with a performance of Those Who Can’t Do… (review here) at Passe Muraille, followed by HARDSELL 2.0 (review here) at 4 pm at Factory. After a 6 pm prix-fixe dinner at Diverso by Ferraro 502, the day concludes with an 8 pm performance of In The Next Room Or The Vibrator Play (review here) at the Tarragon.
The entire day costs $95, though there are discounts for subscribers and those who don’t want dinner as part of the marathon. And you don’t have to run between venues unless you want to transportation is provided from one theatre to the next.
See listings or totix.ca.
Comedy gold
Lots of familiar names got the top honours at last Monday’s Canadian Comedy Awards. The gala’s host, Steve Patterson, walked away with the best male stand-up award (in an interview with me he joked that he hoped the other nominees got in a four-way tie for second), while Debra DiGiovanni won best female stand-up, her third win in that category. If you’ve never seen DiGiovanni’s act, you owe it to yourself to see her upcoming Single Awkward Female tour which brings her to the Panasonic on November 13.
The best sketch troupe award went to Halifax’s Picnicface, while best improv troupe honours went to the National Theatre of the World and their Impromptu Splendor show. The NTOW is taking Manhattan by storm this weekend and both NTOW (doing sketch for the first time) and Picnicface perform at the Toronto Sketch Festival from November 8 to 13.
Other big awards include the Second City’s show Something Wicked Awesome This Way Comes, which deservedly won best comedic play, revue or series, and Daniel Stolfi, whose Fringe hit Cancer Can’t Dance Like This took best one person show honours.
In the improv category, Ron Pederson and Sarah Hillier won best male and female improvisers. Eric Andrews won best stand-up newcomer.
Nikki Payne won best taped live performance for her Halifax Comedy Fest 2010 special, while Pat Kelly and Peter Oldring (who will also be performing at the upcoming Sketchfest) won best radio clip or program for their hilarious CBC radio show This Is That.
We still think there are way too many award categories, particularly in TV and film, but since we were on the jury this year we’re happy that Ken Finkleman won for best writing in a television program or series for his work on the show Good Dog.
The Daily Show’s Samantha Bee took home the Canadian Comedy Person of the Year, while Jayne Eastwood won the Dave Broadfoot Award and Cory Mack won the Chairman’s Award.
For a full list of winners, go to canadiancomedy.ca.
Hard Facts
We haven’t seen the work of playwright Arthur Milner in Toronto for a while, so we’re anticipating the reading of his play Facts this coming weekend.
Based on the 1992 murder of an American archaeologist in the West Bank, the play focuses on the relationship between two detectives, one Israeli and one Palestinian, and their collaboration when questioning a suspect.
The cast includes Richard Greenblatt, Sam Kalilieh and Aaron Willis.
Proceeds from the reading will go to support a production, in Arabic, of the play by the Palestinian National Theatre in East Jerusalem, followed by a tour.
A talkback with the actors and Milner follows each of this weekend’s performances.
See listings.
Monster’s magic
Kids had lots of fun last weekend at the workshop of Mammalian Diving Reflex’s Monster Makers, presented as part of Harbourfront Centre’s Fresh Ground series.
So, in fact, did their parents, who enjoyed the energy of the production, in which a scientist (John Caffery) tries without success to create a scary monster (Daniel Nimmo, all in black, with a beehive-shaped head). At the same time, a photographer (Amy Lam) is about to shoot them for a major magazine cover.
The scientist asks for help from his young audience, and they jump right in, showing the shy monster how to roar, walk and generally be… well, monstrous.
The show breaks the bounds of the theatre as we follow the monster, now adorned with red, blue and yellow velcro patches, outdoors he climbs trees, plays games, has a poop under a bush and eventually flees from the hordes of children chasing him as if he were their favourite dog.
This is the tricky part of the show – containing the audience so it doesn’t get too out of hand. Writer/director Darren O’Donnell and those working with him do this really well, never restricting the excited youngsters but moving them along with the action.
The show also talks about what failure means and how much it affects our lives both children and adults offer their viewpoints here.
The photographer, who’s been taking pictures throughout the show, contributes her thoughts by offering images of the day’s shoot to the audience. Some are good, some are not, and she admits that a high failure rate means she’ll have greater success at a good shot.
But while that discussion is smoothly incorporated into the production, we’d bet that what young viewers remember is the show’s active part rather than the message that it’s okay not to succeed all the time.3
stage@nowtoronto.com
