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Culture Stage

Stage Scenes: Cage match dramatics

Cage match dramatics

You could argue that cage match championships are as much theatre as sport, and recently we’ve seen the Coal Mine transformed into a literal cage contest for its production of Bull.

Now Theatre Passe Muraille takes the idea of cage playoffs further with The Ultimate Theatre Championship, a three-day event ending with a gala fundraiser.

A series of “act-offs” between welterweight, middleweight and heavyweight performers fill the cards from Thursday to Saturday (April 9-11), with the audience choosing their favourites, placing bets and indulging their theatrical blood lust.

Created and led by Rebecca Northan, who co-hosts with Ron Pederson, each evening pits three pairs of actors against one another. The welterweights are Joella Crichton and Craig Pike, Katherine Cullen and Rose Napoli, and Christy Bruce and Qasim Khan. In the middleweight category are Leah-Simone Bowen and Craig Lauzon, Alex McCooey and Ellen-Ray Hennessy, and Kristen Thomson and Matthew Edison.

The final bill sets Kate Hennig against Tanja Jacobs, Maja Ardal against Andre Sills and Ted Dykstra against Richard Greenblatt. Tickets for this last evening are $100, which includes a charitable receipt, drinks and exhibition-style gourmet food.

Here’s how it works. Round one includes a monologue from a Canadian play, round two is a cold read from another Canadian work, and the third is a free round in which the actors can choose how to show off their talents.

In addition, the title match – the final duo each evening – includes a musical round and an improvised, slo-mo stage fight.

Each fight is judged by a panel of celebrity and industry judges, working with referee Colin Doyle.

See listing.

Cult favourite

We caught the opening segment of the all-female improvised Cult Wayward last week, and judging from the hilarity we want to see each remaining show (it runs at Bad Dog Theatre every Thursday in April).

It’s set at a mysterious cult run by an unseen “great leader.” But even though this leader wasn’t present (we have a feeling the role will be played by Lisa Merchant in future episodes), there were plenty of strong personalities in the commune. 

Among them are Glorm (Kayla Lorette, in bizarre headgear) and Carol Dignity (a cool, laconic Carolyn Taylor), who are locked in a power struggle that divides the followers Casey Silverton (Christy Bruce), an intense English-accented woman who abandoned her family and looks like she could snap at any moment and Randi Booth-Savage (Evany Rosen), a suburban mom who thought she was going to a weekend spa, ended up here and desperately wants to return home to her twins.

Director Becky Johnson narrates the show, setting up scenes so characters bump up against each other to reveal backstory, creating conflicts that might pay off down the road. 

Often something totally weird but funny will happen, such as when Rosen’s Randi is asked to recreate the movie Jurassic Park for Tough Rod (Jess Bryson), a young baseball-obsessed misfit, who possibly reminds Randi of her own kids, and Sister Meredith (Monica Heisey), who’s had some bad experiences with previous cults.

I also appreciated B-list actor Jannifer Dump’s (Ann Pornel) Philip Glass-like song about the lowest point in her career. (Laura Barrett’s musical accompaniment was more effective here than it was in the Jurassic Park scene.)

Other surprises were Glorm’s habit of stopping scenes by recounting messages from the unseen leader, and a sub-subplot involving possums being kept in jeans. 

There’s a wide range of experience onstage – along with Merchant, Ashley Comeau and Alessandra Vite will appear in future episodes – but there’s a feeling of generosity at play. We found out afterwards that one actor, Meghan Swaby, had never performed improv before. Incredible.

In a great ensemble, Lorette and Rosen stand out. Lorette, with seen-it-all eyes and voice pitched low and menacing, is one of those comics you can’t stop watching, while Rosen, her high-pitched hysteria recalling the great women of SCTV, is clear, confident and unafraid to take risks.

The show continues until April 30. Make sure you arrive early. As word spreads, this Cult show deserves to sell out every seat.

More info here

See listing.

Second-time Shrew

Shakespeare BASH’d had its first hit in the 2012 Fringe with a site-specific pub version of The Taming Of The Shrew, featuring Julia Nish-Lapidus and director James Wallis as Kate and Petruchio.

At the time the two were engaged and planning their wedding. Now they’re married and rediscovering the material for a remount featuring some original cast members along with new performers. This time around Alex Johnson, who acted in the Fringe version, takes on directing duties.

Since then, too, Shakespeare BASH’d has staged several other fine productions of works by the Bard, both in the Fringe and during the regular theatre season. Can’t wait to see how Shrew – not cut down as it was in the Fringe original – has grown.

The company is keeping the bar setting the show, which opens Thursday (April 9), runs at the Monarch Tavern.

See listing.

Cool grads

Every year the graduating class of Humber College’s theatre performance and production ensemble creates and performs an original show.

The current company, which has dubbed itself Calm, Cool & Collective, calls its devised work Approaching Zero. Examining the lives of disappearing people who have set themselves or been set apart from society, the show draws on text, physical exploration, shadow play, puppetry and vocal and instrumental scoring.

As in past seasons, the troupe stages its creation in the Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace, opening Thursday (April 9) and running through Sunday (April 12).

See listing.

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