Rating: NNNNN
Jefferies juiced
The 24th annual Dora Mavor Moore Awards on Monday (June 23) were a pretty staid affair. Thank God for Jeffery and Jeffery . After years away, the two mouldy Shakespearean actors in tunics and cloaks made a welcome return to the award ceremony, rushing onto the stage and regularly interrupting host Kristen Thomson with acerbic comments. Created by Guillermo Verdecchia and Jim Warren , they’re boozy, self-centred Brits who look down on the colonies and can’t imagine anything like decent drama here.
“Canadian theatre?” they sneered at one point. “Impossible. It’s a contradiction in terms. Get off the stage!”
These guys were more interested in partying than listening to boring presentations, and they ostentatiously turned the dreary listing of sponsors into a musical number.
There was even a dig or two at Stratford. Pretty brave of Warren, who made his directing debut there the next night with Sartre ‘s No Exit .
The Tarragon cleaned up in the general theatre category, winning seven awards for the Morwyn Brebner , Paul Sportelli and Jay Turvey musical Little Mercy’s First Murder and five for Morris Panych ‘s Girl In The Goldfish Bowl .
In the independent theatre division, the wonderful Poochwater collected two awards, both for Mike McPhaden , as writer and actor he tied for the latter award with Nigel Shawn Williams , recognized for Two Words For Snow . Snow also picked up design awards for Teresa Przybylski and Bonnie Beecher .
And our fave clowns, Mump and Smoot ( Mike Kennard and John Turner ), won outstanding production for Mump And Smoot In Flux . Another statue went to their director, Karen Hines . Strange to see Kennard accepting the prizes without speaking the duo’s trademark gibberish and without a blue spike on his head.
jonkap@nowtoronto.com
glenns@nowtoronto.com
