The Believers an unbelievable scare
The first thing you notice is a deep blackness, a dark menacing cloud that hangs over everything. It bleeds down in ragged sheets of rain. There is a wall, a staircase and a table. After the creepy preamble, around that table are two people engaged in a heated argument. They are slowly and painfully trying […]
Prostitution play fails to grasp serious subject
When it premiered in Toronto in 2014, Erin Shield’s new play Soliciting Temptation conflicted the reviewers. The Globe and Mail could only eek out “tolerable” while The National Post found it “the season’s best new play.” A new co-production from Calgary’s Sage Theatre and Edmonton’s Shadow Theatre – at the Varscona Theatre until March 26 […]
Eric Church stages epic bender in Edmonton
It was rather fitting to have outlaw country artist Eric Church perform at Northlands Coliseum rather than Edmonton’s shiny new Rogers Place on Friday night. This self-proclaimed outsider has an affinity for the good ol’ boy Albertan stereotype of the hard-workin’, beer-swillin’, truck drivin’ bro rather than the slicked up executive suits of downtown. Operating […]
Crazy for You makes old hat new again
You want an escape from the March blahs? Crazy for You, the joyous “New Gershwin Musical” playing at the Citadel Theatre until March 26, is just the medicine you need for melancholy. This two hours and 40 minutes of grace, wit and great music is part screwball, part vaudeville, part Busby Berkeley and all cheerfully […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Women have the power
We definitely need more than one day to celebrate International Women’s Day – seeing as it’s surrounded by the 364 Days of Men. How about a week, better yet, a month? Make it six months, or hell, the whole damned year. Women deserve no less for what they’ve done. Meanwhile, the unofficial spillover from the […]
PLAYBILL: Sexual tourism takes a hit
Sex is good. Tourism is good. Now put the two together and what do we have? A bunch of creepy perverts going to Thailand or wherever to hire prostitutes that would be legally underage in North America. Off with their heads! The perverts … not the girls. So in case we’re not riled up enough […]
Colin James phones it in sick
About four songs into Thursday night’s nearly sold out show at the Jubilee Auditorium, Colin James figured he’d acknowledge the giant elephant sitting in the corner – as the rasp in his voice and evident lack of energy made the score pretty clear. He was sick. “Winnipeg was brutal,” he said of the show there […]
Stupid Fucking Bird gives wing to Chekhov
Anton Chekhov is best known outside of Russia as a playwright of yearning disappointment, unrequited love, missed opportunities and unsatisfactory relationships. He actually thought he was writing a comedy when he penned a play called The Seagull in 1896 – and therein lies a part of the problem. According to those who know about these […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Outstanding in their field
It’s a marriage made in Americana heaven – Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt, together again, helping America achieve the greatness it never wasn’t. By touring Canada. These two old friends play Friday night at the Jubilee Auditorium in what is expected to be a right proper schooling in the fine art of the singer-songwriter genre. […]
PLAYBILL: Chekhov gets pecked
As if Anton Chekhov weren’t weird enough that he needs modernizing, what with that creepy story about him turning into a cockroach … whoops, wrong depressing Eastern European and/or Russian author. Kafka was the bug. Chekhov is the cipher. The work set to the thumb screws here is Chekhov’s The Seagull, considered a masterpiece despite […]
