City of Angels a cynical work for young MacEwan cast
City of Angels is one of those Broadway shows that bubbles along just below the surface of the great ones. Sure, it’s no Sound of Music but it is a solid, ingenious and entertaining evening. First produced in 1989, the book by Larry Gelbart (M*A*S*H*, Tootsie) is a witty satire on Hollywood, a spoof with […]
PLAYBILL: A real Cinderella story
There must be something compelling about the Cinderella story that it keeps being told again and again and in so many ways – more than 2,000 years after it was written. Following the first example of a tale of a slave girl who marries an Egyptian prince through a series of improbable events, Alberta Ballet […]
Emotional Poison lets the healing begin
A man and a woman sit in a bleak room under an unforgiving white light. Rain falls incessantly and thunder beats a distant tattoo. Their halting conversation begins painfully as they attempt to overcome the emotional residue of a relationship that ended a long time ago. The two are in a holding room in the […]
New Cat Walsh play full of dead ends and detours
Edmonton Playwright Cat Walsh writes in a Ray Bradbury-ish style of sci-fi: horror, creatures and the end of the world. She’s no horrormeister looking for a cheap scare, but fills her unsettling works in an ever growing suspense-filled environment acted upon by threatening exterior forces. She is more Hitchcock then George A. Romero. You may […]
PLAYBILL: Northern Light shines on Catholic sexual politics
The only girl in a Catholic family longs to be an “altar boy” in the latest offering from Northern Light Theatre – the second of three plays this season exploring the sexual identities of women set against Christian culture. The last one was heavy: The Testament of Mary, wherein long after the events that took […]
Outside Mullingar charming Irish blarney
John Patrick Shanley is an American playwright equally at home in whimsy – the Oscar-winning Moonstruck – or serious drama – the Tony-winning Doubt. In his new play Outside Mullingar, currently in production from Edmonton’s Shadow Theatre at the Varscona Theatre until March 25, he descends deep into Martin McDonagh’s patented Irish territory to attempt […]
Children of God an intensely powerful experience
The Citadel Theatre’s production of Corey Payette’s new work, Children of God, is the most unusual musical you’ve ever seen. It is a noble and surprisingly successful, an effort at marrying two of theatre’s most widely divergent aspects – the musical and a social drama so raw that it has traumatized an entire country. It […]
PLAYBILL: Children of God about redemption
Why the Canadian government thought it was a good idea to forcibly remove indigenous children from their families and place them into what turned out to be thoroughly horrible “residential schools” remains a mystery. Or anyway, “to assimilate them into Euro-Canadian culture” is just not a very good reason. In fact, the act was nothing […]
PLAYBILL: La Traviata in Chez Pierre
The adventures of Edmonton’s “other” opera company – Mercury Opera – often feel like an old Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland movie. By golly, we’ve found a barn, you’ve got some singers, Joe has some lights – let’s put on a show! In the past, Mercury Opera has staged operas in LRT stations, at circus sideshows in […]
Mamma Mia! How can I resist you?
It would appear that we can’t get enough of Mamma Mia! Large theatrical productions of the show have played the Jube at least three times now. For a while, before Beauty and the Beast and The Greatest Showman came along, the movie was the biggest grossing musical film of all time. And, bets the Citadel […]
Laugh, cringe and think: Metis Mutt a triumph over racism
“My name is Sheldon Elter and I’ll be your native comedian for the night” – and thus the Edmonton-based actor-musician-comic (and a whole pile of other talents) launches into Metis Mutt, his semi-autobiographical one-man show at Theatre Network until March 4. Be prepared to be immediately outraged. We live in an age where various ethnic […]
Motown the Musical: Berry Gordy’s lavish love letter to himself
Motown: The Musical begins with a high decibel blast of pure soul straight from the ’60s. Immediately we are in the midst of a marvelous musical battle – an energetic sing-off between The Tops and The Temps (Temptations), two of the best known male groups from the early years of Motown. From their patent leather […]
