Jo Ledingham Theatre Reviews

A Particular Class of Women

At Presentation House until February 23, 2014 (Port Moody's Inlet Theatre March 6-8)
You’d better not mind looking at a lot of lovely young flesh because this NeverYouMind production puts a lot of it out there. Taking it off is what A Particular Class of Women is all about and the sheer enthusiasm of these eight actors was enough to get the opening night crowd hooting and hollering.

Lauren A. Campbell, Lisa-Marie Marrelli and Flora Karas in A Particular Class of Women.
Credit: Joel Dufresne

Chelsea Hotel: The Songs of Leonard Cohen

Arts Club on Tour until March 15, 2014
One acoustic guitar, two electric guitars, one violin, one cello, three kazoos, one banjo, one ukulele, one bass, one accordion, one keyboard and a set of drums. Six performers.

Rachel Aberle, Marlene Ginader and Lauren Bowler in The Chelsea Hotel

BUG

At The Shop Theatre (125 East 2nd) until March 1, 2014
Oh, I get it now. Blood, guts and gore can be hilarious. I never realized that before so I’ve just stayed away from horror flicks for years.

Jay Clift as Peter in BUG. Credit: Matt Reznek

The Pitmen Painters

At the Jericho Arts Centre until February 16, 2014
Act 1 of Lee Hall’s The Pitmen Painters is a gem: intelligent, relevant, provocative, political and funny; eighty minutes flies by.

Paul Herbert, Michael Wild and John Prowse in The Pitmen Painters. Credit: Doug Williams

The Seagull

At Telus Studio Theatre (UBC) until February 8, 2014
Anton Chekhov subtitled The Seagull “A Comedy in Four Acts” but the great Russian playwright has been hard pressed to convince audiences – spanning more than a hundred years – that this play is funny.

Mercedes de la Zerda and Thomas Elms in The Seagull. Credit: Tim Matheson

ONE

At The Cultch until February 8, 2014
With a name like his, Mani Soleymanlou is always going to have people mangle the pronunciation and ask where he’s from. Well, Soleymanlou is from Montreal. But is he – really? That’s the question he asks himself.

Mani Soleymanlou in ONE. Credit: Productions Lombric

Night

At The Roundhouse. No more performances.
What we usually hear about Pond Inlet, Nunavut, is bad news: poverty, shamefully inadequate health care and housing, substance abuse and suicide. What we heard in Night (five performances only) was a story told in the Inuktitut language: soft and lyrical, full of ‘u’s, ‘q’s, ‘t’s and ‘l’s.

Photo credit: Chris Gallow

The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi

At SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts until January 25, 2014
At the heart of Larry Tremblay’s 1995 play is an event that might have been a murder or just a tragic accident. Unfortunately, this central issue doesn’t surface until three-quarters of the way through the play.

Photo credit: Danny Taillon

A Brimful of Asha

At the Arts Club Revue Stage until February 8, 2014
“Asha, Asha, we all fall down” – laughing, that is. Like a plump, benevolent Buddha (although Jain is her religion), Asha Jain sits with her hands in the lap of her bright pink sari and beams across the table at her son Ravi.

Asha Jain in A Brimful of Asha. Credit: Erin Brubacher

Measure for Measure

At Pacific Theatre until February 8, 2014
If anyone can make power-mad, dissolute Angelo look repentant at the end of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, it’s Simon Webb. Woebegone, eyes averted, he speaks the lines, “Immediate sentence then, and sequent death/Is all the grace I beg” with such sincerity, Webb does tug a little on the heartstrings.

Simon Webb and Pippa Johnstone in Measure for Measure. Credit: Ron Reed

< 1 … 62 63 64 65 66 … 75 >