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
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
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
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
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
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
At the Jericho Arts Centre until January 12, 2014
Thanks to director/creator Joan Bryans, I will never enter a polling booth again without thinking of Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928), leader of the British suffragette movement back in the early days of the 20th century. It’s easy to forget how these courageous activists paved the way for the rest of us.
Barbara Ellison (centre) as Emmeline Pankhurst in Rebel Women. Credit: Nancy Caldwell
At The Cultch until January 18, 2014
Uncle Vanya is one of Anton Chekhov’s funniest plays and John Wright, directing for Blackbird Theatre, captures all the humour he can find in it.
Robert Moloney and Luisa Jojic in Uncle Vanya. Credit: Tim Matheson
Reading back over all of my 2013 reviews – about a hundred and fifty of them – brings back such wonderful memories: this script, that actor, this set design, that soundscape. Here’s what stood out for me beginning with Terminus, a pi theatre production directed by Richard Wolfe.
Pippa Mackie in Terminus. Credit: Ian Snow
Under the White Big Top in the Village on False Creek until January 5, 2014
For joy, there’s no better place than under the White Big Top where sixty-seven horses gambol with forty-eight two-legged performers. This is Odysséo, Cavalia’s new show that brings men, women and horses together in such an atmosphere of mutual respect that your heart will almost burst with delight.
Oasis. Credit: Pascal Ratthé