Hello everyone! I am very pleased to be writing to you all from beautiful Halifax, Nova Scotia and my own computer (my laptop crashed a few weeks ago, which led to most of my blogs being hastily typed up between 1am-4am at the fine libraries of the University of Toronto). It’s nice to be home, and Meghan is excited to be sending in her first blog from Toronto very soon! Exciting theatrical happenings abound and there is no rest from the success of Canadian theatre artists so I thought that I would do a little roundup of some of the stories that have caught my eye in the past little while that can be summarized neatly into tidy paragraphs.

            First of all, as I’m sure you have all heard, the American Tony Award Nominations were announced shortly before I left Toronto. You can read the list here. I have found that the Tony Awards have lost a lot of their former excitement for me. The Economic Crisis has certainly had an impact on this season of productions which can be seen as a conglomeration of safe, “sure-fire hits.” Even the heart-warming Billy Elliot is a musical based on a film, and a British transfer to Broadway (after it won nine Laurence Olivier Awards is there any surprise that it has been nominated for fifteen Tonys?). My concern is that even before the recession, a few years ago it seemed that Broadway all of a sudden became saturated with musicals based on popular films, Jukebox musicals/revues, and Disney musical adaptations. While I have no problem with any of these three genres individually, I am disheartened at the thought of their power to completely dominate the Great White Way entirely for economic purposes. How will the future Rodgers and Hammersteins, Kander and Ebbs, Lerner and Loewes, Sondheims and Princes, Fosses and Fiersteins, Schwartzes and even Larsons emerge to create art in such an artistic climate? I guess there is always off-Broadway and Fringe.

            Broadway legend, comic genius and television superstar Carol Burnett is coming to Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina and Saskatoon (slightly random!?) this June!! Her show Laughter and Reflection with Carol Burnett is an evening of live, impromptu, banter with her audience. The audience is encouraged to ask questions which will no doubt spiral into hilarious stories and theatrical bliss. Burnett is most well-known for her smash-hit televised variety show The Carol Burnett Show (1967-78) but she also has a slew of other stage, film and television credits to her name. She will be at Massey Hall in Toronto June 12^th, 2009, Manitoba Centennial Concert Hall (Winnipeg) June 10^th, 2009, Conexus Arts Centre (Regina) June 14^th, 2009 and TLU Place (Saskatoon) June 16^th, 2009. All shows are at 7:30pm. Carol Burnett does not seem to have an official website, which I think is unfortunate, so for tickets you’re going to have to search the events individually via www.ticketmaster.ca.    

            Artistic Director of Buddies in Bad Times, David Oiye announced his resignation May 7^th after a ten year tenure with the company. Oiye, who is also a playwright and a theatre director, says that his decision to step down will give him the opportunity to focus on his own artistic endeavours as well as the chance to “shake things up within the company.” Buddies has faced some recent economic hardship but has been met by fantastic support from the Queer Community and the theatre community and its fundraising efforts from earlier this year apparently exceeded the company’s initial projections. According to xtra.ca (where Queer’s conspire) “during his tenure Oiye presented over thirty-five queer productions, including twenty Toronto premieres of queer Canadian work, as well as oodles of short works as part of Buddies’ nine Rhubarb and four Hysteria festivals. Oiye’s administration also led Buddies productions through 18 Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations, winning six.” Buddies has also recently released its 2009-10 Season, which reflects not only the company’s economic stability and optimism but also a new direction for Buddies, as all of the mainstage shows have been created by women. I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to David Oiye for all his hard work and artistic vision for the past ten years. I wish him all the best in his future theatrical ventures and I know that his work will continue to be at the forefront of Canadian queer theatre.

            You can see the delightfully charming singer Brad Hampton and his fierce (and always stunning) accompanist Patti Loach at Sharron’s Party on May 29^th, 2009 at 8:00pm, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. For tickets call 416 975-8555. First; however, check out this promotional video. It’s all the rage.

            What do Peggy Baker, Jill Barber, Isabel Bayrakdarian, Laila Biali, Kristin Booth, Melanie Doane, Rosemary Dunsmore, Karina Gauvin, Geri Hall, Evelyn Hart, Christine Horne, Arsinee Khanjian, Dawn Langstroth, Ann Marie MacDonald, Seana McKenna, Alisa Palmer, Louise Pitre, Roxanne Potvin, Sonia Rodriguez, Sarah Slean, Dione Taylor, Kristen Thomson, Theresa Tova, Kate Trotter and Sook Yin Lee all have in common? Well, they are all fabulously talented female Canadian artists, but they also all wear clothes designed by the supremely creative, posh-yet spunky- fashion designer Rosemarie Umetsu. These women are all part of Iconic Beauty, which was founded by Umetsu in 2008, as an “ongoing project to celebrate the individual style and art of the Canadian Female Artist through the medium of Fashion Photography.” Each year twenty-four female artists are chosen from across Canada, styled and dressed by Umetsu, and then photographed (this year by Caitlin Cronenberg). Each photograph is interpreted by a visual artist, through a “spectrum of genres that vary every year.” The photographs are exhibited in association with CONTACT, North America’s largest Photography Festival (May 6-31^st 2009) R.U studios. 96 Avenue Road. Thursday-Saturday 11am-5pm. Or by appointment. 416 924-7575.

            Proceeds from the net sale of the paintings and photographs will be donated to Learning Through the Arts. Established in 1994 in Toronto, the LTTA encourages, fosters and promotes children to be creative thinkers and leaders.

            Patricia Zentilli, the first lady of the Canadian musical theatre, is currently in Edmonton, Alberta playing Christine Colgate in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre. She received this glowing review from Liz Nicholls of the Edmonton Journal: “Patricia Zentilli, who knows everything there is to know about delivering a musical theatre ballad like Nothing Is Too Wonderful To Be True, plays their mark, soap queen Christine Colgate, wholesome, blond, American and loaded. She knows how to move those goody two-shoes of hers. Delish.” Delish indeed.

            The National Theatre of the World has announced that Impromptu Splendor has been accepted into the Los Angeles Improv Festival! After proving to be “the real winners of the weekend” at the Chicago Improv Festival last month, which garnered Matt Baram, Naomi Snieckus and Kayla Lorette this praise from Time Out Chicago, “Equal parts funny and tragic, and aided with the help of improv legend Joe Flaherty, these guys proved themselves to be brave, brainy and incredibly agile,” Baram, Snieckus and (Ron) Pederson will take on Hollywood the first week of June! I wish them the very best for this new adventure; the National Theatre of the World is swiftly becoming a real bright feather in Canada’s cap! I wish that Carol Burnett’s appearance in Toronto preceded the LA Improv Festival because I think Impromptu Splendor and the Carnegie Hall Show would be right up Burnett’s alley. She would also be an incredibly fun guest star… maybe when they hit New York?  

            Finally, it has come to my attention that Tony Award winning Broadway star Idina Menzel and her husband Taye Diggs are expecting their first child later this year. I want to wish them every happiness and joy for what I know will be an amazing adventure. Congratulations! (Read the Amanda-Idina Interview here!)

It is a testament to Tarragon Theatre that I am once again sitting down to write a review of a production that has sold-out its entire extended run. It seems partially foolish to even write the review at all, considering that there are no tickets available, so clearly my job is no longer purely promotional. Helping to sell tickets to shows is only one part of my mission in running this blog, however; the most exciting aspect for me is to share my admiration for the artists who create the work that theatres sell tickets to, to raise awareness of these artists within and outside the theatre community, and to lend my voice in support for Canadian theatre. And so, I write a review of Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch’s play East of Berlin, which plays until Sunday at the Tarragon.

 I have read numerous memoirs penned by Holocaust survivors throughout my Canadian education. I have contemplated how complex the aftermath can be for survivors and their families- specifically while reading plays like Anna Deavere Smith’s Fires in the Mirror and a work like My Name is Rachel Corrie. I have used laughter as a weapon while applauding The Producers. I have frequently been repulsed by the thought that humans are capable of inflicting such horrors on one another, and have vowed adamantly to “never forget.” But, I had never once thought of an S.S. Guard existing outside of a Concentration Camp, and I definitely had never conceived that he might have had children. But, of course they did. It seems so obvious. But history is funny like that. We don’t like to humanize the villains too much.

Moscovitch gives us Rudi, an awkward, but ultimately charming, guide into the murky world of post-war Paraguay, a not so secret, not entirely hidden refuge for former high ranking Nazi officials. It is a world where Hitler’s birthday is celebrated at the bar, and where a seventeen year old can discover that his father had performed medical experiments on human beings at Auschwitz. Here we confront the questions with ambivalent answers- can we divorce the actions of a parent from our perceptions of a child? How far does familial loyalty go? At what point do we abandon our morals in order to look out for our own self interest- or- at what point do we abandon our pursuit of self interest and decide to take a moral stand? What motivates us to make our decisions? Are they ever pure? Is there a “wrong” reason to love someone, just like there is a wrong reason to hate someone? This play could read like an essay, it could be Brechtian and alienating- but thankfully Moscovitch has created complex, specific characters and brilliantly engaging dialogue. She balances the darkness with a sense of humor and a strong sense of irony. “Who said that?” Rudi asks himself after reciting a quote, starring at the audience, “I hope it wasn’t Hitler.”

The play is led expertly by director Alisa Palmer, who thrusts the action into the audience’s lap, so that they feel as though they are in the same room with the three characters. Implicit in the action. The intimacy works wonders, except for during the two sex acts, which became extremely mechanical due to the sightlines where I was sitting. On the other hand, there was a particularly beautiful tender moment between Rudi and Sarah while they were reading a Jewish prayer book that had a true sense of subtly and sincerity. 
             Diana Donnelly plays Sarah, a Jewish girl searching for her past, who refuses to be clichéd. She expresses hostility toward her Holocaust survivor mother and an interest in Rudi’s father’s military jacket. Donnelly gives a somewhat off-kilter performance that does justice to Sarah’s quirkiness. Paul Dunn is perfect as Hermann, a sardonic boy with emotions all bottled up, who would never admit it. The subtext Dunn creates is absolutely brilliant, as he expresses and represses in constant, rapid, succession. The star of the show is undeniably Brendan Gall, who infuses Rudi with so much detail and specificity that he truly comes to life before your eyes. It is Gall who is responsible for most of the magic in this show. He is our point of entry into this strange, unfamiliar world and through him we watch Rudi wrestle with the conflicts in his soul determined to find a black and white answer. He is fraught with humanity- his perfectly natural fractured speech patterns, his sheepish smile, the awkward way he proposes to Sarah at the parking lot of Auschwitz…

At the end of the play there are no answers and nothing is tied up in a pretty little package. Everything is quite messy and now the audience is implicated. A new perspective has been added to the dozens of others that we must consider in attempt to figure out where we stand morally and ethically as human beings. It is a perspective that grays everything in its path. How does the past inform the present? Can we ever escape it, or by just being born does it have us ensnared? If we divorce ourselves from our history, do we risk missing the lesson and forgetting? Can we be too quick to play the victim, or wallow in guilt for too long?

Surely these questions are all pertinent as we continue to construct the postwar world. And it’s murky. Like East of Berlin, there is no obvious dramatic arc and tidy ending. Life goes on and we may never know the answers.

I think what’s important is that we keep remembering to ask the questions.

East of Berlin will play at Vancouver’s Touchstone Theatre February 18-28^th and then at Edmonton’s Theatre Network from March 10^th-29^th, 2009. If you are there- you should go!

British playwright Caryl Churchill said in an essay that she published in 1960, “playwrights don’t give answers, they ask questions.” Her play Top Girls, which was recently revived by Soulpepper Theatre, definitely provides the framework to encourage some tough- yet stimulating- questions to be debated by audience members in the lobby, and possibly all the way home.

The play was written in 1982 as a comment on the tensions between two contrasting forms of feminism- the individual and the collective- raising the question whether it is possible for a woman to be successful in her career while maintaining a healthy relationship with her family. The issues raised in the play are complex and incongruous and do not contain any one simple solution even by 2008 standards. It left this third generation feminist with simultaneous feelings of frustrated despair, cautious pride, and a gritty determination to go out into the snowy night and have faith in her future as a young woman poised to at least try to fulfill her lofty dreams.

  The first scene of the play is a dinner party held to celebrate Marlene (Megan Follows), who has just received a promotion at the employment agency where she works. Her guests of honor are all prominent and controversial (and dead) historic or legendary women. The scene is obviously fictitious within the context of the otherwise realistic play, and is implied to exist within Marlene’s subconscious- either in a dream or her imagination. The marvelous women performing in Soulpepper’s production bring various degrees and interpretations of strength to this dinner party- from the forceful Pope Joan (Ann-Marie MacDonald) who will interrupt anyone, to the guff Dull Gret (Liisa Repo-Martell) who manages to command the stage although she is often the only one not speaking, and Patient Griselda (Cara Pifko), whose unwavering patience, loyalty and confidence in her decisions is simultaneously frustrating and striking. The women speak overtop of one another filling the theatre with a medley of voices and accents (especially amazing are Kelli Fox’s Scottish accent and Robyn Stevan’s Japanese accent) and opinions- drowning one another out, challenging each other and forcing the audience to sacrifice one narrative for another.

Some of my Ontarian classmates who have been privy to more of these sorts of productions than I have, strongly criticized Alisa Palmer’s direction of this scene saying that she allowed her actors too much shtick, which counteracted the strong social commentary this scene ought to have. It seems to me, however, that the heightened performances in this scene work well to establish the dream-like state and are consistent not with the way these women actually were in their lives, but how they exist in Marlene’s mind. In reality, is Marlene actually having a dinner party by herself? Is she drinking copious amounts of wine? Is this hallucination a product of her drunkenness?

 I also find Churchill’s choice of women to be particularly interesting. Isabella Bird, Pope Joan, Patient Griselda, Dull Gret and Lady Nijo are not stereotypical figures in history, in feminist teachings, or in popular culture. I found myself compelled to Google each of them when I returned home from the theatre. This speaks wonders of Marlene, that her education and breadth of knowledge expended so far that these would be the women she would invite to dinner (as opposed to, say, Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Mary and Joan of Arc).

In the Second Act we are introduced to two young girls, Marlene’s niece, Angie, (Liisa Repo-Martell) and her friend Kit (Cara Pifko) who dramatize poignantly how important it is for girls to have strong mothers, which connects with the admission of all the “top girls” at the dinner party that none of them had strong connections with their children. This scene is truly magnificent. Repo-Martell is brilliant as the deeply frustrated Angie interweaving disturbing images of hatred and violence, with innocent vulnerability and a strong desire to be liked and naïve admiration for her aunt. It is obvious that Angie has potential, but that she needs special encouragement and guidance in order to realize it. It is also clear that she will receive neither. Cara Pifko is superb as the younger Kit, a clever girl who looks up to Angie with exuberance simply because Angie is older than her, but who cannot understand why Angie is so disturbed. I give special shout out to Pifko for the way she runs up the stairs on all fours as she exits one of the scenes, as it is a beautiful homage to childhood that may too-soon slip an adult’s mind.

The formidable final scene between Marlene and her sister Joyce is the most gripping moment in the entire play and proves without question why Megan Follows and Kelli Fox are such giants of the Canadian Theatre. Fox creates a nuanced portrayal of Joyce, who on paper can seem even colder and more heartless than Marlene, who has been saddled with all domestic responsibilities and whose stress, despair and economic hardships has eroded any admirable ideals she may have once possessed. This leaves the audience to surmise that Angie is “not gonna make it” because neither of the women in her life have the energy it will take to help her, and thus she will most likely follow in Joyce’s dreary footsteps.

Similarly, Follows gives a glimpse of heart to the ruthless and selfish Marlene, a woman who has sacrificed her family for her career and yet finds herself craving familial relationships once she’s established herself as an independent woman. I will watch any show that Megan Follows performs in because she always brings such integrity and strong intelligence to every part she plays. The struggle between Joyce and Marlene in Top Girls epitomizes the entire play as two strong, talented and intelligent women portray two equally strong, complex, frustrating women who raise issues that audiences can sympathize with and tactics that audiences can find deplorable. It is a rivalry between sisters that dramatizes a rivalry between women of different classes, races, cultures, religions and opinions on feminism. How can we stand together and demand better for ourselves when each woman and her circumstances are so vastly different?

Caryl Churchill raises the questions. It is our responsibility to strive to live the answers.