Staging a coloured riot
Autumn brings a new breath of theatre to Ottawa
Steve Martin, owner of Gladstone Theatre. Photo: Ben Welland
The summer declines, ladies and gentlemen. But fall in the city can be a coloured riot of beauty and, in that spirit, I’m going to pack in as much as I can of what’s happening in local theatre this fall into the next 500 words.
Evolution Theatre has been flying under the public radar of late. They’re talented local actors who enthusiastically sharpen their blades on challenging Canadian pieces. Their latest, Playing Bare, appears at Academic Hall at the University of Ottawa from Sept. 3 to 13, and judging by the quality of their previous work this year, this production is likely to be a very fine end to their current season.
This fall brings the inauguration of The Gladstone, the newly refurbished theatre space that used to house the GCTC. It provides another platform from which local companies can build and produce their work. I’m really interested to see what will occur there next year – like all bare public spaces, it will fill and churn with ideas, and branch out in strange syntheses into the community around it. The first production out of the blocks for this new space is How the Other Half Lives from director John Kelly. If some theatre is flying low, then Kelly’s plays move through the public like a whisper underground. Kelly is an interesting character to drink with: self-deprecating, laconic and intelligent, with a sort of slow passion for theatre that unfolds at you. He brings this same paced intelligence to his plays. How the Other Half Lives runs from Sept. 11 to Oct. 4 (his subsequent productions, Catalpa and Kings of the Kilburn High Road, run Oct. 30 to Nov. 15 and Dec. 14 through to Jan. 3 respectively).
From Oct. 9 to 25, The Gladstone presents Rabbit Hole, from veteran local director Jan Irwin, the mind responsible for a vibrant and boldly stylized staging of Medea in 2007.
Third Wall Theatre presents Look Back in Anger, a play that pounded a great fat dent into the British theatrical landscape a half century ago. It runs from Oct. 21 to Nov. 1 at the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre.
I’ve known Vision Theatre to steer towards humour and lightness in their productions – generally with great success. But their production of the controversial and extremely political My Name Is Rachel Corrie should show whether or not they have the mettle to really delve into the oily, high-voltage end of things. It runs Sept. 10 to 20 at the Arts Court Theatre.
In a small city like Ottawa, with an artistic community basically the size of a scallop, it can be difficult to generate newness. Sometimes everything feels circular: the same actors, the same directors, the same approaches and problems. But the new Great Canadian Theatre Company season looks to be a fascinating aggregate of dynamic young plays, of totally unfamiliar and fresh art. I, Claudia – a one-woman mask show about the adolescence of a charming dreamer – runs from Sept. 9 to 28. It’s followed by Zadie’s Shoes which runs from Oct. 21 to Nov. 9, then Coma Unplugged, a hit comedy from Québécois playwright Pierre-Michel Tremblay, which runs from Nov. 25 to Dec. 14.
As appeared in the Ottawa XPress – Sept -4, 2008
http://www.ottawaxpress.ca/stage/stage.aspx?iIDArticle=15473
