Winter theatre

Some selections for the freezing season

There’s a post-familial numbness in the new year that sets deep in the brain like a frost, caused by too much family, too much food and too much contemplation of the past. From all accounts, SevenThirty Productions’ version of Martin McDonagh’s violent, scathingly funny Lieutenant of Inishmore should shock you out of that. It’s currently playing at The Gladstone Theatre until Jan. 24. The Company of Fools then bring their long-running clown interpretation of Shakespeare to the stage on Feb. 4, and finally Feb. 25 ushers in John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt.

Douglas Coupland became one of Canada’s major literary figures with his fluffily disillusioned, run-of-the-mill take on disaffection. I’m very interested in what a really talented dramatist can do with his work. Developed by GG Award nominee Michael Lewis MacLennan, Vision Theatre presents Life After God on Jan. 21.

After an incredible 40 years of writing, Sam Shepard remains an undisputed master of American contemporary drama. Until Jan. 24, the NAC is staging the play that won Shepard his 1979 Pulitzer Prize: Buried Child. On Jan. 27 the NAC moves into more familiar territory with Anne-Marie MacDonald’s Belle Moral: A Natural History. MacDonald is that rare talent who’s become a landmark figure in both drama and regular fiction.

For anyone looking for real freshness in performance, or a real infusion of foreign energy, until Jan. 25 you can find the touring version of Theatre Newfoundland’s Tempting Providence at the Great Canadian Theatre Company. Beginning Feb. 24, they follow that with The Drawer Boy – a comic play that gathers some of Ottawa’s most veteran talents into one cast.

Finally, Third Wall Theatre continues a mandate of community-based work by partnering with the young actors of the Ottawa School of Speech and Drama in Ibsen’s famous Peer Gynt, beginning March 10.

As appeared in the Ottawa XPress – Jan 15, 2009
http://www.ottawaxpress.ca/stage/stage.aspx?iIDArticle=16436