The Gladstone Theatre: Show's over
A year in uplifting theatre is marred by the loss of the Gladstone
Maybe the most newsworthy and unfortunate thing to happen to the local theatre community is the announcement this past fall that the Gladstone Theatre, that lovely plaster-white building near Preston and Gladstone, is being put up for sale. Perhaps it was too much to hope that, after the success of the Great Canadian Theatre Company’s Irving Greenberg Theatre out in Hintonburg, Ottawa could afford to support another local professional performance venue.
In light of this news, theatre lovers will complain that Ottawa has no love for live theatre, but that complaint holds little water – our low spending on the arts is more to blame. Another factor to consider is that existing professional outlets like the NAC and GCTC simply saturate what market there is – and in the $40-a-ticket price range, that’s the competition. Though one or two of its productions could be called bombs, the Gladstone hosted its fair share of incredible contemporary plays (like Italian American Reconciliation), put on some memorable farces (Noises Off in particular) and employed all kinds of local actors. From the ground up, it was a well-conceived project executed with an optimism that resonated. We can hope that whoever buys it leaves it in something like its present incarnation, because it’s an outstanding professional performance space. Fittingly, the Gladstone ended its 2010 season with a staged radio play version of It’s a Wonderful Life.
The NAC English Theatre, after a much applauded performance of Mother Courage back at the beginning of the year, picked up where it left off with a new ensemble and a strong Romeo and Juliet, and then Vimy, their GCTC co-production. The NAC continues to press forward with drama as a sort of monumental project, exploring and creating the mythologies that drive us.
The GCTC had a terrific year with blood claat, a driving and inspiring one-woman performance by d’bi.young anitafrika. They also got great acclaim from their production of both Heroes and The Syringa Tree.
Other notable events this year in theatre included the venerable Arts Court starting to produce their own shows, and the Ottawa Fringe Festival having another standout lineup of excellent international performances. Here’s hoping that the local scene can step up and repair some of the damage that losing the Gladstone will do.
As seen in the Ottawa XPress, http://ottawaxpress.ca/2010/12/23/year-in-review-goodbye-to-the-gladstone-goodnight-sweet-stage/
