Local theatre is Playing Bare Evolution Theatre’s latest is fascinating, complex When an author references a canonical work, they always risk its shadow rising and overwhelming their effort. But Dominic Champagne’s Playing Bare manages to weave the shade of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot into a symbiotic whole with his own narrative. Unfortunately, this means that…
The Crimson Woman Ottawa erotica writer releases her third novel The English poet and essayist Alexander Pope wrote that “A perfect judge will read each work of wit/ with the same spirit that its author writ.” It’s a valuable tool in approaching literature to try to reconcile the form of a piece with the function…
Staging a coloured riot Autumn brings a new breath of theatre to Ottawa 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…
A modern monument to “Extraordinary Canadians” Penguin Canada launches a landmark undertaking to describe the Canadian soul Books: my fun, my schooling, my first, truest and only love. I write often about theatre in this paper, but, in confession, I write theatre from the vantage point of literature. Nothing in life exists until it is…
Something wicked this way comes Big-time Broadway production Wicked comes to the NAC The spiky Doctor Dillamond Musicals are stupid. And I mean that in a glorious, beautiful, massive, transcendent way. They are coarse, unrefined torrents of emotion that clutch at you with powerful moments of inspiration. Sometimes they overreach and become ridiculous with the…
Ottawa Fringe Festival 2008 Die Roten Punkte – Super Musikant (Super Musician) Written and performed by “Otto and Astrid Rot” “Otto Rot” and “Astrid Rot” (fictional names) An absolutely hilarious, achingly funny production; this one was definitely my pick as most entertaining show of the entire festival. Die Roten Punkte is a layered confection of…