Evoking a positive negative NAC production is a beautiful and complicated piece of real art George Ryga’s play The Ecstasy of Rita Joe is the story of Rita Joe and her boyfriend, Jaimie Paul, who come to the city from their First Nations community in search of a freer life, but are instead destroyed by…
Updating the classics The undisputed master of science fiction, Ursula Le Guin, visits the Cap Ursula Le Guin’s latest work, Lavinia, isn’t a simple revision of Virgil’s Aeneid, an iteration of the story that corrects a perceived wrong “like what [Margaret] Atwood does with Penelope. She… feels that Penelope doesn’t get a fair chance, nor…
Generation A A Canadian literary icon unveils his latest work at BC Scene “You know, you’re actually the first interviewer I’ve ever spoken to about Generation A.” It’s helplessly vain, but I can’t help but be thrilled hearing Douglas Coupland say these words. As part of his BC Scene appearance in Ottawa, Coupland plans to…
A fascinating experiment in Bioboxes BC Scene brings an interesting theatrical experiment to the Cap We usually think of theatre happening in a space. A section of the living world is sliced off by walls, floor and ceiling and becomes, for a brief time, a pulsing new world – even outdoor theatre is still bordered…
Odyssey Theatre starts a voyage Latest production marks a change in the company Laurie Steven is anxious the morning we meet. I can see it in the way she peers around the room over her cup of coffee and in the quick, bird-like way she answers my questions. She’s the founder of Odyssey Theatre, a…
A long journey back Wayson Choy returns to the Ottawa Writers Festival It’s an ironic curiosity that the events that inspired Wayson Choy’s latest memoir, Not Yet, were initially caused by his troubles breathing, given the double meaning of the word “inspire.” In 2001, asthma and a heart condition conspired to almost kill Choy, in…