As much as theatre creates fictional human beings, basing the fiction of a play in the life of a real historical figure lends that story a lot of weight. It can never escape the gravity of that person’s heritage, the mystery of piecing together the emotions behind the actual events of a life.
Daniel MacIvor is one of Canada’s most respected theatrical artists. Widely renowned as both a writer and performer, he built his early career on stunning, engrossing one-man plays before leaving the genre to take up different challenges. This Is What Happens Next will be his return to the one-man-show format after years of sabbatical. When asked why he moved back into this kind of writing and performing, MacIvor readily admitted that it’s simply where his life led him. “I didn’t have a choice,” he said.
The first thing you will notice about the GCTC/NAC co-production of Vimy is that it looks amazing. The costumes are wonderfully detailed and, thankfully, not stylized: The greens and browns of military garb are real, the heft and clank of the props show they’re real equipment. The set and scenery are all evocative of trenches, dirty wood and burnt trees. A lot of love and care have gone into the look of this play, and it pays huge dividends in drawing you in through the senses. READ MORE
To call David Harrower’s Blackbird a bare bones play is nearly an understatement. It’s stripped down in almost every way that comprises a work of drama: two actors, a man (Ray) and a woman (Una), interact in sentences that more resembles a hail of verbal bullets than human thoughts – they stop and start, they fragment and halt. When you read it on a page, it’s almost ambiguous; it could be either be genius or drivel. What makes it sing is that it doesn’t merely stay on the page. READ MORE
I, Claudia evokes a rare power GCTC opens its season with a surprise I sat for I, Claudia assuming that I would experience nothing firm enough to crack the veneer of being an audience member. But I was wrong. When I glanced towards my companion and saw tears on her cheeks in the stage light,…
The year in theatre has been fascinating and full of energy – not so much spectacular as it was thrumming with a deep, constant pulse of building momentum that promises a great future for this city.
Most important to the theatre community as a whole was the opening of the new Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre, housing one of Ottawa’s oldest enduring companies, the Great Canadian Theatre Company.