The summer theatre season in the city looks to be varied and lush. The first thing on your summer plate is This Is What Happens Next, a show from the marvellous, mercurial performer and writer Daniel MacIvor – an honest-to-goodness star in the world of Canadian drama. It’s at the GCTC now until June 12.
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.
“We’ve known each other a long time; we’ve killed roaches together in a rented apartment in Toronto years ago” is how actor Graham Ashmore describes his 20-year friendship with his co-star Arne MacPherson. The kind of chemistry that a pair builds up over that length of time is something “you can’t define, but an audience really picks up on it.” MacPherson agreed easily, noting, “If the people watching believe in the friendship, then they have a stake in the process.”
In 2011, the venerable Arts Court becomes residence to a trio of small companies, giving them a permanent place to hang their hats. Créations In Vivo, Evolution Theatre and the New Theatre of Ottawa all have a new home for 2011. Créations In Vivo starts 2011 with Légendes boréales, a show mixing theatre, acrobatics and music (Jan. 13). Evolution Theatre begins the year with Little Martyrs at the Arts Court (Feb. 9). It tells the story of two preteen murderers who meet up a decade after their crime. Festive! READ MORE
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. READ MORE
As a whole, though, and to put it as gently as possible, Nativity is confused. The two main stories were thrown into a pot together and the mix never really gelled. The play is written in alternating rhyming couplets, which can feel archaic to modern ears even if you appreciate its historical origins, especially when the rhyme is sometimes forced. READ MORE