COUNTESS MARITZA – REVIEW OF 2025 TORONTO OPERETTA THEATRE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The Toronto Operetta Theatre brought a vibrant, well-sung and delightful production of Imre Kalman’s Countess Maritza to bid farewell to 2024 and ring in the New Year. I am not sure if the operetta has been produced in Toronto before (I have not heard of any recent productions) but it is the 100^th anniversary of the work and the 40^th year of TOT and both are good reasons to celebrate.

The operetta has a large cast and some wonderful melodies. The plot? Well, Countess Maritza (Holly Chaplin) is rich, beautiful, eligible, available (a widow) and the target of suitors galore. To avoid them and enjoy her huge estate, she announces and publishes that she is engaged to Baron Zsupan. It is a subterfuge to get rid of the suitors because there is no Baron Zsupan. Oops, there is a Baron Zsupan (Joshua Clemenger) who shows up to claim his betrothed.

In the meantime, a handsome but impoverished Baron Tassilo (Scott Rumble)  works as manager on the Countess’s estate disguised as Bela Torek. He needs to raise some money for his sister Countess Lisa’s (Patricia Wrigglesworth) dowry. You see, he is no gold digger,

We have a fictitious fiancé who turns out to be real, a Count who pretends to be an estate manager, Maritza’s housekeeper Manja (Lori Mak) who is also a fortune teller and predicts happy events. She does a lovely job singing the opening aria “Luck is a golden dream” and joins the ensemble but does not get any other solos. The main characters have friends and companions and there is Prince Popolescu (Sebastien Belcourt)  who is after Maritza and Princess Bozena (Meghan Simon), Tassilo’s aunt. 

                                                        Holly Chaplin as Countess Maritza.. 
                                                                Photo: Gary Beechey

Kalman was a master of melodies and lively arias, duets and choruses. The protagonists are paired for their duets and foretell the outcome of the operetta which is never in doubt. Maritza’s estate is in Hungary and Tassilo sings “Vienna Mine” which is where the operetta had its debut. Lisa and Tassilo sing about their “Childhood memories,” Lisa and Zsupan sing “When I start dreaming” and Maritza and Tassilo really turn on the romantic heat in “Be mine, my love be mine.” It’s a minor point that can easily be avoided but do tell the dancers that they are waltzing and not stomping on grapes to produce wine. Smaller steps and pretend you are floating.

Clemenger plays Zsupan as a bit of a duffus but he can’t be an idiot because we need good husband material, He has to marry a poor woman or else he will lose his fortune. Good work by Clemenger.

Rumble and Chaplin give solid performances as their relationship goes from boss and servant to “Waltz our worries away” to “Be mine my love, be mine.”

Conductor Derek Bate did heroic work with his band of ten musicians lined up across the apron of the stage.

Three were a couple of minor issues like the inelegant waltzes and some of the minor characters who had  a hard time pronouncing English.

The costumes by Thunder Thighs were plentiful and beautiful and some of the props came from the Stratford Festival were very good and helpful.

I end my review as always with comments about Guillermo Silva-Marin. He is the director and lighting designer of the production and the General Director of Toronto Operetta Theatre. To put it succinctly, no Silva-Marin, no operetta in Toronto. That is a compliment to him and a slap in the face of Toronto. He does everything on a shoestring budget in a small theatre, with a tiny “orchestra.”  It is shameful that Toronto cannot fund the opposite of what he is getting and produce first-rate operettas in a better venue. The production got only three performances and that is surely a hindrance to just about every aspect of operetta in Toronto.

Let’s tip our hat or applaud him for what he offers to Toronto.     
____________ 
Countess Maritza by Imre Kalman in a new English version by Nigel Douglas was performed  on 29, December 2024 and on January 3 and 4, 2025 at the Jane Mallett, Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, 27 Front Street East, Toronto, Ontario. Tel:  (416) 366-7723. www.torontooperetta.com

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press

TITANIQUE - REVIEW OF 2024 PRODUCTION OF MUSICAL AT CAA THEATRE

Reviewed by James Karas

Can you turn the sinking of the Titanic, a tragic event of 1912 where more than 1500 of its 2240 passengers drowned, into a stage farce? The answer from most people would be not bloody likely but that applies only to people  who have not seen the musical Titanique that is now playing at the CAA Theatre in Toronto.

The musical is loosely based on the mostly fictional story of the 1997 James Cameron  film with the  added character  of Celine Dion (Veronique Claveau). She is in a museum about  the ship and takes over as our host in the telling of the story based on the movie. The story is about Jack (Seth Zosky), an impoverished artist passenger who stops Rose (Mariah Campos), a beautiful young woman from committing suicide by jumping overboard. They fall in love, of course, but here are some issues. Rose is engaged to the wealthy Cal (Michael Torontow), an arrogant jerk whom she does not love. Celine Dion is a focal point of the play with a soaring voice and a spell-binding performance that is hilarious at times and in control of the audience throughout. At the end of the performance you will find out about her presence on the Titanic in 1912 and in a museum  a century later. I do not se and tell.

The book for the musical is by Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue. It has eighteen songs by various composers. Molly Brown (Erica Peck) better known as the unsinkable was in fact a passenger on the Titanic who survived. 

What do you get? You get an assault on your ears, eyes and the senses that lasts for the full 100 minutes of the show. The singing is outstanding but the excessive volume is at best annoying. The spectacle of lights and kinetic energy on the stage has its place but there is such a thing as too much. 

The original Canadian company of Titanique. 
Photo Credit: Marie-Andrée Lemire

The whole thing is a farce, a burlesque, a spectacle. We saw Veronique Claveau imitate Celline’s performance style and she was indeed spectacular. The great voice is only a small part of her performance artillery. She uses her whole body like an additional punch to her singing, throwing her arms in the air, twisting her body, soaring and keeping the audience in the palm of her hand. If she just sang, however beautifully or powerfully, she could keep an audience entertained for a while but she does a lot more than that.

The other songs the singers are part of the comedy as well as belting out songs at a volume and pitch that should leave them without vocal cords after 100 minutes but most of it is turned on volume through the speakers that should mean  the strain is felt (and endured) by the audience and not the performers.

To turn a tragedy into a farce you need broad humour, slapstick, and good and bad jokes. There is only lettuce to eat today, someone says. I hope it is not iceberg, comes the reply. The pathetic number of lifeboats, the speed of the legendary liner and the relationship between Jack and Rose is always played for laughs. Acting is almost never considered and overacting is practiced incessantly. The actors take comic poses, throw their arms up in the air and overdo everything for a laugh. Rose’s mother Ruth  (Constant Bernard) is an example of a caricature of a comic character that is played strictly for laughs.

The humour is current (we have to put up with Trump for another four years) and slapstick and everything else in between is done  as long as it garners a laugh. It did frequently. Christopher Ning appears as the Iceberg Bitch, he Tour Guide and id I am not Mistaken as Tina Turner, played for laughs, of course.

I go to the theater to review the performance  and not the audience but many times a comment about them is irresistible.

A lady near me found the whole show so absorbing and entertaining that she laughed at almost every line, posture and gesture, and invoked her deity or her virtue (OMG) with alarming frequency. There were some good lines but I had a mixed reaction to her enthusiasm. On the one hand I envied her because she enjoyed the performance so enthusiastically but on the other hand, I could not figure out her endless excitement, especially when she was almost the only one in the theatre doing it. I could not join her extreme enjoyment that was so artificially enhanced by, as I said, an assault on my ears, eyes and senses. There may have been others in the audience who shared my views but most people probably did not.

Well, there is no accounting for people's taste.  
__________________
Titanique by  Marla Mindelle, Constantine Rousouli and Tye Blue continues at the CAA Theatre, 651 Yonge St. Toronto, Ontario. For more information go to: www.mirvish.com/

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press

UNBELIEVABLY BELIEVABLE – REVIEW OF 2024 TWISTED DOG THEATRE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

In the opening scene of Unbelievably Believable, three actors, one male and two females  enter the playing are of the tiny Sandcastle Theatre. They appear sleepy. One is lying on a pillow and trying to get comfortable, the other is reading a book and the third appears with a cup of something trying to do the same. They say nothing and the action is mimed. The man (Gregory Katsenelson) is a magician and he performs a few tricks.

When the three do speak we realize that they are mice or puppeteers and we enter their dream world. The 55-minute show is played in a number of scenes that appear disparate but are connected by the disparate nature of dreams be it by humans or mice or birds. The show has birds like chickens (only four allowed per house in Toronto and NO roosters), a raccoon, a baby-delivering stork and of course the mice.

There is a dragon on a video projection who cleverly jumps out of the screen and ends up in the hands of Katsenelson. There are humorous exchanges with the stork, the raccoon, the chickens and the mice, songs and dances. Sophie St. Jean has a lovely voice and sings in the play in addition to being the choreographer and a provider of songs. 

Gregory Katsenelson, Sophie St. Jean and Katie Crompton. 
Photo: Ivan Kaydash 

Katsenelson showed dancing and athletic prowess in addition to an expert hand in magic and a fine overall performance. Katie Crompton did fine work in all aspects of the play.

The play is intended for all ages but its length and starting time of 6:00 pm on weekdays  in the evening and 11:00 am and 3:00 pm on weekends suggests an important focus towards children. There were some children in the evening that I saw the play and they reacted enthusiastically to the show but there was not enough broad humour to engage and keep the little tikes roaring.

The play has a  good deal of variety in the vignettes that make it up and with humour, song, dance and magic it is very entertaining

Unbelievably Believable, to the credit of Maleikova, is also a celebration of Toronto. They project a large map of  the Leslieville and Riverdale areas of east Toronto with pride. What’s more, Unbelievably Believable owes a great deal to the Maleikov duo of  Catherine who wrote, produced and directed the play as well as designing the costumes and to Ivan Maleikov who designed the lighting.

It is a highly entertaining production and may I suggest that it deserves a bigger theatre? Have the people at Young People’s Theatre seen it?
___________________________
Unbelievably Believable  by Catherine Maleikova opened on December 6 and will run until December 15, 2024, at the Red Sandcastle Theatre, 922 Queen St. East, Toronto. https://twisteddog.ca/

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press

SLEEPING BEAUTY … A Fairy’s Tale – REVIEW OF 2024 THEATRE ORANGEVILLE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Sleeping Beauty … A Fairy’s Tale is a boisterous, irreverent and very funny parody of the famous fairy tale. Please note the apostrophe. Debbie Collins and David Nairn have written the farcical rendition of the beautiful princess who is put to sleep by a spell from a nasty fairy and is woken up after a long snooze by the kiss of a handsome prince. Well, sort of.

Sleeping Beauty is now playing at the small (273 fans capacity) and lovely theatre, the Orangeville Opera House in a production by Theatre Orangeville.

The play is introduced by the vivacious and rhyming couplets spouting Larry the Fairy (Ben Skipper). That is his job and not his sexual orientation. He and the other two good fairies, the lanky Sophia (Andrew McGillivray) and the diminutive Meriweather (Christina Gordon) are the protectors and the adoptive parents of Princess Bella (Annika Tupper). All three of them? you ask. Please, this is a fairy tale and not 60 Minutes.            

The three fairies sing, dance, fool around and provide delightful comedy. But there is also an evil fairy, properly named Maleficent, who has an axe to grind and is dedicated to doing nasty things. Dressed in black with horns that make her resemble Brünnhilde, she is intent on killing or making the lovely princess sleep for a  long time. A juicy role that co-playwright Debbie Collins plays with gusto and relish helped by the energetic boos of the audience.

Maleficent has a junior sidekick in Diablo (Ben Skipper), a raven dressed in black and asked to provide comedy for all, even if it means overacting.

On the human side, we have a King (with William Lincoln doubling in the role) who speaks  with a thick Scottish accent and a Queen (Annika Tupper doubling in the role) and both are richly attired is royal outfits and you would never guess that the actors playing them are the stars of the show.

            A scene from Sleeping Beauty .. A Fairy’s Tale. Photo: Sharyn Ayliffe

But let us concentrate on the stars, the beautiful Princess and the handsome Prince (William Lincoln) who sing well and win our hearts as soon as they appear. They have to experience some tribulations, even setbacks but we know they will find happiness with their beautiful singing and despite their uneven dancing.

This is interactive theatre. Larry the Fairy instructs the audience on how to react to each fairy, positively and enthusiastically for the nice ones and boo loudly the bad Maleficent. There were few children when I saw the play but the mature audience cheered and booed with relish. They needed very little instruction or coaching. They just did it. Playing the audience proved a wonderful ploy for the authors and director David Nairn. The actors seem to enjoy it and the audience reveled in it.

The production has a complement of behind-the-scenes artists that would be the envy of many bigger professional companies. Set Designer Beckie Morris (she is also the Production Manager) designed the pretty view of a fairy tale including the royal castle represented on a panel that can be pushed on and off center stage as required, Costume Designer Wenndi Speck needs to outfit the four fairies, and the raven with colourful and comic attire. The Princess needs a beautiful dress and the Prince should look like he is worthy of her. He does and is.

Nicholas Mustapha, the Musical Director, played the piano and directed the songs from “Happy times are here again to” to “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” from The Pirates of Penzance.

Most of the characters whooped it up, danced to the choreography of Candace Jennings fracturing the fairy tale and entertaining the audience. Chris Malkowski is the lighting designer for the numerous scenes from the castle to the forest and others.

Sleeping Beauty … A Fairy’s Tale manages to be faithful to the story (well, sort of), pokes fun at it, generates fun and humour and ends with a kiss. Sort of. I am no snitch to give precise details. I will  give one snippet provided by Sophia: Marriage is like a game of bridge: you need a good partner and if you don’t have one you need a good hand. It brought the house down.
___________________________
Sleeping Beauty … A Fairy’s Tale  by Debbie Collins and David Nairn produced by Theatre Orangeville will run until December 21, 2024 at the Orangeville Opera House, 87 Broadway, Orangeville, Ontario. www.theatreorangeville.ca/
James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press

TOSCA – REVIEW OF 2024 REVIVAL OF McVICAR’S PRODUCTION LIVE FROM THE MET

Reviewed by James Karas

Puccini’s Tosca is back on the stage at the New York’s posh Met Opera and brought to a movie theater near you, Live in HD, as they say. It  is a revival of David McVicar’s redoubtable 2017 production that replaced the earlier and highly controversial staging by Luc Bondy. Seeing an opera by Puccini is a reminder that with is death in 1925 came the demise of opera as we know it from the standard repertoire. There are many brave and notable attempts to insert a post-1925 opera into the hearts of opera lovers but none has succeeded completely.

McVicar with Set and Costume Designer John Macfarlane has chosen a traditional approach following the precise locations of the three acts of the opera. The monumental Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Act 1 is displayed in all its grandeur and beauty. When the choir sings the Te Deum, we are immersed in physical and choral splendor. Similarly, Scarpia’s residence in the Palazzo Farnese in Act II is big, dark and the abode of a man who wields power. A clue to the type of power he wields is provided by the painting of Peter Paul Rubens’ Rape of the Sabine Women hanging on the wall.  

The final act takes place on the ramparts of Castel Sant’Angelo and the set resembles a faithful reproduction of the place of execution of Cavaradossi and the revenge of Tosca.

 A scene from Act Iii of Tosca. Photo: Marty Sohl/Met Opera 

Tosca has four main characters and its main arias, duets and choral pieces, are well known and most opera lovers have probably seen and  heard numerous recordings. The pivotal role is that of the beautiful, jealous singer Floria Tosca. Lise Davidsen takes on the role with assurance and delivers a performance with vocal prowess and beauty. She is a tall lady and no one can mistake her for a wilting flower but her passion for Cavaradossi leads her to “betray” him when he is being tortured. It is a delight to hear her intone “die, die” over Scarpia’s body. My slight complaint is that when the guards realize that she has killed Scarpia and they rush to capture her she hurls her famous last words “O Scarpia before God” as she jumps over the parapet. In this production she sings those words and then runs up the few steps to the edge. I think she should say them as she jumps.

Tenor Freddie De Tommaso has a sonorous voice that sounded bigger than it probably is especially in the first act where the theatre I was in played the broadcast at  an uncomfortably loud volume. They reduced it after several complaints at the intermission. But he was fine as the lover, good friend and defiant victim of torture and finally in his swan song “E lucevan le stelle” when he thinks he is about to be executed. Beautifully done and emotionally sustained.

The brutal Police Chief Scarpia steals the show with his unbridled evil and his misogyny that spills over into a desire to rape. Baritone Quinn Kelsey exudes all those traits with frightful force and conviction. It is hard to imagine him as the loving Germont in La  Traviata asking his son to return to the beautiful land of Provence or one of the boys in La Boheme. Superb performance.

A tribute to bass-baritone Patrick Carfizzi, a comprimario singing the role of the Sacristan. It is a small role but he sings it well and invests it with humour in an opera that is not known for too many laughs. A bow to Mr. Carfizzi.
_____________
Tosca by Giacomo Puccini was shown Live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera on November 23, 2024 at the Cineplex VIP Don Mills, Shops at Don Mills, 12 Marie Labatte Road, Toronto Ontario M3C 0H9 and other theatres across Canada. For more information: www.cineplex.com/events

JAMES KARAS IS THE SENIOR EDITOR, CULTURE OF THE GREEK PRESS

HONEY I’M HOME – REVIEW OF FACTORY THEATRE PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

Honey I’m Home is a play that is written, performed and directed by Alaine Hutton and Lauren Gillis, now playing in the Studio of Factory Theatre, Toronto. Angel Blumberg is the third performer. They play several characters but the program does identify their roles.

The 70-minute piece opens auspiciously with an old woman sitting in a chair and clearly unable to communicate.  Another woman who looks like a nun and has a ringing voice tells us that the incommunicative lady does in fact convey that she understands that the nun is present. In other words, even though the woman is catatonic, she can communicate at some level.

For most of the rest of the play the nun and the catatonic woman are replaced by two, perhaps more, performers representing the same person and her double, in other words, the catatonic woman is seen crouching over a computer screen, perhaps just some lights, and her double is seen through a space in  a wall talking intelligibly to someone called James and someone called Jeremy who speak but are never seen (nor are they identified in the program). The crouching woman gets up occasionally and trots around the stage with difficulty while quick orders are given to her about what to do. Is her double that speaks intelligently and James and Jeremy are robots operated by artificial intelligence? I don’t know.

 

Alaine Hutton and Lauren Gillis in Honey I'm Home. 
Photo: Eden Graham/Factory Theatre

I could not tell until the end when the nun appears and tells us that the catatonic woman has come out of her idiopathic (no one knows what it is) condition and we assume she has recovered. I have no idea but simply make suppositions.

There is considerable screaming and the appearance of a mouse and I am not sure what its role was in the world of the play.

The underlying ideas seemed opaque and the structure of the play with numerous short scenes with some that lasted for a few seconds did not help the situation. Computer-savvy people and those with greater knowledge of robots and artificial intelligence greater than mine may have grasped the tenor of the play but I admit that much of it escaped me. The evolution from catatonia to rational existence also escaped me.

Looking at the behind-the-scenes team, it seems obvious that a great deal of work has gone into putting the production together. A few of the people involved: there is a consulting Director (Adam Lazarus), a Dramaturge (Mel Hague), coaches for scene work (Rosemary Dunsmore) and movement (Denise Fujiwara), a vocal coach (Fides Krucker) and designers for sound (S. Quinn Hoodless), Lighting (Andre du Toit), set, prop and costumes (Lauren Gillis and Alaine Hutton) and other crew members. Those are extraordinary efforts.    

Honey I’m Home looks like experimental theatre that requires knowledge and understanding of current scientific concepts that I lack and therefore could not enjoy the play.

Too bad.   

_________________________

Honey I’m Home written, performed and directed by Alaine Hutton and Lauren Gillis in a Lester Trips (Theatre) Company production, opened on November 22, 2024, and will run until December 1, 2024 at the Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario. www.factorytheatre.ca.

MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL - REVIEW OF SPECTACULAR MUSICAL AT THE CAA ED MIRVISH THEATRE

Reviewed by James Karas 

MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL by John Logan  is based on the 2001 film written by Baz Luhman and Craig Pierce. It is now playing at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto before rapturous audiences if opening night is any indication. The musical has been around for years and it seems to be unstoppable.

I saw it for the first time on opening night in Toronto. The aspiration, perhaps motto of three of its bohemian characters (Christian, Toulouse-Lautrec and Santiago) and the subtitle on the Mirvish  program is TRUTH, BEAUTY, FREEDOM, LOVE. That covers a lot of ground and there are claims to all those visions or dreams in the show but they were not the first thoughts that occurred to me during and after the performance.

Moulin Rouge is a grand spectacle. Before the show begins there are bright lights illuminating the stage and projected on the audience and they continue when the performance begins. The whole stage is brightly lit in a kaleidoscope of colors accompanied by loud music with percussion played at volumes that made my chest quiver. The audience loved it.

The sight and sound become the hallmarks of the production with some amazing  acrobatic dances by Choreographer Solya Tayeh including the famous cancan. Did I see any dancers who could not kick their heels above their head? And as with the cancan, the attire of the dancers and the dances were erotic as became the motif of the real Moulin Rouge club on the left bank of the Seine in Paris. They are spectacular.

The stars of the show, after the dancers and ensemble singers and the musicians, are Satine             (Ariana Rosario), the Duke of Monroth (Andre Brewer), Harold Zidler (Robert Petkoff) and Christan (Christian Douglas) and his friends Toulouse-Lautrec (Nick Rashad Burroughs) and Santiago (Danny Burgis). The latter three friends are bohemians who want to produce a play with songs for the Moulin Rouge.  

The cast of the North American Tour of Moulin Rouge! The Musical. 
Photo Credit: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade.

These actors/singers are the people that present the plot and, yes, there is a plot that is needed for us to enjoy the real spectacle of the musical and try to fit the TRUTH, BEAUTY etcetera of the bohemians’ aspiration. Satine works at the Moulin Rouge and she is described as the jewel of the club, beautiful, talented, extraordinary and many other epithets of a similar nature. She meets Christian, a young man from Ohio who has gone to Paris to pursue his ambition to become a composer. The innocent American abroad falls passionately and eternally in love with Satine (“I will love you till the day I die” he sings) and that hardly begins to describe his passion.

We have a problem. The club is in dire financial trouble and needs an infusion of money NOW. There is the Duke who has lots of money and is attracted to Satine but she needs to give herself to him. She is so successful that the nasty Duke buys the club and owns (his word) everything and everyone lock, stock and barrel.

The first meeting that Satine is supposed to have with the Duke to convince him to invest in the club becomes a hilarious encounter when she actually meets Christian. There are hilarious double entemdres with Christian talking about composing songs and she thinking he is talking about sex.

The plot is necessary as a coat hanger for the sound and sight spectacle which,  as I said, I think is the heart of the musical. The love story is conventional. Christian and Satine cannot continue because the Duke threatens to kill  him. The manager Harold, Satine and the rest  have no choice but to bow to the dictatorial Duke. And if that were not enough, Satine gets consumption and claims to truth, beauty etc. go by the board unless I missed something.

Moulin Rouge  does not list a composer or lyricist because the music and songs are a potpourri of compositions by others that take a couple of pages to list in the program. The musical  is supposed to take place in 1899 but if you think you ae hearing some very recent songs, you are not hallucinating.

The Scenic Design by Derek McLane, the costumes by Catherine Zuber, the Lighting by Justin Townsend and the Sound Design by Peter Hylenski are what make the show so (I have to say it again) spectacular. The whole thing is brought together by Director Alex Timbers and it may not be as complex as the Normandy landings but it is a lot more enjoyable.     
___________
Moulin Rouge! The Musical  by John Logan (book) opened on November 21, 2024 and  continues at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre, 244 Victoria St. Toronto, Ontario. www.mirvish.com

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press