MONKS - REVIEW OF CLOWN SHOW AT THE THEATRE CENTRE

Reviewed by James Karas

Monks is a marvelous vehicle for Veronica Hortiguela, and Annie Lujan to highlight their talents as clowns. There is no plot to speak of and the two actors dressed as monks have a bag of gags but rely more on interacting with the audience to elicit wild laughter, sometimes it seems out of nothing. 

One of the cowled ladies appears in the playing area and peers into a barrel. There is a scream (and a full laugh from the audience) as the other monk appears from within the barrel. The first monk points to the other one with her fingers in various configurations expressing surprise or wonder or who knows what and those finger actions and facial expressions have the audience roaring. These monks are clowns and they know how to make people laugh. And that’s just in the first couple of minutes.

In the tiny theatre (my guess, audience fewer than 100 people} the monks will run around the audience, roll on the floor, give us spray bottles to spray them with water and pass out lentils and I can’t remember what else. One of them has a mustache which becomes almost unglued and hangs uneasily from a corner of her upper lip.

They are supposed to be Benedictine monks in a Spanish monastery in 1157, fa la la. They tell us the rules of the monastery where there is no sex and no worldly possessions are allowed. Anyone breaking a rule is shamed by the audience. And the audience is ready to scream shame as many times as the monks direct. I don’t need to state that the audience’s participation is combined with uproarious laughter.

Veronica Hortiguela, and Annie Lujan. 

Photo: Audrianna Martin Del Campo

One of the rules of the monastery is that the monks are supposed to engage only in prayers and work. But these monks prefer to do nothing and the audience agrees with them.

They engage individual members of the audience with questions about what they do and invite one man to the stage. I assume the man who went on stage is not a plant but the monks managed to get a lot of big laughs.

The monks do have a donkey that they prefer to call an ass. The donkey loses its tail, it is found and they want to pin it on its ass. The donkey displays its anatomical appendage where its tail belongs, butt naked, and a member of the audience has to attach it there. You can only imagine the howls of laughter that this provoked. As with all gags, the monks prolong every gesture and milk the joke to its fullest.

At one point they pretend to count the number of lentils that they have and they are up to 8,449,111. As usual they involve the audience in the counting and one would wonder how many laughs can you get from a seven-digit number? The answer is a lot, and as usual they do not let go of it with a mere howl of laughter – they want more and get them.

The show is directed and presented with Sound, Costumes, Set Design, and Props by Veronica Hortiguela, and Annie Lujan. All of it looks simple and extemporaneous. Of course, it is nothing of the kind and the physical exertion alone is worthy of comments let alone the inventiveness and the ability as clowns that got a well-deserved standing ovation.
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Monks by Veronica Hortiguela, and Annie Lujan opened on February 26 and will play until March 2, 2025 at The Theatre Centre, 1115 Queen St. West, Toronto, Ontario. www.theatrecentre.org

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

FAT HAM – REVIEW OF 2025 CANADIAN STAGE PRODUCTION AT BERKELEY ST. THEATRE

Reviewed by James Karas 

James Ijmas' Ham is a marvellous Pulitzer-winning play that you can catch at the Berkely Street Theatre in a production by Canadian Stage. The title does not refer to unpalatable food from the meat aisle of your grocery store. It refers to Shakespeare’s tragic hero Hamlet who in this play happens to be a generously endowed gay man called Juicy (Peter Fernandes) who is called upon by the ghost of his late father, Pa. (David Alan Anderson) to kill his uncle.

Forget Elsinore because Fat Ham takes place in the backyard in the  eastern U.S. where we find Juicy and his extended family having a barbecue following the wedding of his mother Tedra (Raven Dauda) to his Uncle Rev (David Alan Anderson). We first meet Juicy with his cousin Tio (Tony Ofori) who is absorbed in his cell phone which emits sounds of  heavy breathing and passionate carnal activity. He is watching porn.

If your recollection of the characters in Hamlet is fuzzy, here is a snappy reminder. Tedra is Gertrude, Rev is Claudius, Tio is Horatio, Pap is the Ghost, Opal (Virgilia Griffith) is Ophelia  Larry (Tawiah McCarthy) is Laertes. Rabby (Nehassaiu deGannes) is the mother of Opal and Larry but Shakespeare forgot to include her in his play.   

Back to the beginning Juicy’s  conversation with Tio is interrupted by the appearance of a Ghost and we realize that Fat Ham takes energy from Shakespeare, mimics the characters and spoofs that great play. Although Ijames’ play steals from Shakespeare, Fat Ham has humour and a trajectory of its own. It is a terrific play and entertains us for 90 minutes without an intermission.

L-R: Tawiah M’Carthy, Virgilia Griffith, Peter Fernandes, 

Nehassaiu deGannes, Raven Dauda, David Alan Anderson. Photo: Dahlia Katz 

Juicy is a decent man, a melancholy and depressed gay person who is ordered by his father’s Ghost to kill his Uncle Rev, a restauranteur and a preacher. Rev did not kill his brother directly. Pa was a louse and a murderer and was snuffed while in jail but was everything instigated by Rev? Juicy is studying Human Resources on-line on his desktop (not laptop) computer at a disreputable university. Fernandes dressed in black is superb as a lost and confused soul. He knows Shakepeare’s play and recites parts of several soliloquies and sings for us. 

The three women in the play are sexually alluring, and well-dressed because they are attending the wedding of Rev and Tedra. Raven Dauda as Tedra relishes the exposure of her chest, her short skirt and blonde hair. You may consider her a bit of or, a complete slut. She sings and dances for our amusement. Her first husband was abusive and she turned to his brother for comfort, Dauda does a superb job as Tedra.

Opal is unhappy wearing a dress for Tedra and Rev’s wedding and she is gay. Rabby is a former stripper and ready to display her attributes.

Larry is a smartly dressed, gay and bemedalled soldier with the vocabulary of a preschooler. He develops an interest in his cousin Juicy but is rebuffed. Tio (Tony Ofori) the porn lover is a lovable goof. He insists he is not gay but has some interesting fantasies.

The set by Brandon Kleiman represents a backyard decorated with Christmas lights and streamers with a large, smoking barbecue. It is a wedding day and those that went to the ceremony are dressed for the occasion. It is a festive day except for what happened the week before when Pap was done away with and when the arguments come flying and there is a vigorous fight.

The active atmosphere from physical acts to verbal jousting are handled with precision and sensitivity by director Philip Akin.

Fat Ham is a multi-layered play dealing with a dysfunctional family with many underlying issues. There is wonderful humour but the family manages to descend to a physical free-for-all and, unlike the dead  body-strewn end of Shakespeare’s play, survive.  

A well-done production of a very good play that is worth seeing without any hesitation
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FAT HAM by James Ijames continues until March 16, 2025, at the Berkeley St. Theatre, 26 Berkeley St.  Toronto, Ont.  https://www.canadianstage.com/

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

BLIND DATES – REVIEW OF 2025 PRODUCTION AT PASSE MURAILLE

 Reviewed by James Karas

Blind Dates by Vivian Chong has the double meaning of going out with someone you have never met and, in her case, being literally blind as well. This is a one-woman performance by Chong at the Theatre Passe Muraille’s Extra Space  in which she tells us stories about being blind and especially about dating a variety of men and other experiences. She narrates with humour, tenderness, poignance  and gumption.

Chong describes herself as “an artist, potter, sculptor, painter, singer, song writer, playwright, theatre creator, actor, dancer, drummer, film maker, comic book author, yoga instructor, tri-athlete.” We will assume that she finds time to eat and sleep. She lost her eyesight fifteen years ago and she appears on stage with a white cane to tell her story and sing for us.

There is no hint of self-pity about her condition as she ventures to meet people, go out on dates, look for a job and function as an artist. She tells us about going out on a date with Barry who seems like a nice guy but turns out to be a collector of blind people. They have a bonfire and she tries to develop a relationship with him but it does not work out.

She dates several other men including Paul with whom she goes to Italy. He wants to have sex with her underwater and she beats a fast retreat from him. 

Vivian Chong in Blind Dates. Photography by Jae Yang

She looks for a job and a recruiter examines her abilities, likes her voice and suggests that she become a telemarketer or an on-line sex worker. Oops.

Vivian Chong is smart, talented and fearless. She paddles for several kilometers in Lake Ontario with her friend Jeff, a kayaker, and seems to have found a kindred spirit.  

She sings five songs that she has written. They have simple lyrics that describe her state of mind at the time and perhaps describe relationships. In “Cabin Fever” she finds a smoky, quiet cabin, a refuge where she sleeps in the shadows hoping someone will come her way. In “One Blue at a Time”  she walks her talk and speaks honestly but he is gone. In “Self-Made Woman” she asserts her strength and independence and sends him away as she looks to a brand-new day in a brand-new world.

Finally, there is fulfilment and happiness in a new relationship in “When We Met Starts”. Her life gets easy, the clouds part, she has met her best friend.  Finally, they are kissing, hugging and spending time together and she finishes the song with the prospect of sexual fulfillment as she looks forward to falling in love with him tonight.

Chong is a good storyteller and can modulate her voice when she relates conversations with people. She makes good use of the small playing area of Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace and keeps the audience’s attention throughout. That is no small achievement in a solo performance with some prerecorded music for the songs and the rust being entirely up to her.

The set is designed by Echo Zhou  and consists of a grass-covered couch with a table and keyboard behind it.

Theatre Passe Muraille’s  Artistic Director Marjorie Chan directs the performance and she dramaturged the play which, she told us, had two-year gestation period. It is worth seeing.

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Blind Dates by Vivian Chong opened on February 20 and will run until March 9, 2025, at Theatre Passe Muraille, 16 Ryerson Avenue, Toronto, Ontario. www.passemuraille.on.ca 

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

PEOPLE, PLACES AND THINGS – REVIEW OF 2025 COAL MINE THEATRE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Do you want to see great acting? I do not use the word great lightly and if the answer is yes you should go to the Coal Mine Theatre in Toronto and see People Places and Things with Louise Lambert. More detail below.

People Places and Things is a powerful play by Duncan Macmillan about Emma, an actor who is seriously addicted to drugs and alcohol. She goes to a rehab centre looking for a quick fix and a letter saying that she is capable of working. She finds out that a rehab program would take weeks, perhaps longer where she must submit to group therapy and honesty. There are half a dozen other addicts at the center as well as a therapist and doctor, and Emma’s parents.

Emma’s addiction causes her to be aggressive, arrogant, unsocial and angry. Lambert goes through the gamut of these emotions or states with incredible power and display of emotions. She hallucinates and five other “Emmas” appear on stage and imitate her steps as the lights flicker. It is hallucination perfectly illustrated. She reaches excruciating emotional levels, excruciating for Lambert and the audience.

Fiona Reid plays the doctor and therapist as cool-headed and efficient professionals who know what they are doing and make the demands of what is expected for rehabilitation to work. Reid and Olive Dennis also plays Emma’s parents. their daughter’s addiction seems to have caused a deep rift and her attempt at reunification is unsuccessful.

Dennis also plays Paul, one of the patients and he appears as a loud, half-naked and obnoxious addict who runs deliriously around the stage. The other adducts are a varied if deeply damaged group  of people who give an outstanding job of ensemble acting. They are Nickesha Garrick, Farhang Ghajar, Matthew Gouveia, Sam Grist, Sarah Murphy-Dyson, Kwaku Okyere and Kaleb Tekeste.

L to R) Matthew Gouveia, Nickeshia Garrick, Kaleb Tekeste, 
Kwaku Okyere, Louise Lambert, Oliver Dennis, Fiona Reid, 
Farhang Ghajar, Sarah Murphy-Dyson, and Sam Grist. 
Photo: Barry McClusky

The tiny Coal Mine Theatre has seats on two sides of the house with a small playing area in the middle. There are chairs, stools and other pieces of furniture brought on and taken off by the cast as needed. Steve Lucas is the stage designer. There is rich and varied use of lighting to indicate the emotional trauma of the characters. The Lighting Designers and Lighting Programmer are Bonnie Beecher and Jeff Pybus.

Movement Director Alyssa Martin handles the complex actions of the cast in the playing area, on and off the stage and bringing on and removing props. It looks like a complex operation, especially in a theatre that is small with very few places to go to. It is as much choreography as movement direction and is marvelous work.

The cumulative effect is like being struck with a tsunami of trauma and emotion. Lambert’s stunning performance along with the rest of the cast grabs you and holds you in thrall for the duration of the performance. This is rare and  extraordinary theatre.

Director Diana Bentley displays stunning directorial talent in putting a complex show together and instilling the enormous discipline required to bring to maintain the high emotional pitch throughout. A great production.
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People, Places And Things by Duncan Macmillan continues until March 7, 2025, at the Coal Mine Theatre, 2076 Danforth Ave. Toronto, (northwest corner of Woodbine and Danforth). www.coalminetheatre.com/

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

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST – REVIEW OF 2024 PRODUCTION AT THE NATIONAL THEATRE, LONDON

Reviewed by James Karas

Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is one of the best comedies in English and is frequently produced. It is based on a perfect plot, great witty lines and even in weak productions it can be enjoyable. It is quintessentially British upper class, and nothing less than impeccable English accents will do.

The redoubtable National Theatre has mounted a production on the Lyttleton stage directed by Max Webster that promised to bring out the best of Wilde. The production does get guffaws and there are many references to homosexual attractions. Algernon (an exuberant Ncuti Gatwa) and Jack Worthing (Hugh Skinner) pursue and fall in love with the lovely Cecily (Eliza Scanlan) and Gwendolyn (Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́) but the men may be more interested in each other’s homosexual proclivities than the girls. The two girls have a famous verbal spat over tea, but they display indubitable sapphic attraction. So be it.

Webster will do anything for a laugh. Worthing jumps on a table, he throws down the army lists from the top of a bookcase near the end of the play willy-nilly, all for a laugh. The servant Merriman (Julian Bleach who also plays Lane and is vey funny) calls Algernon, by banging on a tray and startling him. It gets a laugh but that is more TV sitcom level humour than Oscar Wilde.

The cast of The Importance of Being Earnest at the National Theatre, London. 
Photo: Marc Brenner

Wilde’s play starts with a nice line as Algernon asks Lane what he thinks of his piano playing. He replies that he did not think it was polite to listen. That is not good enough for Webster, so he adds a scene of bacchanalian revels with a crosse-dressed Algernon in the centre. We don’t know who Algernon is yet and the scene struck me as unnecessary padding perhaps to add to the characterization of Algernon as Webster sees him. There is a similar appendage at the end of the play where the cast appears in a variety of colourful costumes dancing and taking bows. Is it really necessary? No.

Lady Bracknell is one of the great characters in English drama. She is a bigger than life virago with a tongue that can leave welts. Sharon D. Clarke has the physical size, voice and the gaudy costumes to be a convincing Bracknell. She makes pronouncements about the British upper crust that are delightful because she personifies the wealthy sliver of 19^th century English society. But she speaks with a Jamaican accent. How did she sneak into that society? The Jamaican lilt has a musicality all its own but not on Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, London in the 19^th century.

Wilde’s play cam be done in different ways but going overboard and striving hard for laughs is neither necessary nor desirable.
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The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde was performed until January 25, 2025, at the Lyttleton stage of the National Theatre, South Bank, London, England.

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

KIM’S CONVENIENCE – REVIEW OF 2025 REVIVAL OF WONDERFUL PLAY

Reviewed by James Karas

Kim’s Convenience is back. Not that it was far away what with an adaptation as a sitcom. But Soulpepper has revived its 2012 production at the Young Centre and told us that the production is headed for San Francisco.

For those who have missed it completely, playwright Ins Choi tells us that Kim’s Convenience is “my love letter to them [his parents] and to all first-generation immigrants.” I considered that 2012 production a warm, touching and funny paean to newcomers to Canada. People who arrive in a strange land where they do not speak English and must adjust to a completely different culture. The present revival only confirms that opinion.

On a convincingly decorated set, Kim, a recent immigrant from South Korea runs a convenience store. He is a proud Korean and gets furious when someone parks a  Japanese car  in the “no parking area” behind his store. Japanese! In 1904 Japan invaded Korea and enslaved all its citizens. Call 911 and report the parking violation. What do you mean 911 is intended for emergencies only?

The play is about the Kim family but it is also a reflection of South Korean immigrant life in Toronto. It is about their settlement in a strange land, the growth of the city and the removal of the immigrant enclave away from its church and its neighborhood as a result of social changes and the expansion of immigrants. It is a classic tale of immigrants trying to keep what they left behind and social changes making it very difficult.

The cast of Kim's Convenience. Photo: Dahlia Katz

Kim has two children. His daughter Janet (Kelly Seo) is a smart 30-year-old who wants to be a photographer. She does not want to run a convenience store and Kim meets a recognizable collision that many immigrants face with their children who grow up “Canadian.” His son Jung (Ryan Jinn) left home at age 16 after a violent confrontation with his father. Umma, (Esther Chung) the mother is caught in the middle and continues seeing their son.

The convenience store is visited by Mr. Lee, a real estate agent, Alex, the police officer and Mike, a thief, all played by Brendon McKnight. They provide context, background and humour in a fine performance by McKnight.   

The main character is Mr. Kim, played superbly by the author. He is an irascible, perceptive and essentially decent man far from his roots but living with the history of Korea that he tries to instill in his children. He cannot adjust to Canadian mores, thinks that photography is a mere hobby and can’t understand why his daughter does not want to take over the convenience store. His ill temper drives his son away and seems to have created a hollow in his life.

It is a moving story told with humour and passion about a corner of Canadiana that may be completely unknown to many Canadians and about a family that strikes many familiar chords. We are all the same.

Weyni Mengesha directs the production with finesse and sensitivity and Joanna Yu’s set is perfect as the interior of a convenience store.

I will not disclose the whole plot but suffice it say that the play ends on a note of reconciliation, grace and continuation. Go see it.

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Kim’s Convenience by Ins Choi opened on February 6, and will continue until March 2, 2025, at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 50 Tank House Lane. Toronto, Ontario. www.soulpepper.ca

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

JUST FOR ONE DAY - REVIEW OF MUSICAL BASED ON 1985 LIVE AID CONCERTS AT THE CAA ED MIRVISH THEATRE

Reviewed by James Karas

On July 13, 1985, a charity concert to alleviate starvation in Ethiopia took place in London, Philadelphia and 150 countries around the world. The scale of the event was so massive  as to defy belief. It is estimated that 1.9 billion people watched broadcasts of the events or almost 40% of the world’s population. 

On the 40^th anniversary of the event Just for One Day, The Live Aid Musical was produced at the Old Vic Theatre in London and is now playing at The CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto. It is a robust, and thoroughly enjoyable show that highlights some of the incidents and especially the songs of the more than sixteen-hours of concerts.

The Live Aid Musical as presented in Just For One Day was the idea of two people: the passionate dreamer and not-above-telling a few fibs to get his way  Bob Geldorf (Craige Els) and the hard-nosed and honest Harvey Goldsmith (Tim Mahendran). The cast list names 21 people, mostly by first name only and they all seem to be very capable singers and mostly capable of comic acting. I admit I could not figure out the identities of most of them. Julie Atherton is listed as playing Margaret and that may be Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who has a brief meeting with Geldorf. He mentions the concert being on YouTube and he tells her what that means. She replies that for a moment she thought it would be about what she and her husband Dennis do. A good line but there is also humour that is not that good.

The artists that appeared in the concert in England and the United States and broadcast around the world make up a catalogue of the most important musicians of the period. There were notable exceptions but the claim that this was a great display of unity and a huge philanthropic contribution by musicians cannot be overstated. 

The North American premiere cast of Just for One Day – The Live Aid Musical. 
Photo Credit: Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade, 2025

The show starts with a display of the glittering light and sound systems of the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre. Loud and impressive, the music made my chest vibrate. We got a view of London’s Wembley Stadium with a sea of some 80,000 people crowded in it. An astounding sight.  The story line by John O’Farrell is developed with confrontations, plans that defy belief, humour and of course music by The Band, singing and dancing to the chorography of Ebony Molina.  Matthew Brind is the Musical Supervisor, Arranger and Orchestrator. Luke Sheppard directs this huge show with an expert hand.

What follows is a wide-ranging potpourri of rock music that is well-sung to a highly receptive audience.  From the rousing “Heroes” to vigorous numbers to the lovely “Let it be” to the wild “Anthem of the Lonely” there is much to enjoy and admire. 

The 1985 concert was a phenomenal and may be described as a miraculous event when one considers the number of artists involved, the organizational amplitude around the world and the millions of dollars raised. Just For One Day is a tribute to all involved forty years ago. The tragedy is that what it tried to solve – hunger in Ethiopia – has not changed at all and the situation around the world is much worse.

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Just For One Day: The Live Aid Musical  by John O’Farrell continues until March 15, 2025 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

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 1936 – REVIEW OF ASTOUNDING PRODUCTION IN LONDON

Reviewed by James Karas

In October 1936, the British Union of Fascists (BUF) planned a march down Cable Street in East London, England. It was intended to be a massive show of the power of England’s home-grown fascists under the leadership of Sir Oswald Mosley and with the support of the police. A large number of people, estimated by some at 250,000, from all walks of life opposed the march and put a stop to it. The event has become known as the Battle of Cable Street.

That is the background and explanation of 1936 in the title of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice now playing at the Trafalgar Theatre in London. Shakespeare’s play is adapted by Brigid Larmour and Tracy-Ann Oberman. Oberman plays Shylock, a female money lender in London during the rise of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and its sickening appeal to antisemitism. It is a shattering production that blew my mind with its emotional power and stunning effectiveness.

Oberman as Shylock is an attractive businesswoman who has been abused by English people, especially the Nazis to an unbearable extent.  Calling her a dog, spitting on her and heaping other insults because she is Jewish are the normal way of addressing her. Oberman gives an exemplary performance as a strong, upstanding person who has come to hate her tormentors and wants revenge.

The leading abuser is the merchant Antonio (Joseph Millson) who is a Nazi sporting black clothes and the armband of the BUF. In the play you may have seen him as a benevolent friend of Bassanio (Gavin Fowler) to whom he lends money that he borrows from Shylock. Antonio is a creep who treats Shylock and no doubt all Jews as subhumans.

The Merchant of Venice has two worlds. The world of business where Shylock lends money to Antonio so he can help his friend Bassanio woo Portia (played by Georgie Fellows). Portia is supremely wealthy and belongs to the comic mythical part of the play where she chooses as a husband the suitor who picks the right casket. She is a statuesque blonde beauty wearing a gorgeous gown and holding a large cigarette holder. In short, she is a rich bitch.

Tracy-Ann Oberman as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice 1936

Photo: Marc Brenner

Portia, as we all know, puts on a suit and appears as a lawyer defending Antonio from Shylock’s demand for a pound of flesh because Antonio has not paid the bond. She intones the beautiful “quality of mercy” speech but without a grain of poetry in it. It is an ugly recitation appropriate for the fascists that she is defending. The production has removed all the poetry of the play. The scene between Lorenzo (Mikhail Sen) who is in love with Shylock’s daughter Jessica (Grainne Dromgoole) where they are reciting the stories of mythical lovers like Pyramus and Thisbe, Aeneas and Dido, come out ugly and the lovers go in different directions. It is a stunning transformation of the play.

Videos of Nazi signs and nazi parades appear throughout the play, a visual reminder of the appeal of Hitler. But the most touching and dramatic scene comes as an epilogue at the end of the play. Oberman steps up to the audience and describes the action taken by human beings from all walks of life in London to stop the BUF’s march on Cabell Street that fateful day in 1936. She tells us that her grandmother was one of the people that put a stop to the march. It left me stunned.

Shakespeare’s play is adapted brilliantly by Brigid Larmour who also directs the production and Tracy-Ann Oberman who is the associate director and plays Shylock. Their teamwork cannot be praised enough, and the result is unforgettable theatre of the highest order.
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The Merchant of Venice 1936 by William Shakespeare adapted as stated above played at the Trafalgar Theatre, 14 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2DY and continues on tour across the United Kingdom. www.trafalgartheatre.com/

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

ELEKTRA – REVIEW OF 2025 PRODUCTION OF SOPHOCLES’ PLAY IN LONDON

Reviewed by James Karas

Sophocles wrote more than 120 plays in fifth century Athens of which only seven have survived. His Oedipus Rex is considered one of the greatest tragedies ever written and Antigone is produced frequently as the example par excellence of standing up to tyranny and dictators.

Elektra, his tragedy about the daughter of King Agamemnon is less frequently produced but it is an astonishing play about obsession, hatred, and overwhelming passion for revenge against her mother Clytemnestra. Agamemnon returned from the Trojan War a hero only to be famously killed in the bathtub by his wife and her lover Aegisthus. Elektra waits for the return of her brother Orestes to avenge her father’s death.  

Daniel Fish directs an idiosyncratic production of Elektra at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London that shows his fertile imagination without paying much attention to Sophocles or ancient Greek drama. He has Brie Larson, an Academy Award winning actor among a wheelbarrow of other prizes in the lead role and delivers his personal version of the tragedy.

This is a modern dress production with Elektra wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt with the words BIKINI KILL on it. The set by Jeremy Herbert consists of a revolving stage with microphone stands and large loudspeakers that make it look like a Hifi store. The Chorus of Mycenean women are arrayed at the back of the stage and produce some cacophonous chants.

Brie Larson and Chorus in Elektra. Photo Helen Murray

Larson with a cropped hairdo, microphone or two in hand, lets out screams, screeches and worse.  She scrapes the microphone on the face of the speakers to produce more unpleasant sounds and screeches, more than once. She uses a different microphone to imitate Clytemnestra’s screeches.   

Elektra is so obsessed with hatred for her arrogant and imperious mother (played by the talented Stockard Channing) and her lover Aegisthus (played by the marvelous Shakespearean actor Greg Hicks) and her lust for revenge that she is probably unhinged. Her brother Orestes (Patrick Vaill) was sent away, for his own safety and Elektra is pining for his return.

One of the defining features of every modern production of Greek tragedy is the treatment of the Chorus. We know relatively little about how exactly it was used in Ancient Greece, but scholars tell us that it sang, chanted, danced and interacted with the main characters. There is some of that, sort of, in this production but let’s just say it is unsatisfactory or maybe in line with the rest of the production. And what is all that clanging that sounds like gun shots in the background?

Fish is using Anne Carson’s 2001 translation of the play and no doubt that is a good choice. But he does not use the whole play. The role of Pedagogos, the Old Man, is cut out and some of the speeches and choral odes are shortened. This is a “version” of Carson’s translation but not by Carson. If it is by Fish or whoever we are entitled to know. The play is done in 75 minutes which indicates cuts.

Looking for a production the way the Athenians would have witnessed it twenty-five hundred years ago is untenable because we simply do not know what they would have seen. We must rely on a “version by” or an “adaptation by.” In any case, we need to grasp what the director is trying to convey to us. In this case, Fish seemed to be going all over the place and I could not grasp what he was getting at and I was annoyed when I should have been immersed in Sophocles’ play. Fish’s flights of fancy no doubt meant a lot to him but nothing to me.  
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Elektra by Sophocles in a translation by Anne Carson continues until April 12, 2025, at the Duke of York’s Theatre, 104 St. Martin’s Lane, London,  https://www.thedukeofyorks.com/

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

The Norman Conquests (2013)
Photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

OEDIPUS – REVIEW OF 2025 OLD VIC PRODUCTION IN LONDON

Reviewed by James Karas 

Ancient Greek tragedy is universally admired but few directors are prepared to produce a version that is faithful to the original script. The poetry may be clear enough depending on the translation but how do you deal with the choral parts that are chanted or spoken with accompanying dances perhaps. We know almost nothing about how they were being done. The Stratford Festival of Canada staged Oedipus Rex in 1953 using masks and being otherwise faithful to the text with reasonable success but it has never tried to do that with the handful of plays from the Golden Age of Athens since then.

All productions are done using  adaptations and always with mixed results. Unfortunately, the old adage that the more beautiful the adaptation, the less faithful it probably is to the original frequently applies. The Old Vic production is co-directed by Hofesh Shechter and Matthew Warchus. He is one of the best English directors and she is a choreographer and musician of the highest order as well as the director of the Hofesh Shechter Company of dancers.

Sophocles’ play is adapted by Ella Hickson and her version takes so many liberties that the title has been changed from Oedipus Rex to Oedipus. Warchus and Shechter want to capture the spirit of the play and not the literal script that has survived.

Warchus takes care of the powerful acting given by the principal characters and the dramatic story that unfolds in ancient Thebes. The city is in a desperate state and the citizens want to know the reason. Has King Oedipus done something to bring the anger of of the gods on Thebes as divine punishment? 

Rami Malek as Oedipus and Indira Varma as Jocasta. 

Photograph: Manuel Harlan

The story is well known but we witness its slow revelation as in a good whodunnit. King Laius, the former king, was killed at a certain crossroads many years ago. Prince Oedipus of Corinth comes to Thebes, marries the widow of Laius and has two children by her, Antigone and Ismene.

He was tossed out by his mother because a prophecy had foretold that he would kill his father and marry his mother. It is too horrible to contemplate and his mother gives him to a shepherd with the certainty that the baby would die of exposure. The unfolding story reveals that Laius was his father and Queen Jocasta (Indira Varma) was his mother. Unknown to Oedipus, the prophecy was fulfilled.

The self-assured Oedipus (Rami Malek) fearlessly sends his brother-in-law Creon (Nicholas Khan) to Delphi to seek information about Laius’s killer and asks the seer Tiresias (Cecilia Noble) about it and the reason for the drought in Thebes. Eventually he learns the devastating truth and becomes aware of his hubris and blindness in not realizing it sooner. He gouges his eyes out as self-punishment for his prior blindness and is left with nothing except his young daughter Antigone to act as his eyes and wander around  Greece.

That dramatic story is the basis of Sophocles’ play that Ella has adapted into comprehensible and dramatic dialogue. Long speeches are cut short and confrontation among the characters are inserted. It is a superb job of handling a difficult play.

But what do we do with the Chorus of Thebans for whom the choral odes are written? Enter Hofesh Shechter who composes some dramatic music to reflect the moods of the play and choreographs dances to be performed by the Chorus. They have no lines to speak and there is no chanting. The dancers are athletic wild, dramatic and energetic. They illustrate the mood of each scene and are a major part of the production. The dancers and the actors collaborate superbly as directed by the two directors.

Warchus and Schecher have produced a play that is far from the words of Sophocles but faithful to the great  drama. It was a thrill to see a collaborative effort with outstanding actors and dancers that were able to take us spiritually from the stage of the Old Vic to the theatre of Dionysus in old Athens.         
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Oedipus, based on the play by Sophocles, adapted by Ella Hickson, in a production by the Old Vic in association with Hofesh Shechter Company continues until March 20, 2025, at the Old Vic Theatre, The Cut, London, England. http://www.oldvictheatre.com/

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

LA REINE-GARÇON – REVIEW OF 2025 CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The Canadian Opera Company and Opéra de Montréal have very commendably commissioned an opera composed by Julien Bilodeau to a libretto by Michel Marc Bouchard. Both are Quebecois and the opera premiered in Montreal last year.

Opera companies commission work and that creates some excitement with the hope that a new opera will join the standard repertoire. Unfortunately, many of them are never seen again and a few may be produced again but nothing comes close to gaining a regular spot like the operas of Verdi and Puccini. One can only hope that La Reine-garçon will be seen many times in the future. 

La Reine-garçon has a delicious score that is melodic, finely-textured, diverse and simply gorgeous. The COC Orchestra under Johannes Debus gives a splendid accounting of the music.

The singing is first rate starting with Canadian soprano Kirsten MacKinnon as Christine. She has mastered the manly gait as we assume it was how the boy-queen walked and she sings with uncommon splendor. We feel her uncertainties about love and passion but we also see her succumb to lesbian attraction. MacKinnon handles Christine’s high notes with ease and the beauty of her voice is unfailing.

Canadian bass-baritone Philippe Sly is wise and solid as Count Karl Gustav as is bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch as Axel Oxenstierna. Tenor Isaiah Bell sings the clownish, narcissistic Johan Oxenstierna. Perhaps one too many Click, Clacks but a fine performance. Canadian Owen McCausland is the wise Descartes who delivers his wisdom in a beautiful tenor voice and gives an anatomy lesson on the brain.

Christine is pursued and propositioned by men but the only sexual contact (a passionate kiss) is with Countess Ebba Sparre (Queen Hezumuryango). And what are all those stags on stage? Do they represent Christine’s sexual dreams?

Kirsten MacKinnon as Christine in COC production.

Photo: Michael Cooper

There is an offstage singer listed in the program as Chant Kulning (Anne-Marie Beaudette) who emits a falsetto scream in the opening scene and afterwards. I could not figure what it was and guessed it might be a wolf’s cry because we were out in the snow. She returned for further screams and whatever she was supposed to be escaped me except that it was annoying.

La Reine-garçon or the boy-queen refers to Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689) and had she lived in the twenty-first century she would have qualified for one or more letters of LGBTQ+. Her father raised her as if she were a boy and her gait and mannerisms were male. But he died when she was age seven and she did not gain the throne until her teens. At age 24 she abdicated, converted to Catholicism and moved to Rome where she lived until 1689.

Her life has fired up the Western imagination and she has been portrayed in films, plays and fiction. Her sexual proclivities may have gone in several directions but the interest in her lies more in her artistic interests including her patronage of musicians, artists and opera.

If she ditched the throne in exercise of her free will as advised by Descartes, well and good. But if she converted to Catholicism, does it not mean she accepted the control of the church as in what to wear, eat and think? I suppose you can do that in exercise of free will.

There are things to quibble about with the libretto but the fact remains that this is an approachable and enjoyable opera at first hearing. The rich and varied sets by Anick La Bissonniere, the brilliant lighting design by Eric Champoux and the rich projections by Alexandre Desjardin add to a marvelous production.

And top marks to director Angela Konrad for putting the whole thing together from a theatrical point of view.    
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La Reine-garçon by Julien Bilodeau (music) and Michel Marc Bouchard (libretto) continues until February 15,  2025 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. West Toronto, Ont. www.coc.ca

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

WHO’S’ AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOLF – REVIEW OF 2025 CANADIAN STAGE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas 

Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? received considerable publicity before it opened in the Canadian Stage production at  the Blima Appel Theatre in Toronto. I saw it late in its scheduled performances and hence my belated review. It is a noteworthy production of a great play.

Brandin Healy, the Artistic Director of Canadian Stage directs the production and it features Martha Burns as Martha, Paul Gross as George, Mac Fyfe as Nick and Hailey Gillis as Honey.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Is about two couples who get together after a faculty cocktail party in a northeastern American university. The host couple, Martha and George have  a complicated relationship and both are offensive, acerbic, vicious and cruel to each other and later to their guests. They have illusions and delusions, hatred, and bitterness in astounding degrees.

Honey and Nick, the hapless couple that were invited by George and Marth for a drink at two in the morning, have issues of their own like a phantom pregnancy, marriage of convenience for Nick and the slings and arrows of perhaps ill-matched people.

Albee divides his 3-act 1961-62 play into Fun and Games, Walpurgisnacht and The Exorcism to give us some idea of the range of the play and the relationship of the four characters. 

Martha Burns, Hailey Gillis, Rylan Wilkie, and Paul Gross. 

Photo by Dahlia Katz

Martha is the dean’s daughter and considers George, a professor of history, beneath her, a failure and a man deserving of contempt. She delivers all with power anger, hatred, and viciousness. She wants people to know that they have a son whose birthday is the next day and it is his 21^st. Everything about the son becomes nebulous and suspicious and the title of the play, sung with the words Virginia Woolf repeated like a refrain proves tantalizing. Martha Burns delivers a stunning performance.

George is a pathetic failure as a husband, an academic and human being but he knows more than he reveals. He tries to protect Martha while receiving insults about his academic failures and his human shortcomings. He strikes back at Martha and tries to protect himself from her viciousness and protect Martha who is not playing by the rules that apply to the couple’s relationship. With his mop of white hair, George is well past his prime and he plays defense only for so long and is forced to strike back.

Nick is a new faculty member and teaches biology. He represents the new world in contrast to George’s subject of looking at the past. He is athletic and no fool but he did marry Honey for her money or so it seems. He is driven to abstraction by the whole situation and takes the opportunity to strike back by having sex with Martha.

Honey is pathetic as the daughter of a wealthy man who marries the athletic Nick who is attracted more to her father’s wealth than to her. She gets drunk easily and hopes to have a child. She is sickly and pathetic but does the right thing by falling asleep so her husband can have sex with Martha.

Set Designer Julie Fox uses the large Bluma Appel Theatre stage for George and Martha’s apartment. It revolves so we can see the back and the front of the furniture and it does the job.

Brendon Healy keeps the emotional levels under tight control and we see every nuance as the couples tear each other apart as they get progressively more inebriated.
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Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf  by Edward Albee continues until February 18, 2025, at the Bluma Appel Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, 27 Front Street East, Toronto, Ontario. www.canadianstage.com

WINTER SOLSTICE – REVIEW OF 2025 NECESSARY ANGEL’S PRODUCTION AT BERKELEY ST. THEATRE

Reviewed by James Karas 

Winter Solstice is a captivating play by Germen playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig and is now playing at the Berkeley Street Theatre in Toronto. The play is fascinating on two levels. First is the structure of the play and second is its slowly unfolding theme. The program lists five characters but there are in fact six (perhaps seven, if we count the little girl). There is a narrator who stands on the side much of the time and describes the action for us and comments on it. He is played by Frank Cox-O’Connell who also plays the artist Konrad. The narrator tells us that we are in the booklined and well-appointed house of a wealthy couple in Europe. It is Christmas Eve.

We see none of that because the production is done on an empty stage and we will imagine seamlessly that we are in the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom and other places in the house. The narrator will continue with his commentary on what is being said and give us precise information about the music being played on the unseen piano. For example, Chopin’s Nocturn no. 2 in E minor and other pieces. He gives us the precise time of the action.

The couple are Albert (Cyrus Lane), a maker of avant-garde films and his wife Betina (Kira Guloien), a sharp-tongued writer that thinks that nobody watches her husband’s movies. Betina’s mother Corinna (Nancy Palk) has just arrived for a visit, and we learn that their relationship is strained. A stranger, Rudolph (Diego Matamoros), rings the doorbell and we learn that he met Corinna on the train, and she invited him over.

Rudolph is a gentleman of the old school, well-dressed, impeccably mannered and an accomplished pianist. He is from Paraguay but not Paraguayan and the catalyst that will reveal the slowly emerging but shocking plot of the play. He calls Corinna: Gudrun, a name from German mythology and evokes Richard Wagner. Albert realizes that there is something peculiar about Rudolph. The climax of the play is reached when Rudolph realizes what Albert is.  I will not disclose it. 

Kira Guloien, Frank-Cox-O'Connell and Nancy-Palk in Winter Solstice. 

Photo by Dahlia Katz, Necessary-Angel.

The fifth character is the artist Konrad and Cox-O’Connell morphs into that role seamlessly. We also hear from the couple’s daughter, but she does not appear.

I found the variation of the Brechtian epic theatre structure fascinating, and it worked well, both removing us from the action and involving us more intimately in it. We move from one scene to another quickly and sometimes repetitively as if we may have missed something or for reasons of style that were not always clear to me on a first viewing.

There are scenes that are simply described by the narrator instead of acted. Again, this is an attractive approach because we get more information about what is happening than if we had seen the action. We are better informed and forced to know more than if we had witnessed the action.

Albert has issues with alcohol and drugs, and he is planning a movie titled “Christmas at Auschwitz”. There are strong suggestions of sexual liaisons. Rudolph coming from Paraguay but emphasizing that he is not Paraguayan, and racial references alert us to the underlying theme of the play: neo-Nazism. It is a disease that is violently on the rise in Germany and the rest of Europe in different degrees. Schimmelpfennig wrote Winter Solstice in 2017 and must be credited with some prescience.

The highly experienced cast was expertly directed by Alan Dilworth and deliver strong performances in a fascinating play.
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Winter Solstice by Roland Schimmelpfennig, translated by David Tushingham, in a production by Necessary Angel Theatre Company in collaboration with Birdland Theatre and Canadian Stage, opened on January 19, 2025, and continues until February 2, 2025, at the Berkeley Street Theatre, Toronto, Ontario. https://www.necessaryangel.com/

This review appeared in The Greek Press and its late posting here is a matter of record.