HISTORY OF GREEK SONG – REVIEW OF ChiJazz PERFORMANCE AT GREEK COMMUNITY

Reviewed by James Karas

If you think a program titled The History of Greek Song – Part II is some boring lecture for students of culture, you could not be more wrong. It was in fact a highly entertaining (and informative, if you will) concert at the Greek Community’s Polymenakio Centre on March 1, 2020.

The performers are part of ChiJazz, a band of eight talented musicians and singers all of who are “amateurs” if only because they have other professions. I go to the original meaning of the word amateur which denotes love for what one does accompanied by great ability.  

I hazard to state that the soul of the group is Athina Malli who plays percussion and baglama but above all sings. She has a strong, mellifluous voice that when she lets go overwhelms the musicians and captivates the listeners. She is a total performer who throws her arms up in the air, gestures triumphantly and establishes direct contact with the audience and has them sing along or wave their bodies in unison. They are in the palm of her hand.

Yiorgos Sountoulidis sings solo or accompanies her on a guitar. He has a fine, light tenor voice and gives a superb performance. I will mention the other musicians who make up the band. Yorgos Vasileiou plays bass guitar, Fotis Mihalarias plays drums, Rania Babassi plays flute and percussion, Dimitris Petsalakis is on bouzouki, lyre and guitar. Petros Pehlivanoglou plays bouzouki with Sophia Smyrnioudi on keyboard as well as singing. They are all capable not only of playing well but energizing the audience. Major achievement.

Yiannis Dimitriou, Katerina Tsekarea and Irene Stubos were the well-rehearsed MCs who provided context to the story of Greek song. Irene Stubos and Rania Babassi are the artistic directors and driving force behind the event. Sine qua non.        

The wide ranging program started with art and popular (laika) songs by the likes of Stavros Xarhakos (Mana mou Ellas), Yiannis Markopoulos (Auton ton kosmo ton kalo) and Manos Loizos (O Dromos). It continues with “heavy” popular songs by Akis Panou (Gia koita me sta matia) and the iconic singer Stelios Kazantzidis. This was followed by songs classified as “light popular (elafrlolaika) by Mimis Plessas (An a’arnitho agape mou).

Greek songs of the 1960s came under the influence of rock and the French New Wave and groups like the Olympians and Charms sprang up singing Greek songs influenced by pop rock. Representatives of the era are composers like .Yiannis Spanos (Aspra karavia), Arleta (Mia for a thymamai m’agapouses) and Yiannis Argyris (Ela mazi mou).

They continued with songs from the 1970’s and 1980’s from composers such as Kostas Chatzis (Aeroplano), Loukianos Kalaidonis (Mikros Iroas) and Dionysis Savopoulos (Zebekiko). This is only a partial list of the songs that they performed, some in the entirety and parts of others.

The Greek community at times feels like a cultural desert. If so, then there are numerous oases springing up across the sand. The crisis in Greece of the past decade drove some of its best children away. The Hellenic diaspora is the beneficiary of that exodus as it was in the 1960s when the military junta had the same effect. Most of the members of ChiJazz are highly educated, newcomers to Canada.

The Polymenakio Centre was full to capacity. It felt like the “old” immigrants were welcoming the “newcomers” and enjoying a major component of Greek culture.

_________

The History of Greek Song – Pert II organized by Pronia of The Greek Community of Toronto was presented on March 1, 2020 at The Greek Community of Toronto.

H.M.S. PINAFORE – REVIEW OF 2020 TORONTO OPERETTA THEATRE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Can you go wrong by producing H.M.S. Pinafore?

Neither can Toronto Operetta Theatre in its staging of Gilbert and Sullivan’s’ delightful operetta for its early spring season. It is a spirited production with the gorgeous melodies and humour that should please Savoyards. 

You know the story, no? Able Ralph is madly in love with the delightful Josephine who happens to be the Captain’s daughter. Oops! An able seamen lowly born cannot reach for the daughter of a Captain. Solution, please.

The Captain who is punctilious and never, ever (well, hardly ever) sick at sea wants his daughter to marry Sir Joseph Porter, First Lord of the Admiralty. Josephine tells him that she has given her heart to a lowly sailor (and thus justifies the subtitle of the operetta The Lass That Loved A Sailor).

 Holly Chaplin as Josephine, and Ryan Downey as Ralph. 

Photographer: Gary Beechey (BDS Studio)

Sir Joseph is one of the delights of the operetta from his entrance when he explains that he got to be “the monarch of the sea, / The ruler of the Queen’s navee.” He is a pompous fool and a great comic character.

And there is Little Buttercup, the lowborn, bumboat woman (keep it clean – she sells goodies to sailors on board ship) who has matrimonial designs on the exalted Captain. Solution, please.

The production is generally well sung and generates considerable energy. Ryan Downey as the lover Ralph has a sweet tenor voice that he puts to good use to express his ardor for Josephine. He sings that “The Nightingale Sighed” and how as a suitor lowly born he loves “A Maiden Fair to See” with fine intonation.

Lovely-voiced soprano Holly Chaplin is Josephine whose love is alive but hope is dead she moves us in her ballad “Sorry her lot who loves too well.”  Stick around and Ms Chaplin will sing of rapture unforeseen.

Baritone Bradley Christensen as Captain Corcoran has an imposing physique and an impressive voice. His Captain has class issues, parental control problems and his own love difficulties. With Christensen’s vocal authority and stage presence, he solves all of the Captain’s difficulties.    

Mezzo soprano Rosalind McArthur as Buttercup tells us that she has no idea why she is called poor, sweet, little Buttercup. She sells all kinds of goodies to the sailors she also has the key to solving all the serious issues in the operetta. Ms McArthur has good comic talent and carries her role very well vocally. 

Bradley Christensen as Captain Corcoran, and Rosalind McArthur as Buttercup

Photographer: Gary Beechey (BDS Studio)

Gregory Finney is a fine comic talent with good vocal chords and he gets the juicy role of Sir Joseph. There are no complaints about his singing but director Guillermo Silva-Marin has misdirected him as the pompous, nincompoop First Lord of the Admiralty. There is no snobbery, pomposity or ridiculous aristocratic behaviour. Sir Joseph is just a funny guy on the ship. He needs to stand out.

Part of the issue may be the costumes. Almost all of the characters looked like they just left a wedding. Tuxedos for the men, gowns for the women. Very little indication of status and rigid class structure that play an important part in the operetta. Naval uniforms work better. The costumes are supplied by Malabar Ltd. and the choices must be extremely limited. There is almost no indication that we are on a ship but all of that can be ascribed to paucity of funds. But in the case of Sir Joseph, an admiral’s outfit would have made a difference.

The chorus was splendid and the orchestra conducted by Derek Bate did a terrific job.

For those who want to be critical about TOT’s productions, do they know that it is the only company in Canada devoted to the production of operettas?

____________

H.M.S. Pinafore by Gilbert and Sullivan opened on March 4 and will be performed until March 8, 2020 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 

BOX 4901- REVIEW OF BRIAN FRANCIS’ PLAY AT BUDDIES IN BAD TIMES

James Karas

Box 4901 is a new play by Brian Francis that is based on a simple and unprepossessing premise yet manages to deliver a wonderful night at the theatre.

Francis is 49, gay and a writer. He has written three critically acclaimed novels (Fruit, Natural Order and Break In Case Of Emergency) and many humorous pieces but Box 4901 is his first work for the theatre and, he tells us, it is autobiographical.    

Twenty eight years ago when he was 21 he put an ad in the classified section of a newspaper searching for love. He got a number of letters that he replied to but he did not answer 13 of them. He decided to answer those letters now. The letters are read by 13 actors and Francis himself (who is not an actor) reads his replies.

How do you get a 75-minute theatrical performance out of that? 

Brian Francis and company. Photo: James Heaslip 

The letters are at least interesting and frequently entertaining, revealing of the writers’ characters and a picture of the life of gay men in the early 1990s. Francis’ replies are the clincher to the success of the play. They are variously perceptive, literate, sarcastic, dismissive, kind and always worth hearing. Francis obviously rejected the invitations of the men (except one) in 1991 and his replies today with his current view or as he wishes he had replied in his youth. His skillful writing is touching, humorous and impeccable.

All 13 letters are interesting especially when we hear Francis’ reply. One young man writes about himself and includes his love of exotic foods as one of his appealing traits. Francis’ reply is curt: “Where do you find exotic foods in southern Ontario?”

The 35-year old waiter is dismissed as too old.

The athletic homosexual who brags about his muscular build gets short shrift. The teacher who cannot spell the word “gorgeous” is also ignored.

The play also gives a glimpse of what life was like for a gay teenager and young man a mere 28 years ago. Francis never had lunch in the school cafeteria until he was in grade 13. He did not have any male friends and he did not want to sit with girls. He and his gay friends went to a “big” city, Hamilton, to check things out. Being gay in a small town is even more difficult than in a large city. When one of the men who replies to the ad gives his address, Francis is quite shocked. The news of his homosexuality could easily get out. 

The company/ Photo:James Heaslip

The World Health Organization delisted homosexuality as a mental illness in 1992. Read the name of the organization and the date and put your jaw back up.

Francis reads his replies from a lectern. The 13 men are in a square area of the stage and they are occupied in various ways throughout the performance. They do some miming, some almost dance sequences, move around the playing area and rearrange three white benches.  Kudos to director Bob Kempson for thinking of ways to occupy the actors who otherwise have nothing to do after reading their letter. Kempson is also credited as a co-creator of the play.

The actors, who are not identified in the program as to what characters they play, are Colin Asuncion, Hume Baugh, Samson Bonkeabantu Brown, Keith Cole, Daniel Jelani Ellis, Jeff Ho, Michael Hughes, Indrit Kasapi, Daniel Krolik, Eric Morin, G Kyle Shields, Chy Ryan Spain and Geoffrey Whynot.  Splendidly done.

Box 4901 is touching, humorous, intelligent, literate and simply marvelous theatre.

_____________

Box 4901 by Brian Francis, co-created and directed by Rob Kempson, in a production by timeshare performances with support from Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, opened on February 27 and will run until March 8, 2020  at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 12 Alexander Street, Toronto, Ontario.  www.buddiesinbadtimes.com.  www.box4901.com

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

US/THEM - REVIEW OF CARLY WIJS PLAY AT CAA THEATRE

By James Karas

Us/Them is an incredible play that goes beyond the usual limitation of theatre and leaves one astounded by its accomplishment. And, as they say, it is a must-see.

It is a two-hander and the characters are referred to as a Girl and a Boy. They are hostages in a school together with some 1200 people in total, 777 of whom are children. The terrorists were Chechens who took over a school in Beslan, Russia, in September 2004, the first day of classes.     

Belgium playwright Carly Wijs is taking a look at the three-day siege through the eyes of two youngsters and it is nothing like one would expect. The play contains many facts (and some fictions) about the city of Beslan and the view of Chechnya that the Russian pupils have been taught. The Boy and the Girl tell us that the children of Chechnya go to school until they are eight and then they work in brothels for pedophiles. The fathers are drug addicts and the mothers have moustaches.

It is the first day of school and the pupils are singing as thirty-five fully armed terrorists take over the school. The Boy and the Girl describe the take-over and attempts at escape but the key depiction is of what happens when people are seriously dehydrated. They go from headaches to nausea, to blue nails, decreased consciousness and finally hallucination. 

Gytha Parmentier and Roman Van Houtven. Photo by FKPH 

The two children continue telling their story but we never know if they are hallucinating or describing actual events. All are forced to raise their hands up in the air and stay that way. They are not allowed to use the toilet so bodily functions are done where they are. All the descriptions of the siege are told in a matter of fact way through the eyes of the two youngsters without any attempt at dramatic effect. This is not a story on CNN. The opaqueness, the unvarnished description becomes all the more terrifying as we absorb what in fact is happening. It is beyond description.

Strings are drawn across the stage resembling a spider’s web and the Boy and the Girl navigate through them. They see or imagine the gym where they are all imprisoned blowing up or the terrorists leaving or something happening. Some of it clearly did not happen, many things did. Again, this an intentionally opaque view of the tragedy and by no means an attempt at docudrama.

The two actors, Gytha Parmentier and Roma van Houtven, are superb. They are Belgians and speak slightly accented English but they are wonderful. They faint, they compete for who will say what, they are playful, they dance, all through an event that is beyond horror which results in the deaths of hundreds of people.

The back of the stage is used to draw diagrams of the school and there is a diagram on the floor as well which I could not see. Designer Stef Stessel makes the set with its strings and drawings look like a simple school project. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Wijs directs this intricate and highly original work that she wrote for BRONKS, a children’s’ theatre company and it premiered in Dutch in Brussels in 2014. It was subsequently produced in English at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. This is theatre at its most intriguing, original and fascinating

__________________

Us/Them  by Carly Wijs in a production by BRONKS and Richard Jordan Productions continues until March 15, 2020 at the CAA Theatre, 651 Yonge St. Toronto, Ontario. www.mirvish.com

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

OH, WHAT A LOVELY WAR – REVIEW OF HART HOUSE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Hart House Theatre is to be commended for its choice of Oh, What A Lovely War as part of its 100^th Anniversary Season. It is a biting music hall style satire on World War I that was created by Joan Littlewood, Theatre Workshop and others and was first presented in London in 1963.

Director Autumn Smith has given the piece a modern look by treating it like a video game with extensive use of avatars and projections. We see numerous scenes of trenches where soldiers are simply zapped as if they are just images in a video game. There are numerous photos and slides containing information about battles fought, gases used and casualties suffered. It is an image of war that does not lose its terror no matter how many times we have seen it.

The production has twelve actors, six men and six women, who play more than thirty roles among them, including seven avatars. The M.C. is a talking, computer generated head on the screen, speaking in a sonorous voice with some attempts at humour that invariably misfired.

 The Company. Photo: Scott Gorman

Unfortunately, the overall success of the production is limited. I will list some of the reasons why it did is not all that successful. I should note that all the actors are amateurs and have the right to be judged as such. There are many people who are listed as working behind the scenes. All of them deserve kudos and gratitude for the work that they do. Director Autumn Smith is a professional woman of the theatre and the production’s approach belongs to her. 

All the actors are miked and their voices come through a speaker above the stage. The only way one could recognize the speaker was by looking for whose lips are moving. Many phrases were incomprehensible. The actors attempted different accents and failed to always speak clearly.

Joan Littlewood who directed the original production had the soldiers (but not the officers) dressed like pierrots, the clowns of commedia dell’arte. There are many choices of costume that the director and designer could have made. In this production, Costume Designer Yasaman Nouri has them all dressed in navy blue overalls and they do not generate any laughs or the feel of a satire. Smith prefers dark shades to light and on a number of occasions we saw dimly lit actors or silhouettes of them in the dark.

The production follows a chronological sketch of events. We first hear representatives of France, England, Germany, Austro-Hungary, Russia and Serbia recite the inventory of armaments and armed forces that each nation had before the war. They are all armed to their teeth but war is considered impossible.

We proceed through the declaration of war, recruitment and training of soldiers and the initial battles. We soon reach one of the most moving evens of the war, the meeting of German and British soldiers on Christmas Eve 2014 in No Man’s Land. It was an extraordinary event when supposed enemies reached across to each other as human beings and shared their humanity. In this production the scene falls flat.

 The Company. Photo: Scott Gorman

The description of the gases used and their frightful efficacy from blindness to death is simply horrendous and astounding.

The singing is usually a cacophony but we do not expect musical entertainment. These are young people caught in the killing fields of Europe and if they survive they can speak to the futility of war.

The satire is best felt when a new commander-in chief of the British Expeditionary Force is to be chosen and the qualities of the two contestants are recited as if they are on a television game show. Unfortunately too many details are given about the two contestants, General William Robinson and Field Marshal Douglas Haig, and the satire loses its grit.

The play seems to be a seriously edited version of the original and there is no indication of what changes have been made, who made and the reason.

The amount of work and the roles undertaken by the actors is reflected in the following cast lists:

Rebecca Bauer - Avatar 4 / Austria-Hungary / Fr. Aide / Captain Ian Hamilton

Simon Bennett - Player 2 / Burt Higgins

Ethan Curnett - Player 3 / Jack Smith

Raechel Fisher - Avatar 7 / Britain / Douglas Haig

Kristiaan Hansen - Player 1 / John Fraser

David Jackson - Player 6 / Edward Davies

Mackenzie Kelly - Avatar 6 / Germany / Kaiser Wilhelm

Mark McKelvie - Player 5 / William Robinson

Katie Ready-Walters - Avatar 2 / Serbia / Violinist / Wilson / Chaplain

Jillian Robinson - Avatar 5 / Russia / Pankhurst / Homefires / Noel Des Enfants soloist

Patrick Teed - Player 4 / George Hiscox

Khira Wieting - Avatar 1 / France / Lanzerac / British General / Percussion

The idea of making Oh What A Lovely War resemble a video game may resonate better with the younger generations. Unfortunately it did not resonate with me.

__________

Oh What A Lovely War by Joan Littlewood, Theatre Workshop and Charles Chilton; Research by Gerry Raffles after treatments by Ted Allan and Others opened on February 28 and will play until March 7, 2020 at Hart House Theatre, 7 Hart House Circle, Toronto, Ont.  www.harthousetheatre.ca

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

LADY SUNRISE – REVIEW OF MARJORIE CHAN’S PLAY AT FACTORY THEATRE

James Karas

Marjorie Chan’s new play Lady Sunrise tells the story of six Asian women living in Vancouver around 2005.

When I stepped out of the theatre at the end of the performance, I saw two young men sitting on a couch looking intensely at the programme. “Who was the jogger?’ asked one. His friend did not know. “There were seven women” said the other and they started counting the cast list and came up with only six. “Who were the women in the trench coats with the wigs?” They had no idea.

The first question to be asked, I suppose, is what is the play all about? Is it a searching examination of the lives of a group of women from Hong Kong who live in Vancouver? By their command of English we can infer that they are born in Canada or immigrated at a very young age. One of them does have a poorer command of English but her attempt at an accent is not that great. I will leave it that.

Ma-Anne Dionisio and Lindsay Wu. Photo by Joseph Michael Photography

If not an examination, is it a satire, a send up by the author of some shallow, greedy, selfish, abusive and at times utterly stupid women? A satire could include some lampooning and generate some laughter. The play generated a couple minor giggles by a handful of people but there was not a single sample of laughter. Satire could be ironic or sarcastic but here was no evidence of that either.

Decide for yourself.

The play is structured as a series of monologues by the six women with a few minor examples of dialogue. The set is made up of half a dozen black risers on which the characters walk on and speak their lines. They could be steps leading up or down the success ladder.

The central character is Penny (Lindsay Wu) who appears first as a contestant or perhaps winner of a beauty contest. She speaks to her audience seriously or uses the blather of a beauty contest winner. She wants to address women now and in the future and convince them that they can do it. Her first concern was her lipstick and her nails and I am not sure how seriously we can take her.

Penny lives in a penthouse high above the city and she is used to expensive clothes, trinkets and a lifestyle of pleasure. She will run into trouble and eventually be gruesomely gang raped. Is she a prisoner and a victim of a male dominated society? Is she just a pretty, shallow, grasping woman who goes with men for the money and the presents that she can resell? The characterization is not particularly well drawn. She looks like a victim of her own greed, self-indulgence, shallowness and lack of common sense.

  

Penny is a protégé of Tawny Ku (Ma-Anne Dionisio) whom she calls Auntie even though they are not related. Auntie is loaded and she displays all the arrogance, irresponsibility and obnoxiousness of some plutocrats. She seems to go through protégés for some reason that escaped me but her overweening greed catches up with her. When her wealth crashes, she tries to find her humanity by getting in touch with her daughter. By that time we have lost all interest in this bitch.

Rosie Simon plays Banker Wong and we are grateful for the help in recognizing the character. Like Auntie, Wong understands almost nothing else but money. She wants us to know that she is tough on people without the requisite credit rating and takes pride in the eight quarters of profitability of her bank. She does run charity marathons and is, again, proud of the money that she has raised. But we are given a clue as to her totally non-altruistic reason for fundraising and her last minute cry for help falls on deaf ears. She is the jogger. 

Lindsay Wu and Rosie Simon Photo by Joseph Michael Photography

We have another Auntie, Charmaine, who makes soup and runs a massage parlour. Yes, it is a brothel that takes women who may have no choice and sells them for sex. Luisa Zhu plays Charmaine. One of her victims is Sherry (Belinda Corpuz) a pathetic young girl who tries to emulate the grand life style of sex-for sale Penny but fails at it. Her final appearance is a gut-wrenching scene.

We also have Dealer Li (Zoe Doyle). She was a simple worker and she and her husband were doing reasonably. Greed set in and he ended up losing what they had at the casino while she worked there watching other people blow their money. She is fired from her job for a spurious reason and I am not sure if it was because she is a woman of just plain rotten conduct by some creep of either sex.

The acting is largely monochromatic because it is based mostly on monologues and we develop limited sympathy for the characters who are not very well developed.         

Money and its corrupting influence and the fickleness of fortune have been the subject of myth and drama since the time of King Croesus. Ms Chan’s play is a welcome addition to the genre. There are some riveting moments but the play needs some better focus, more clarity and better character development.

__________

Lady Sunrise by Marjorie Chan, directed by Nina Lee Aquino, premiered on February 20 and will run until March 8, 2020 at Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario. www.factorytheatre.ca/

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

bug – REVIEW OF YOLANDA BONNELL’S CREATION AT PASSE MURAILLE

James Karas

Yolanda Bonnell’s solo show bug opens with her singing a simple chant that could be a dirge or an invocation. She sings about the eternal life-supporting substances of water and land. She is reaching for an all-inclusive spiritual connection.

The performance moves on a number of levels. Ms Bonnell is listed as the creator and performer of the work and not strictly speaking as the writer. She is Ojibwe-South Asian in a ritual and spiritual journey that goes from the many and mostly tragic lives of oppressed Indigenous women to searching for a connection with the stories and culture of the Indigenous people and bring them forth in the theatre.

On the realistic level, she relates stories of an Indigenous woman or many women growing up and becoming involved in smoking, drugs, addiction, sexual awareness and promiscuity. There are descriptions of unalloyed happiness with her little daughter and wrenching descriptions of her being taken away from her.

The lives of Indigenous women are a running theme throughout the performance and they go from the most tender like the touch of the skin of a child (a rare occurrence) to the ugliest and most devastating. Bonnell represents many women but they are not differentiated. She encompasses all indigenous women universally. 

Yolanda Bonnell in bug

Another recurring theme is the spiritual level which is more difficult to comprehend. The spiritual aspect of life is represented by the bugs of the title. There are many references to bugs from fireflies, to flies, to vicious bees covering her body.

She walks around the stage, raises her hands in invocation, falls on the ground and engages in physical activity throughout her performance. This is not realistic theatre but a series of rituals that encompass the real and the spiritual world as a continuum or amalgam. There is a complexity to the performance that is not easy to decipher in a single viewing.

The production is done in an intimate theatre-in-the round set in the small Theatre Passe Muraille with fewer than a hundred people in the audience. Cole Alvis directs and Michel Charbonneau provides dramatic lighting.

Ms Bonnell’s women are infused with the poison of colonialism and she wants to do much more than illustrate her views in bug.  She is determined to decolonize theatre and dismantle its colonial structure. She wants to find other ways that theatre can exist.

She describes her mission in a note in the programme titled On Decolonizing Theatre. She finds partners in Indigenous artists, especially women and artists of colour who want, in her words, “to bring deep Indigenous teachings back to our ways of storytelling.” It is something of which many (most?) of us would readily admit ignorance. If there is an Indigenous way of storytelling, it would be embraced and lauded by everyone and not just Indigenous people and people of colour.

She admits that she does not have all the answers, time, patience and a lot of work will be required to effect a fundamental shift in thinking. Bonnell has indeed a bold and revolutionary concept.

The Western literary and dramatic canon has been involved in story telling for a long time and not always within a colonial structure. Ancient Greek tragedy was born out of the dithyramb, a hymn to Dionysus, the god of wine abd fertility. Thespis, the first actor known to history, appeared on stage and told stories about the gods and myths. Drama itself originated largely from people’s spiritual beliefs. Greek tragedy in its story-telling always had liturgical and ritual aspects. In other words, the Ancient Greeks had found a way of telling their stories.

Is Ms Bonnell striving for the same idea for Indigenous people? The character or many characters in bug are they not reaching from the depths of desperation and alienation for spiritual contact with what they have lost? Is Ms Bonnell moving forward, however haltingly, back to the beginning and what happened two and a half thousand years ago on the foothills of the Acropolis?

____________

bug created and performed by Yolanda Bonnell in a production by manidoons collective, co-produced by Theatre Passe Muraille and Native Earth Performing Arts  continues until February 22, 2020 at Theatre Passe Muraille, 16 Ryerson Avenue, Toronto, Ontario. www.passemuraille.on.ca

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