Friday, November 27, 2020

PAUSE – REVIEW OF TONIA MISHIALI’S FILM AT EUROPEAN UNION FILM FESTIVAL

Reviewed by James Karas 

Director Tonia Mishiali’s Pause is the second Greek-language movie streamed by the 2020 European Union Film Festival. It Cyprus’s contribution the the Festival.

Pause is a sensitive, moving and almost relentless study of a woman at the end of her rope. We meet Elpida (Stella Fyrogeni) in a doctor’s office with her legs up on stirrups   being examined. The doctor (Marios Ioannou) recites some of the symptoms of menopause some of which are memory lapses, mood disorders, vaginal dryness, loss of sexual desire and perhaps some others. Elpida may be too young for menopause and the movie indicates that if she has any of these ailments they are not from menopause.

Elpida is disheveled, her hair is a mess, she wears no makeup and her face expresses misery, anxiety, pain, hopelessness and the image of a woman on the verge.

Stella Fyrogeni in the doctor's office
Mishiali takes us through Elpida’s ordinary, daily routines, such as shopping at the supermarket, cooking, doing laundry and looking after her husband Costas (Andreas Vasileiou.). We get a closeup of her existence with him who is an ape and that may be an insult to those fine mammals. We usually see him eating or more accurately stuffing his face, snoring and being a jerk. He speaks very little and the only time he shows any affection is when he addresses his parrot.

Elpida wants to colour her hair, get a computer or have money for gas. The answers to all these requests are negative and insulting. He even sells her jalopy of a car leaving her with no choice but to walk everywhere including the supermarket.

Elpida seeks an escape from the prison. She finds a “lover,” a house painter named Andrey (Andrey Pilipenko). She takes up some painting and attempts to run away. She gets dressed up, packs a suitcase and confidently walks away. But she returns. When Costas becomes unbearably obnoxious, she tosses a plate of food in his face. She goes out with her friend Eleftheria (Popi Avraam) and has fun at a disco.

The issue here is which, if any, of these events are real as opposed to illusions borne out of her desperation?

Mishiali gives us some hints but mostly she wants us to figure things out for ourselves. The day after she meets the painter, she finds a hickey on her neck and covers it up with makeup. We can assume that Andrey did it. But there is a subsequent car trip with him, and we may be certain that she is just imagining it?

For her outing to the disco with the appropriately named Eleftheria, Elpida puts on makeup, they drink and sing and find a few moments of happiness. Reality or illusion?

Mishiali in her expert directing provides few exterior scenes and the background is frequently blurry. There is no sense of location in the film except for the interior of Elpida’s mind. That is the only scene that counts. Her condition deteriorates throughout the 96 minutes of the film with the possible exception of the respite provided by her imagination or the reality of her relationship with the painter and her friend Eleftheria.

Eleftheria by contrast is vivacious, outgoing and a woman with guts. She prayed for her husband’s penis to dry up and for him to die. And guess what? Her prayers were answered, she tells us with glee. Elpida’s facial expression conveys the utter misery of a woman, of all women, trapped in hellish marriages. There are escape hatches and we watch as Elpida tries to find one for herself. In the end she leaves us with an extended gale of mysterious laughter.  

Mishiali, who also wrote the screenplay, wants us to see the physically and emotionally cramped apartment, the blurry surrounding world and the expression on Elpida’s face and soul. It is a masterful approach which evokes a superb performance from Fyrogeni and the supporting cast.

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Pause, written and directed by Tonia Mishiali, was streamed on November 19 and 20, 2020 as part of the European Union Film Festival. For more information see: www.euffto.com

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press. This review appeared first in the newspaper

Saturday, November 21, 2020

DEFUNCT – REVIEW OF MAVROEIDIS’ FILM AT EUROPEAN UNION FILM FESTIVAL

 Reviewed by James Karas

The European Union Film Festival is an annual event in Toronto featuring, as its name indicates movies from EU member countries. The 2020 Festival had to take account of the pandemic and it has smartly gone online by streaming 27 films across Canada. Greece is represented by Defunct, a film by Zacharias Mavroeidis and Cyprus by Pause, a film written and directed by Tonia Mishiali. Like all EUFF films, they are shown in the original language with English subtitles.

Defunct (Ο Απόστρατος) is set in the Athens suburb of Papagou and is centered on the life of Aris. He is a young man with serious financial problems who has dreams of making it. He returns to his grandfather’s vacant house in Papagou from the upscale area of Glyfada and runs a “big business” of importing expresso machines from Italy. He has traveled widely and may settle somewhere, maybe Paris or London. All of this is illusion or poppycock as he tries to sell a single expresso machine or make a big sale to the army.

Michalis Sarantis and Thanasis Papageorgiou 

Mavroeidis’s script includes several plotlines and examines themes of love, friendship, honor, loyalty and betrayal. Aris’s story takes place in 2012 but the plot takes us back to the Greek resistance in World War II, the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) and subsequent events.

The other main character of the film is someone we never see. It is Aristides, Aris’s grandfather, who was an army officer and had a good friend, Vassos (Thanasis Papageorgiou). Vassos and Aristides were close friends since childhood, but their relationship became complex during the war.

Mavroeidis reveals the complexity of the relationship of the two friends but does not take sides and leaves us to decide about what is the truth and who is telling the truth. Aristides rose only to major and was forced into retirement early. His family believes it was Vassos’s fault. Vassos was accused of being a leftist and Aristides was ordered to arrest him and deliver him to the authorities. Vassos spent years in prison islands. Thirty years later, Aristides bought a house for him near his own. Why? Was the major fearful of blackmail or was he repenting for what he did to his friend during the Civil War?

Mavroeidis reveals the relationship between Vassos and Aristides slowly and tantalizingly. There is also a stunning revelation that does not answer the riddle of the friendship bur revealing it would be a serious spoiler.

Aris played by Michalis Sarantis goes on a journey of discovery about himself, his “friends” and his ambitions. More importantly he travels back into family history and lore. He lies to himself and to others as he tries to extricate himself financially and from his grandfather’s possible moral culpability. His parents have their own version of the truth as does Vassos. It’s all opaque and very intriguing.

Michalis Sarantos as Aris looks lost. He is a man in search of solutions to his personal problems and issues from the past. His understated performance is well-modulated and superb.

Thanasis Papageorgiou as Vassos appears like an old man who suffered a great deal because of his political views. Even in the 21st century he is a socially unacceptable pariah. He is social dirt. We see him as a man of decency, but we cannot be sure. A fine performance.

In the end the plot strands are left hanging because Mavroeidis want us to choose, for ourselves, if we must. One of the final scenes is a dramatic shot of Mount Olympus as Vassos is driven by Aris to his village.

The film is shot in Major Aristides’s house and around Papagou. In the old, rundown house, we see a carved wooden chair in front of well-stocked bookshelves. This was Aristides’ office, and it represents him as a meticulous man of learning and authority. But that may be just as much illusion as reality. We see a ceremonial officer’s sword hanging on a wall several times. Will someone use it? Again, Mavroeidis teases us with its mysterious presence.

 The scenes around Papagou are of a pleasant suburb. It was in fact built by Field Marshal Alexandros Papagou for army officers in the 1950’s when he was Prime Minister of Greece. An ideal location for the film.

The film’s title in Greek is O Apostratos (Ο Απόστρατος) meaning a retired officer or perhaps a forcefully retired officer. You may stretch it to mean a useless man or a defunct man. There are numerous clubs in Greece for retired officers and they can hardly be taken to refer to themselves as defunct. Calling the film Defunct may be another example of Mavroeidis being opaque about his work.

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Defunct, written and directed by Zacharias Mavroeidis, was streamed on November 14 and 15, 2020 as part of the European Union Film Festival. For more information see: www.euffto.com

 James Karas is the Senior Editor – Culture of The Greek Press. This review appears in the newspaper.

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

LIFE WILL SMILE – REVIEW OF STUNNING FILM ABOUT THE JEWS OF ZAKYNTHOS

 Reviewed by James Karas

Before World War II, there were 77,377 Jews in Greece living in 25 communities across the country. At the end of the war there were 10,226 left, 86% of them having been exterminated by the Nazis. The percentage of losses from each community ranges from 99% of the Jews of Xanthi and Serres to 26% in Volos.

But there is one incredible exception: the island of Zakynthos had 275 Jews living in harmony with the Christian population. Not one of them was captured or killed by the Nazis. 

The astonishing story of their survival is told in Life Will Smile – The Holocaust in Greece and the 275 Jews of Zakynthos, a 38-minute film directed by Dery Cleanthous and produced by Steven Priovolos and streamed by the 2020 Toronto Jewish Film Festival on October 27 and 28, 2020.

Photo courtesy of The Toronto Jewish Film Festival. 

The story of the Jewish community of Zakynthos is told by Haim Konstantini who was born there in 1933. He was 83 when he narrated the film. He tells us of an almost idyllic life on the island with Jews and Christians living in harmony. But we are also informed of the murderous progress of the Nazis starting in February 1933, a month after Haim was born. We see film clips and still pictures of the the Nazis, the crematoriums, the murdered remains of people and the extermination camps that defy belief in their horror and bestiality.

After the benign occupation by the Italians, the Germans arrived and, Haim tells us, World War II began for the islanders. Hunger, mistreatment and deprivations followed. The hunt for Jews began and the mayor of the capital city, Loukas Kerreri and Archbishop Chrysostomos were summoned by Nazi officers demanding a list of all the Jews and their property.

The mayor and the bishop returned the next day and gave the officer the names of all the Jews on the island. The list had two names on it: Kerreri and Chrysostomos! We are the only Jews on the island, they said. How can there be no Jews here when there is a synagogue? demanded in effect the officer. We are all Christians, he was told.

The mayor and the bishop warned the Jews and told them to scatter in the villages around the island. Some of them hid under gravestones in a cemetery and eventually all found hospitality in the houses of Christians. Not one Christian betrayed the Jews and not a single Jew was found.

The mayor and the bishop escaped but they were found. They were tortured but did not disclose anything. The mayor’s wife was pregnant at the time and Haim movingly admits that he would not have had the courage to do what the mayor had done in similar circumstances.

Some of the incidents are dramatized and there are some beautiful shots of the island. It is an outstanding and thoroughly moving story of humanity and heroism in the face of the greatest crime in history. The lives of 275 people may appear insignificant in the face of the extermination of six million, but a tiny example of decency is extremely significant in the expanse of cruelty that the imagination could devise and evil perpetrate.

Fittingly Mayor Loukas Kerreri and Bishop Chrysostomos are recognized as Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance Centre in Israel. for their bravery.

 P.S. The film states that 77% of the Jews of Greece were exterminated. According to the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs the number is 86%.

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For tickets and more information visit: https://tjff.com/films/life-will-smile/

James Karas is the Senior Editor – Culture of The Greek Press. This review appears in newspaper as well.


Wednesday, July 29, 2020

PERSIANS - REVIEW OF STREAMED PRODUCTION FROM EPIDAURUS

James Karas

The National Theatre of Greece has scored a coup by streaming Aeschylus’s Persians directly from the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus. This the first time that this has been done and the laudable production deserves to be followed with more opportunities for people around the world to see ancient and modern Greek drama.

Persians has many aspects that are unique to the play and it presents almost insurmountable obstacles for a modern director and actors as well as for the audience. It is the earliest extant play from the handful of works of Ancient Greek drama that have survived. It was produced in 472 B.C. and deals with a historical event, the defeat of the Persians at the battle of Salamis in 480 B.C., a battle in which Aeschylus took part. Most other plays dealt with mythical subjects.

At its simplest, the plot deals with Persian elders (the Chorus) and Queen Atossa, the wife of the dead King Darius, learning from a Messenger of the colossal defeat of their great army. Xerxes had amassed a colossal force to subjugate the Greek city states and Athens in particular. It was a commensurately colossal defeat for the Persians and a victory for civilization.
Lydia Koniordou as Atossa. Photo: Marialena Anastasiadou
The Ghost of Darius also appears in the play as well as the dishevelled and desperately defeated Xerxes.

Dimitris Lignadis, the Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Greece, directs the production and is the one who must find a way of presenting a play to a modern audience even though we know very little about how it was done twenty-five hundred years ago.

The Chorus plays a key part in the play and it is the hardest aspect to deal with. We know that in Ancient Greece they spoke (through the Chorus Leader or in unison), chanted, sang and danced. In Lignadis’s production, they do all of those things to some extent. They wear white shirts with Greek writing on them (I could not figure out what) and skirts. They used long sticks resembling spears for some of their movements. Choreographer Konstantinos Rigos has created simple but effective movements for them with music by Giorgos Poulios.   

Aeschylus used various meters for the Chorus which are impossible to reproduce for us and it is one of the losses that we must accept. We are treated to the recitation of a few lines in the original Greek which resonated with the modern audience and evoked applause. 
The Chorus. Photo: Marialena Anastasiadou
Queen Atossa is the main person in the play as the grand widow of Darius. Lydia Koniordou, dressed in a black gown, evokes shock, grief and fundamental tragedy as she realizes the extent of the Persian defeat and its meaning as the end of an empire and her world. A bravura performance by a great classical actress.

The Ghost of Darius comes from the underworld to witness the effect of hubris and the resulting Persian catastrophe. He (Aeschylus, of course) warns against overweening arrogance and cautions the victorious Athenians as much as he mourns the fate of his empire. A superb performance by Nikos Karathanos.  

Argyris Pandazaras has the tough and thankless job of the Messenger who must disclose in great detail the awful result of the great expedition.

Argyris Xafis gives a fine performance as the blood-spattered and utterly humiliated Xerxes who appears at the end of the play.

As I said it is a laudable production, but it was not without glitches. There were problems with the audio which was interrupted a number of times. I am not certain, but it looked as if the actors’ spoken lines were pre-recorded and it was impossible to synchronize the lip-movements with what we heard. These are technical problems that may well be fixed if there will be futures transmissions.

Transmission of theatre and opera performances from numerous venues have become the norm. Let’s hope that Greece will pick up the habit and make Greek drama, both ancient and modern, more familiar to all of us.
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Persians by Aeschylus in a translation by Theodoros Stephanopoulos was performed on July 24, 25 and 26, 2020 at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, Greece.  It was streamed live on July 26, 2020 and is now touring around Greece. For more information visit:   www.greekfestival.gr

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press.
This review will appear in the newspaper.

Saturday, April 25, 2020

SHAKESPEARE FIGHTS COVID-19 TWELFTH NIGHT FROM THE NATIONAL THEATRE

Reviewed by James Karas

The National Theatre is doing its bit to help us survive the covid-19 pandemic by enlisting Shakespeare and broadcasting some of its productions on YouTube. On Shakespeare’s birthday, we were treated to its 2017 production of Twelfth Night directed by Simon Godwin.

As with most productions of Shakespeare, the question in what does (or can) the director and the designer bring to a play that is familiar and is available in the theatre, on film or DVD to be seen numerous times.

Godwin and Designer Soutra Gilmour put their own imprimatur on the production and, not surprisingly, push the boundaries with the intent to surprise, fascinate and entertain. In the usual course of subjective reactions, I give some credit and raise some eyebrows at the result.

It is done in modern dress with a generous portion of modern music. The set consists of two staircases that meet at the apex. They are set on a revolving stage and are used frequently.

Gender switches are almost de rigueur and Godwin partakes of the trend generously. Malvolio becomes Malvolia (Tamsin Greig), Fabian is Fabia (Imogen Doel) and Feste is played by Doon Mackichan.  No issue with any of those changes and they are all done well.

Godwin is faithful to the text with the insignificant changes of pronouns where necessary but he wants modern intonations and the creation of energy. Phoebe Fox as Olivia is aggressive to the point of appearing to be overacting. When Cesario drops by she does a lot more than try to persuade him that she has fallen in love with him. She strips to a bathing suit and enters a hot tub. She pulls Cesario in the water as she makes it perfectly clear that, to put it indelicately, she has the hots for him.

Malvolia is in love with Olivia and he aspires to have her. Does Malvolia harbour same-sex feelings for her? Of course she does and if there is any doubt the answer lies in the final scene when Malvolia threatens to get even with the pack of her abusers and takes off her wig revealing or confirming that she is a lesbian. Greig gives a superb performance as she shows her ambition to rise above Olivia’s servants and her brother Sir Toby.

Sea Captain Antonio (Adam Best), may harbour homosexual feelings towards his friend Sebastian but he is a minor character and the relationship is only hinted at.
The gulling of Malvolia is never pleasant to watch but Godwin has her blindfolded and tied up and her treatment is especially cruel. There is no way of making that scene acceptable.

We have the hilarious scene where Sebastian (Daniel Ezra), mistaken by Sir Toby (Tim McMullan) and Sir Andrew (Daniel Rigby) for the cowardly Cesario, attack him. He gives far more than he gets and Olivia comes out screaming at the attackers. But the scene in Shakespeare’s text takes place in front of Olivia’s house. In this production the incident takes place in the Elephant pub. What are Toby and Andrew doing there and how is Olivia able to jump in and stop the fight? A stretcher too far.

Tamara Lawrence is an excellent Viola/Cesario as is Oliver Chris as Orsino. I enjoyed Phoebe’s spunk as Olivia and Mackichan is a highly enjoyable Feste. The acting of all is to the National Theatre standard which is indeed high.

The sets place the action basically nowhere. Going up a staircase does not locate the action anywhere. The attention to the text is admirable. Godwin makes sure that all lines are delivered carefully and clearly. A pleasure to the ear.
     
Twelfth Night like all plays is set in a world that had a different ethos. The closet homosexuality, the gender swaps and characterization details are in the hands and imagination of the director. But imposing current morality and standards on characters that are rooted in another world I find incongruous and unsettling. What they do in the play belongs to the era when they presumably existed and having Orsino drive up to Olivia’s door does not add anything to a great play.

In addition to Shakespeare, the national Theatre has enlisted other allies in its fight of covid-19 and you can get the details here: https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/

Thursday, March 12, 2020

THE EVENTS - REVIEW OF NECESSARY ANGEL THEATRE PRODUCTION

James Karas

Alan Dilworth, the director of The Events, describes the play as “one of the most simple and yet complex” he has ever encountered. As a two-hander with a choir, it looks simple. After that following the plotline and making much out of it becomes a pretty tough task.

The production uses a different community choir for each performance and the City Choir was present on opening night. They sang several times and participated a bit in the play but I did not quite get why they were present.

After the singing by the choir we meet a priest called Claire (Raven Dauda) and a young man whose has an Aboriginal name that I did not catch and is also referred to as Gary. He gives a startling image of an aboriginal boy standing on the rocks above the Illwarta River in Australia when sail ships arrive from England for the first time. They carry convicts, religion, disease and “instruments of objectification.” If he were there, this aborigine warrior would have told the boy to kill them all. OK, but “instruments of objectification”? 
Raven Dauda and Kevin Walker. Photo: Dahlia Katz
From then on, Claire and the young man assume a number of different identities that are difficult to follow and even more difficult to understand.

Claire tells us that she and her lesbian partner lived happily at first and then Claire became a priest for the poor and vulnerable. Something terrible happened to her. We are never quite sure what is was but it involved a man with a gun who confronted her and another woman and shot the latter.

The incident was so terrible that she feels she is entitled to a visit from God.

The young man imagines being a Viking warrior, going berserk and slaughtering people. In his view the best thing for the world is a huge conflagration that burns everything out of existence. He wants to make his mark on the world now using violence. After all Jesus had established a religion by his age, Bob Geldof has saved Africa and Gavrilo Princip had started World War I.

Members of the choir throw questions at him as if he were a pop star, asking about his favourite song, favourite movie, if he drinks, is he a virgin, what is his diet. He tells us that the aboriginal warrior follows the Paleolithic diet as described in the Sunday Times Lifestyle Supplement. All of this is said with a straight face and barely raises a giggle from the audience. This play has no humour at all.

The dialogue gets more confusing as we get an infusion of more jargon. We look for a snippet of clarity and find is more confusion. Claire relates the story about the birth of a boy in a hospital where she is a nurse. She takes the newborn and suffocates him. That seems clear.

There is a supposed ceremony to bring back people’s souls. A choir member (apparently with no acting experience) tells the young man that what he asking he to do is depressing.

Claire gets a job at Peterhead Prison. The two start fighting, Claire wins and spits on him. She describes the incident with the gunman who kicks the door open where she and another woman are. She has sex with him and his soul returns. More torture and violence.

The play reaches the end after about eighty minutes and we go back to the beginning where the young man shyly enters the room with choir and is received by the priest Clare.

The set by Ken MacKenzie has several rows of chairs to accommodate the choir, a piano and open space. Jacqueline Teh is listed as Music Director and I assume she was the woman playing the piano.
Dauda and Walker speak matter of factly about the horrible things that they describe and some of the jargon that they express. It is the perfect way to express what the play offers.

“One of the most complex …plays” that Dilworth has ever encountered went pretty much over my head, In the program note he states that “I hope to present the possibility – an invitation for a shift in one’s narrative of themselves, their situation or the world around them.” How I wish he had.
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The Events by Davis Greig in a production by Necessary Angel Theatre Company opened on March 4 and will run until March 15, 2020 at Streetcar Crowsnest Theatre, 345 Carlaw Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4M 2T1. www.necessaryangel.com.  http://crowstheatre.com/

Tuesday, March 10, 2020

OIL – REVIEW OF ARC PRODUCTION OF ELLA HICKSON’S PLAY

Reviewed by James Karas

OIL is an extremely ambitious play by British playwright Ella Hickson. It premiered in London in 2016 and ARC is producing it for the first time in Canada. The play is done in Geary Lane in Toronto. It is an empty factory that holds fewer than 100 people (I did not count them) and it has severe limitations for a satisfactory production.

There is some excellent acting and dramatic scenes but the play itself is tough to produce and its shortcomings become more glaring in the circumstances.

Hickson tackles the rise and fall of the imperialist West as seen through its dependence on oil from 1889 to 2051. It starts in 1889 on a farm in Cornwall, England where everyone speaks with a southern Ontario accent. It is not the best way to do it but it is much better than having Canadian actors attempt an English accent. Most of them cannot do it. 
Bahareh Yaghari and Samantha Brown. Photo: Nicholas Porteous
The Singer family is barely scraping by during a freezing winter and we are met by a melodramatic scene with a loving and strong-willed wife facing a tyrannical mother-in-law while her husband is fighting with his brother. The wife is May (an outstanding Bahareh Yaraghi) who is married to the iron-fisted Joss (Cyrus Lane) and the mother-in-law is Ma Singer (Deborah Drakeford).

The future has arrived in the form of kerosene which will change the world. The pregnant May walks out of the family and into the future.

The future is the desert near Tehran in 1908 where oil has become big business. May is a servant in a club and has bratty and obnoxious daughter, Amy (a superb Samantha Brown). May is working with Thomas (Ryan Hollyman), a dishrag of a server and meets a despicable naval officer (played by Courtenay Stevens) who tries to seduce her. She walks out into the future again.

The future is in Hampstead in 1970 and May is a tough oil executive facing disaster as Colonel Gadhafi is taking over and nationalizing the Libyan oil fields. In this segment, Thomas is a mealy-mouthed corporate man while Mr. Farouk (Nabil Traboulsi) as the Libyan agent is making it clear that the days of cheap oil taken by the foreign oil companies are about to end.

In 2025 May and her daughter are in Kurdistan. Amy has become more obnoxious, if possible, and May is defending raging imperialism and capitalism while trying to communicate with her daughter.

It is 2051, we are back in Cornwall and the future is here as is the end of Western civilization as we knew it. May and Amy are freezing because there is no more oil and the world has been taken over by China. It uses nuclear fuel from the moon (if I understood correctly) which will last forever. We go back to the beginning (illusion, delusion?) and the play is finished as we are.        

Nabil Traboulsi and Bahareh Yaraghi. Photo: Nicholas Porteous
That is a lot of ground to cover. Hickson covers or wants to cover the evils of imperialism, capitalism, use of fossil fuels and human and corporate greed quite mercilessly. She combines that with family and personal issues as the intrepid May moves from a backward farm to the world of a single parent amid world issues. As if that were not enough, Hickson catapults into the future. 

Directors Aviva Armour-Ostroff and Christopher Stanton have an amazingly talented cast to work with and put them through roles that cover almost two centuries. They do outstanding work. I have named several of them and will add Cyrus Lane as Joss, Shadi Shahkhalili in the three versions of Anne and Lily Gao as Fanny.

Set Designer Jackie Chau has very limited space in which to work but she does her best to take us from the farm to the back room of posh club and back to the farm with a couple of pit stops in between.

Hickson tries to cover far too much within the limitations of two and a half hours where there is no room for detail or nuance 
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OIL by Ella Hickson, in a production by ARC continues until March 21, 2020 at the 360 Geary Lane Toronto Ont. www.arcstage.com

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