Los Angeles, Day Two

Here is Hollywood and Highland.  Supposedly the place to see the Hollywood sign from.  Do you see a Hollywood sign?

 Waited for 45 minutes for the bus to the cemetery and then the people showed up with their Jesus signs chanting about god so I got a taxi.  We pulled in and I thought it would be better marked.  I remember the cemetery in Paris with a map and famous people marked, but not here, it was more like a proper cemetery and I had to go in and ask and get directions.  I also bought a rose.
I walked over to the grave and as I was looking around for it, I saw a couple of deer at the top of the hill guiding me.

 I walked over to where the deer was and found Paul and his partner Roger and instantly started crying.

 Beautiful amazing words from a beautiful amazing man.

 Together again.

 Paul has a great view, this is looking up, near where the deer were.

 And this is looking down into the Hollywood hills.

 I sat there for about two hours.  I talked and shared a lot of private things, and I read from his works.  Security kept circling me but I paid them no attention.

I will share two things, the first is a poem Paul wrote at this spot after his partner Roger passed away from AIDS in 1986:

HERE

everything extraneous has burned away

this is how burning feels in the fall of the final year

not like leaves in a blue October but as if the skin were a paper lantern full of trapped moths beating their fired wings

and yet I can lie on this hill just above you

a foot beside where I will lie myself soon soon and for all the wrack and blubber

feel still how we were warriors when the merest morning sun in the garden was a kingdom

after Room 1010

war is not all death it turns out

war is what little thing you hold on to refugeed and far from home

oh sweetie will you please forgive me this

that every time I opened a box of anything

Glad Bags

One-A-Days

KINGSIZE was the worst

I'd think will you still be here when the box is empty

Rog Rog who will play boy with me now that I bucket with tears

through it all when I'd cling beside you sobbing

you'd shrug it off with the quietest I'm still here

I have your watch in the top drawer

which I don't dare wear yet

help me please

the boxes grocery home day after day

the junk that keeps men spotless but it doesn't matter now how long they last or I

the day has taken you with it and all there is now is burning dark

the only green is up by the grave

and this little thing of telling the hill I'm here oh I'm here

And finally, the closing lines from his book Becoming a Man:

...this feeling that I'm the last one left, in a world where only the ghosts still laugh. But at least they're the ghosts of full-grown men, proof that all of us got that far, free of the traps and the lies. And from that moment on the brink of summer's end, no one would ever tell me again that men like me couldn't love.

I really feel that he was the one, the messiah to lead our people, to teach what brotherhood can mean, to help our community get past the shame and the anger and the regret and into love.  A brilliant man.

I thanked him for his contribution to the world and left. 

Gotta hurry, I got back late and busy day tomorrow.
I saw The Book of Mormon tonight.  A solid 9 out of 10.  Clever, funny, thought provoking.  A little heavy handed in some parts and the Mormon hell scene went on too long.
The idea of founding a religion based in America and exporting it to other countries in staggering in its audacity.  Still the irony was not lost on me with people laughing at Jesus in New York City or god living on another planet while fully accepting the virgin birth.
Afterward for $20 you could have your photo taken with the two stars in support of Broadway Cares Fights AIDS so I did, of course.  Here's two copies, the first with the red eye out but we look kind of alien and the second with the red eye in.

I did manage to find the place where the famous people sign their names and do the hand prints. I was impressed at the range of eras, Cher did it in 2010 which was late, but Natalie Wood did it in the 1930's, which I thought was early.  How old was she, 10?
Lots of famous people I don't care about, Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Eddie Murphy, etc., and one I did.

Long travel (what else is new from this place?!?!) tomorrow.  First the post office, a 20 minute walk, for some stamps, then the Getty and the ONE archives.  Night!

RENT - Lower Ossington Theatre

I saw RENT on Saturday night at the Lower Ossington Theatre.

I have seen this show onstage around 12 or 13 times so I know what I like, I know what I don't. I'm very particular, but I do also appreciate innovation and I think every production I've seen has brought something new to the table.

The first thing I noticed was an absence of the usual cast. I've seen quite a few plays, almost all, from the Lower Ossington, and the only cast member I recognized was Mark Willett as Brian from Avenue Q.

Three things that bothered me after I left. One, at the end of the first act, Aaron Sax as Mark said that Roger is going to write a "bittersweet, provocative song". The line is "bittersweet, evocative song." Roger is trying to write a song to evoke memories of his whole life and love and the disease, not a song to make people get naked to. He used the word provocative in the second act as well.

Second is that Jaclyn Herder, fantastic as Mimi in act one, left at the intermission. I've seen hundreds of plays, I've never seen this happen before. She was replaced by someone less stellar.

Third is that after Angel dies, she came back on stage before the end. There was generally a feeling of trying to use the whole cast more, for example I have never seen "Out Tonight" sung as anything but a solo and they had about 8 people on stage for the number. There were times it was too much. "Living in America" had the entire company on stage, including Angel who was dead. It really lessens the impact. Dead is dead, how are we supposed to suspend our disbelief if she's walking and having a dance party in front of us five minutes after dying? Also at the end Angel came out on the top floor, separate from the rest of the cast, which I didn't appreciate. Why keep her separate now, she was already doing a dead dance five minutes before? I would have rather seen her come out last and be welcomed by the other cast members and made to feel included.

Several more notes:

Although it's fine to listen to the soundtrack to memorize the notes, I would encourage the cast not to sing the soundtrack verbatim. Particularly Kevin Vidal as Collins, during the "I'll Cover You" reprise, he's just lost his life partner. Put more emotion into each note, building, and your voice should be strong, maybe even crack a little with emotion, when you hit the top, the line "When your heart has expired". It was too perfect.

The choreography was very ambitious. A little too much at times, for example in "Santa Fe", the cast links arms and does the dance from the Wizard of Oz, "We're off to see the Wizard" and we can see them rolling down the yellow brick road. Too much. I would say it worked well for "Out Tonight" though.

There was a couple of times the cast was so caught up in the dancing they missed the significance of the lines. In "Happy New Year" the line “That's for midnight” refers to the champagne bottle that one of the characters is holding and drinking. It’s Mark saying “Don’t drink that – that’s for midnight!” The line was delivered Saturday night to thin air, the bottle on the floor behind the cast tucked away and not yet touched.

Also in that song the lyric “5-4-3- open sesame!” refers to them breaking the lock off their door. The performance I saw, the lock was long gone, the open sesame command being delivered to thin air.

Graham Fleming is the most handsome man I’ve ever seen in my life.

He’s tall and beautiful, which is not an ideal fit for Roger, who is a dark and sullen rock star. Attempts were made to dirty him up, including eyeliner, fake tattoos, a leather jacket, but I don’t know that they really worked. He has an amazing voice but I just didn’t buy his depressed loner hunk. I would have suggested him for Mark instead, moving Kevin Vidal into the Roger role, a natural fit for the hunk.

I have never seen "Contact" performed without a sheet, and it was very brave of this young cast to come out shirtless, and very effective.

Marissa Dingle as Maureen was perfectly cast as the star of the show. This is the hardest role, you have to come on cold at the end of act one and instantly win the crowd over and mission accomplished.

Phil Skala as Angel and Jacqueline Martin as Joanne also stood out.

In the Heights - Toronto Centre For the Arts

Theatre has the power to change your life. It has changed mine. 
I remember the first time I saw RENT I had listened to all the songs and knew all the words before I stepped in the door. I sat and watched in wonder, I was transported in to this world. When the dancer sang the song 'Out Tonight' and she screamed at the chorus about how you go out and all the noise from the lovers and babies DIEEEEEEEEES I still remember my heart jumping. When the show was over I was crying so hard I was unable to stand. 

I remember watching the Elton John ballet LOVE LIES BLEEDING and realizing the power of dance, the effortless movements making me forget my seat, forget my body, until I was moving with them. 

I remember watching AVENUE Q for the first time about a million seats away from the stage and laughing my head off, drinking in the whole show and loving every second. 

I remember sitting in the beautiful huge new theatre downtown one hot night in summer watching NEXT TO NORMAL and feeling something I hadn't felt for a long time when the show woke me up, made me feel alive again, and for the next two months I listened to the songs every day until I knew every word, every breath. 

I remember traveling to London to see EQUUS and the border agent asking what I planned to do on my trip. When I said "See a play" she said "That's a long way to come to see a play.". It was worth it, to see emotion conveyed like that, to see someone check themselves at the door and totally become someone else was something I hadn't seen before. 

I remember going to see BARE at the University of Toronto's theatre and liking it so much I went again and again. I remember waiting outside for autographs and pictures, going back and taking friends, parents. 

And so you take chances, and you keep going to shows, and you keep seeing what's out there. 

And even though you're tired and it's freezing cold outside, you spend $90 and travel 45 minutes up town to go see IN THE HEIGHTS.  And it's tired and predictable and unrelateable and overwrought and you can't help but wondering why you bothered. 

Saved - Factory Theatre

*I feel like some of my reviews lately have been overly critical. Okay, not just lately. Anyway, I now want to attempt to be more constructive in my reviews and highlight areas for change rather than strictly outlining faults and have started with this review*

As I sit in the courtyard waiting for this play to start, I read the director's notes in the program.  He talks about disenfranchised middle class youth in Canada contributing to the G20 and Vancouver riots because they are "repressed by their disconnect to themselves and society". That these youth feel nothing towards our society "except hate and anger".

The play features a group of adolescents who feel disconnected and commit a shocking act of violence. This is the play that Sarah Kane's Blasted should have been and this play pre-dates Blasted by 30 years. The play is fantastically written, not falling into the trap of so many plays about adolescents and overly focusing on their ennui. This play has relate-ability for youth, but also a forward moving plot, humor and character development. I can see why the director chose to stage it.

The production was good but some things can be done to make it better, even now half way through it's run.

1. Change the season. The theatre has no air conditioning and was about 35 degrees the night I saw the show. The cast has been forced into jackets and sweaters and when one character says "its too cold in here" laughter erupts from the audience. Change the season to summer, get the cast out of their sweaters and stop the sweat from dripping off them. The summer of violence rings truer anyway.
2. Pick a time. The play is written and set in 1965 yet the directors notes claim the setting was moved to 1997. You can't have lines like "I'll text you a photo" in 1997 and cell phones the size of credit cards.  Also in 1997 it's unlikely a woman would be trying to fix her stockings with a needle and thread, or that she would be going out to the cinema to see the latest Tarzan picture. Clean this up.
3. Two of the three leads are perfect. The young man who opens the show sounds and acts like Dick Van Dyke in the movie Mary Poppins. He's more likely to host a tea party on the ceiling than start a knife fight. Toughen him up and have him watch Mary Poppins for a lesson in what not to do.
4. Drop the opening scenes.  They're too confusing.  One second he's asking her name, the next second they're on a boat, the next second they've broken up?  It moves too fast and only serves to distance the audience from the material when the play starts. Drop these scenes and start with the break-up.
5. Give the old man an ironing board! He stands there for five minutes in a pivotal scene ironing his shirt on the back of a sofa and it's ridiculous. An ironing board would bring your total props to I think three? Its not too much to ask.

Fantastic source material and moments of brilliance.

"A society that maintains an underclass tolerates a measure of barbarity."—The New York Times, in their review of Saved

Excuse Me, Would You Like to Buy a Bar - Bathurst St Theatre

The author of this play, Wesley J. Colford, caught my attention as a handsome dancer in the recent performance of Reefer Madness. I saw him outside Mickey & Judy, we spoke, and I decided to add his play to my already lengthy list of nine.
An attractive young cast that really commits to their roles and some great scenes.  Is this supposed to be a drama or a comedy though?  It felt like the serious scenes were being played for laughs, and there was some laughter, but then why were there serious scenes?
At the beginning two women are talking and then a Chinese xylophone plays and the two women forget who the other person is or why they were talking.  Then they suddenly start talking again, then again with the Chinese xylophone, then again with the memory loss.  Then the play moves on and never mentions the Chinese xylophone or the memory loss ever again.  What's up with that? Parts like that take away from the good aspects of this play.

Radioactive Drag Queens From the Year 3000 - Factory Theatre

This show is an abomination.
There's so many problems it's hard to know where to start.  First of all there are no drag queens except in the last 30 seconds.  There is a tired tranny in a $2 house dress and a couple of women but that's it.  The one drag performance comes at the very end, a plot device you can smell in the first 30 seconds of the show, and the man doesn't know the words to the song and can't dance or lip synch. The two women behind him doing the "walk like an Egyptian" move behind him don't help.
The action comes screeching to a halt for three 5 minute monologues that will make you want to scratch out your eyes.  The one by the "straight" man is so offensive it borders on homophobic.  "I really like vagina.  No seriously.  As in no cock.  Vagina.  More vagina.  I beat up a drag queen once.  Did I mention vagina?" is a summary of the speech.
So terrible it makes you not want to go see other Fringe shows.
So terrible I was, I'm not kidding, sitting in the audience thinking how little time we have on this earth and how I was spending it watching this.

Mickey & Judy - Tarragon Theatre Extra Space

Michael Hughes, the writer and star of this one-man show, is a revelation.
This show is full of heart as Michael takes situations like being taken for psychiatric testing for cross-dressing at age six and presents them with humour and without self-pity.  He describes how he has gotten through difficult situations in his life by watching musicals and escaping to a different land and the show itself is intercut with musical numbers by this gifted performer.
The honesty and humour of the piece draws you in and won't let go.
A standing ovation well deserved, you'll laugh and cry.
The feel good show of the Fringe.

La Duchesse de Langeais - The Central - Fringe Festival

It's that time of year again, the Fringe festival is back in town.

As I step out of The Central I look at my watch and see the play runs 21 minutes short of it's promised 60 minute duration, but you won't mind. The Central is a bar with an amazing patio just behind Honest Ed's with an inside like a house of horrors.  The walls appear to be cobbled together from other walls of other abandoned buildings. There is no room at all, when you walk up the steps to use the bathroom the person at the top has to stop as two people do not have room to pass each other.
The "stage" is a long room, maybe 15 feet long and 7 feet wide. In the 7 feet wide there is a table, three chairs, an aisle and no air conditioning. The chairs are made into rows the length of the 15 foot long room at a very tight angle, leaving you hot and cramped.
Once the play started it became apparent the "stage" was  by the bar as every five minutes or so a server would get a drink. The "stage" was also in the kitchen, separated by a door that did not fully close. The parade of staff streaming into the kitchen did not stop for more than 30 seconds and rarely then. Being beside the kitchen did not help the temperature either which got hotter and hotter as the show went on until the sweat was pouring off my forehead in buckets. Despite the fact that it was only 24 outside, inside it was at least 35 with no breeze.
The show would have been less disturbed if it was held in the middle of the street and like in a suburban road hockey game, the play could have stopped and the audience could have picked up their chairs whenever a car came.
The play would have felt less disrupted if it was held in Union station during rush hour. That may have even added  to the play with the people going about their busy lives while La Duchesse, The Duchesse, pauses to reflect on hers.
The original play was written as a monologue by Michel Tremblay, whose work St Carmen of the Main was recently produced by CanStage. This version is presented with three characters, La Duchesse and her male and female inner voices and the change really works well. It serves to amp up the emotion of the piece, something absent from the recent production of St Carmen.
There's a trick in translation whereby you leave certain words un-translated. It helps to add a feeling of the original and when done well it doesn't matter that the audience doesn't understand the odd word as they get the gist and a sense of another place, in this case Montreal. By the end of the piece the translator gets it right and there's a decimate flow mixed with a French je ne sais quoi. The beginning still needs more work with entire sentences or two sentences left untranslated it only serves to draw non French speakers away from the story.
The cast are all consummate professionals, in perfect attire giving mostly flawless performances. The lead did flub a series of lines in the middle but his acting was fantastic, playing La Duchesse with a coy smile and frowning funnily when her female or male counterpart brings up something unpleasant.
A great piece that deserves to be seen by a wide audience but that I cannot recommend in it's current venue.

9 to 5: The Musical - Toronto Centre for the Arts

I have sat through a lot of terrible musicals. South Pacific, The Color Purple, Cats.  This misadventure ranks up there with the best of these.
I bought tickets to this show as all the gays love Dolly. She can sing, she has charisma and huge tits. What's not to love?
I found out as I and a half full theatre trekked all the way to North York for a night of the shows 10 day run. The lights went down and an audience of gays and old ladies settled in for a blast from the past. The show takes place in 1979, a time when women's lib was building to a crescendo. A time when all men were sexist pigs and all women hard done by. We're transported there inside the mind of Dolly Parton, who has a weird child-like view of the world. The show is all about girl power but not true girl power the women find themselves.  The power they get is from behaving like the men, using tactics on them like they used on the women.
The plot involves a group of secretaries who are unhappy with their boss and their jobs. They then poison their boss, hold him at gunpoint, tie him up, kidnap and blackmail him. Seriously. Girl power, right?!?!
This is the end of act one and during the break I tried to guess how many references the play had to castration. MANY. Too many to count. Also too many to count was inside references to the future. For example "Why is there an apple beside your typewriter? You can't type with a Mac apple silly!" Cue hilarious peels of laughter.
The cast was fairly good but too small. During the all male dance number for example I noticed about half the men had breasts. The standout was Mamie Parris (what kind of name is that?!?) as the lead Judy. She can act and sing and could step on to any Broadway stage tomorrow. The draw was Diana DeGarmo from American Idol. Her singing surprised me, she was excellent. The acting was not good though that could be due to the direction. Rather than play the character she played Dolly Parton playing a character and something got lost in the translation. Same with Dee Hoty as Lilly Tomlin as the character, it didn't work.
A distraction from life but not worth a trek north on the subway, or really across the street.

Fringe Festival 2011

I have narrowed down my picks to nine plays, meaning one $70 pass will cover me for the whole festival.

Thurs, July 7
8:30 PM - La Duchesse de Langeais, The Central, 603 Markham St (Bloor west of Bathurst)
In a new interpretation of “La Duchesse de Langeais”, Apuka Theatre moves Michel Tremblay’s ageing, heartbroken drag queen, from the beaches of a southern resort, to a busy Toronto bar and takes a closer look at the man behind the pomp and makeup.

Fri, July 8
5:45 PM – Mickey & Judy, Tarragon Theatre, St Clair to Bathurst then south
This hilarious, pseudo-memoir, chronicles Hughes’ childhood obsession with musicals and his journey from psychiatric ward to Off-Broadway.
Chock-full of comical anecdotes, showtunes and the Judy Garland songbook, this 55 minute songfest is perfect for anyone who has ever wished they could live inside a musical or wanted to change their surname to Von Trapp.

Sat, July 9
3:30 PM – Radioactive Drag Queens from the Year 3000, Factory Theatre, Bathurst s of Queen
They’ve come from the future with an important warning... and hairspray.
Lots of hairspray.
So. Much. Hairspray.

Sun, July 10
Noon – Operation Impervious, Robert Gill Theatre, 214 College St. (at St. George), 3rd floor
Randall and Martin are two celebrity-obsessed roommates who set out to prove that the world’s most famous movie star is gay. At the same time that they infiltrate a celebrity-run religious cult, Randall’s boyfriend comes back after having been thought lost on a deserted island; coincidence? We think not!

5:45 - Keep Tightly Closed In A Cool Dry Place, Theatre Passe Muraille (Queen & Bathurst)
Serio-comic fantasies soar as three men in prison fight their lustful attractions. They grapple with guilt over a murder they committed; they bully and betray one another, exposing at every twist the violent snakes that snap and bite them in ways both painful and immeasurably full of pleasure. They are Gods and Devils, living in a jail cell.

Mon, July 11
7:00 PM - Holy Tranity! Robert Gill Theatre, 214 College St. (at St. George), 3rd floor
Gracie, Santos & Michael are looking for love in all the wrong places. Santos, a young gay teen hopes to ride his good looks to fame and fortune. Gracie’s a lady in waiting, and Michael lives the life of God’s chosen warrior. Three lives intersect in a funny and twisted tale of love, sex and unlikely friendships.

Tues, July 12
8:30 PM – Saved, Factory Theatre, Bathurst s of Queen
SAVED is a disturbingly violent and shockingly funny look at lower class British youth desensitized to sex and violence. Set at the height of rave culture and the cusp of our current era, amidst our media influenced society, this retelling of Bond’s modern classic reveals the timelessness and universality of the play that abolished censorship in England.

Thurs, July 14
7:30 PM – Living With Henry, George Ignatieff Theatre, St George Stn, Bedford Rd exit
A new musical drama that explores the fear, complications and realities of living with HIV/AIDS in our society today. The narrative revolves around Michael - a gay man who comes to realize the pain of “dis-ease” and is forced to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges to gain a much deeper understanding of self and the complex world around him.

Fri, July 15
7:00 PM – The Tiki Bikini Beach Paradise Party A-Go-Go, Tarragon Theatre, St Clair to Bathurst then south
A loving, comical celebration of the Beach Party films of the 60’s. Freddie, Jeannette, and their beach pals plan to celebrate the final weeks of summer vacation by throwing an outta sight beach party on Bikini Beach! Featuring a live band and new music by Jeffery Straker & Allison Beula with a cast of whacked out go-go gals and guys. It’ll be Tiki-Tastic!

The Railway Children - The Roundhouse Theatre

The producers of this show, in the Programme notes, say:
"The emotional impact of this production is transforming and like all great theatre is not only life affirming but helps define our humanity."
It's presumptuous to call your show "great theatre" before the premiere. And hold on to your hats but there is nothing transformative about this show.

The premise is a familiar one with Victorian British school children acting precocious and running around having misadventures. This kind of theatre has been a staple in Canada for the last 70 years or more as entertainment for children and a reminder to adults of their British roots. This genre has been slowing dying and as evidenced by the lack of people at the production last night, I feel it's time may have come and gone. As mentioned in the Star review, what child in 2011 would be interested in seeing a play where a character exclaims "Gee willikers!" upon breaking their leg?

The script itself is infantile and several lines clunk with a thud that resounds. I spoke with people I went with who said this was part of the writing style of the time, but there are modern updates in the play that fare no better. At the end of the first act, one of the characters says "Were you expecting to see a huge train crash? This is supposed to be a family show!" A line obviously not in the original script and that does nothing but pander to the audience.

There's a lot of pandering going on, with the actors telling the audience to use "all their imagination" at one point and hilarious lines like "Some things were good. And some things were bad. No, come to think of it, everything was good!" with pauses for laughter that she's still waiting for.

Much has been made about the train and during both acts you spend most of the scenes waiting for the thing to come. There are many scenes involving a train where the train DOESN'T arrive. When the thing finally does come so much has been made of it, its arrival ends up feeling anti-climactic. The train itself is very quiet, perhaps special effects could have made its arrival sound more majestic?

Coming to sound, the theatre is not ideal sound wise and with the accents several people missed a lot of the dialogue. I understood almost everything but like all theatre presented in the round there are times when a character is not facing you and whispering that no one can hear a thing. Add to this an insipid background soundtrack and everyone had trouble hearing at times. There is no stage change to show a change of scene from night to day so they play birds chirping incessantly, something picked off the soundtrack for Snow White by the sounds of it.

Actors who stood out were John Gilbert in the small role of "Old Gentleman" and Richard Sheridan Willis as the conductor; he also plays the father, the doctor and the train driver. There were times when the conductor acted to stimulate the audience and make them invested in the story and this should have been expanded, the moments were too few and far between.

Overall the play was not terrible despite its many faults. There is a sense of returning to our British roots, of marveling at a time when people said "Old chap" and "You're a real brick!" But the story leaves you disinterested, watching the events unfold with indifference.

Bullet For Adolph - Hart House Theatre

This Woody Harrelson written and directed play has generally not garnered favorable reviews so far and I was trepidatious about coming. However the Hart House theatre is a great venue where I've seen some amazing theatre and that coupled with a memory of a slight crush on Woody Harrelson during his White Men Can't Jump phase led me to buy a ticket.

The show does not contain Harrelson in the cast or during the curtain call at the Thursday night performance I attended. I'm not sure he was in the building as a sign in the lobby advertises "Talk-back after the show with the cast and Woody Harrelson" for dates earlier in the run and simply "Talk-back after the show with the cast" for mid and later dates. So despite all the posters, don't come to the show for Harrelson. But do come.


The play is set in Texas in the summer of 1983 and a great early 80's vibe is set as soon as you enter the theatre with the music of the era and continues with video clips of MTV, Reagan, etc.

The story concerns a group of friends led by Harrelson stand-in Zach (played by Brandon Coffey) who work together in construction. The group all meets up for a birthday dinner party where the host, a Nazi sympathizer, shows them his pistol. This pistol was used in an attempted murder of Adolf Hitler but when the trigger was pulled the gun jammed and the attempted murderer was executed. The host explains the gun represents to him the possibility of freedom of idea, that the lower echelons do not have to live in dictator rule, there is a way out. The party continues and at the end of the first act we learn the gun has been stolen.

This sets up a second act where everyone's a suspect and a mystery involving who stole the gun that really comes to nothing. Similarly the idea of the gun as a symbol of hope also comes to nothing and while the story does wrap up nicely it could have been made better by following through on the set up of hope or redemption presented in the first act.

This being said I had a good time. The play is funny without being overly crude. The characters are big and brash but it works in the setting and it makes you like them. The staging I found more than adequate with dry ice and gunfire and other neat tricks you don't often see in an amateur production.

Brandon Coffey is great as the Harrelson part, playing his "awe, shucks" persona for all it's worth and occasionally throwing in a sharp barb letting us know he's in on the action. At first I found Billy Petrovski as Dago-Czech to loud and overbearing but by the end I liked him too and he was routinely getting the laughs.

The highlight is David Coomber as Clint playing an effeminate straight man with gusto, really not afraid to show his stuff, both figuratively and literally.

A great fun evening out. Recommended.

The Situationists - Buddies in Bad Times Theatre

Well, this play was a first for me. Not only was it a terrible show, it damaged my psychologically.

I saw this play Thursday night and considered not writing a review. I needed time and space from the experience and am only now just recovering.

The play concerns a group called The Situationists, a group that was popular in France in the first half of the twentieth century and had a pinnacle with a strike by 11 million workers and students bringing the French economy to a standstill in the late 1950's. The group creates situations to further their left-wing ideals and goals.

This play is set in Toronto in modern day. No mention of what occurred from the late 1950's to now, no mention of how the group travelled into Canada, no mention of anything really. As one man said to me in the intermission "Before this play I didn't know anything about the Situationists." and I replied "You still don't! Not from this play anyway."

Gavin Crawford plays the lead role of a snooty aging French activist. I had enjoyed Mr. Crawford previously as host of the CBC show "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?" and in his last play, another Sky Gilbert production, "I Have AIDS". I met Mr. Crawford on a gay cruise this February and remarked how much I liked his performance and he told me about this play so I was anxious to see him in it. He is an attractive man hidden by a grey suit, makeup, glasses, in fact he was almost unrecognizable. Add to this a French accent. Now while the Globe and Mail said the accent was over the top, I disagreed for the most part and found it believable. The problem was the accent was so thick much of what he said could not be deciphered by anyone in the audience. The play was staged in the round and when Mr. Crawford wasn't facing me, I have really no idea what he said.
Haley McGee played his mousy sidekick and for the entire first act, and it must be said most of the second, the two sat in the corner and smoked French cigarettes while muttering, sometimes incoherently, about the problems of the world. And this is where the main problem with this play lies, the script by Sky Gilbert. It's a stumbling block to creating realistic characters when you cannot get past yourself, when you make every character a large part of you. The play seemed little more than an excuse for Mr. Gilbert to rant on everything from recycling to the fallacy of heterosexual AIDS in rants that have long since shifted from shocking to tiresome. When a character begins his sentence with "The problem with left-wing politics in Canada today is..." what can the audience do but roll their collective eyes? This has become the trademark of a Gilbert play and really distracts from any other attempt at narration. The friend I saw the play with suggested Gilbert in future work with someone else, that by writing, directing, attending every performance and putting so much of himself into his characters, it's really not doing a service to the play itself and that perhaps a collaboration could help with this.

The very handsome Gil Garrett delivers most of the trademark Gilbert lines with a great gusto, really opening himself up and checking his ego at the door, making rants that sound trite due to repetition at least believable and for that he deserves to be commended.

The play ends with the actors, still in character, breaking the fourth wall to talk to the audience and encourage them to reveal their secret sexual desires, and here comes the psychologically damaging part. After I and others engaged in the discussion amongst the audience, the entire thing is revealed to be a farce, a put on, all part of the show. The real emotions and feelings revealed in vain by those who fell for the hook, and the whole thing a hoax.

After sitting through two hours of rants, to be made the patsy is really the final blow in what can only be called a terrible theatrical experience.

New theatre season

I decided the time was nigh for a preview of the new theatre season with every major company already announcing.

Buddies in Bad Times is continuing their trend toward their new mandate of plays that will fuck you up, with the notable exception of The Normal Heart. A co-production with my favourite troupe, Studio 180, this play was written by Larry Kramer and originally produced in 1985 and is about the AIDS crisis in New York City at the time.  The play deserves a mainstream audience but I doubt Buddies agressive "fuck you" season will allow that to happen.

Also of note at Buddies is a super fucked up version of The Maids by Jean Genet and a dance/theatre combo from Sky Gilbert Dancing Queen starring the amazing Ryan Kelly and featuring cheorgraphy by the equally amazing Keith Cole. I'm less optomistic about Hallaj, the story of a 10th century Sufi mystic and Bliss about Céline Dion speaking through an oracle to a group of cashiers at Walmart and talking to her number one fan, who has spent most of her life chained to her bed by her family.

I'm okay with pushing the limits of theatre but who the Hell does this?  "Let's put a cow skull on the cover, and we can have psychic Céline and a 10th century mystic.  That will bring in the crowds!"  There's pushing the envelope and then there's tearing the envelope into pieces and setting the pieces on fire.

The University of Toronto's Hart House Theatre has announced a great new season today which I subscribed to already this afternoon.
Topping the list was Cabaret in January and Tennessee William's The Night of the Iguana.  I've never heard of Iguana but Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire are two of my favourites. My third pick was The Great American Trailer Park Musical which sounds like a great companion piece to last seasons Jerry Springer: The Musical.  For $60 you get these three shows and a bonus ticket to Lysistrata - the sex strike, whatever that is.

Mirvish announced a while ago, the highlight being the Abba musical Chess. Other shows include Mary Poppins which I saw in London three years ago and fell asleep, and a pointless revival of Hair that no one was asking for.

Dancap announced for me a better season than Mirvish this year.  I've already bought a four-play flex pack with tickets for American Idiot, The Addams Family, 9 to 5, and Next to Normal.

Continuing with the "fuck you" theme, Canstage brings more nouveau European theatre no one wants. The sole standout is Studio 180's Clybourne Park, a modern retelling of A Raisin in the Sun.

Finally Soulpepper announces on the calendar year and are already halfway through their season. Upcoming highlights are Arthur Miller's The Price and Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie.

Our Class - Studio 180 - Berkeley Street Theatre

After a mis-step with Parade, Studio 180 is back on form with Our Class.
The play starts slowly with many non-English names to keep track of and frequent bouts of song, dance and espoused philosophy but grows and grows.
This is what 180 does do well, why they are a necessary company in this city. They take an issue and they look at it from all sides. Sides you didn't know existed.
This play is set in a small Polish country-town where, before the second World War, the village came together and murdered all the Jews. The play vividly shows Poles hunting the Jews for their perceived injustices against them, then shows the Jews hunting the Poles, and back, and forth. The play does a great service exposing the fallacy of human nature. It weighs issues of guilt, mob mentality, prejudice and religion and brings them all together.
I have always believed a disservice was being done to the victims of the war by whitewashing the truth and this play helps to shine light on the facts. After the war when the people of the town are called to account for this genocide, they blame the Germans and everyone goes along. There is a plaque laid to commemorate where the Germans killed the towns Jews. The fact that the Germans hadn't gotten there yet, that the town was occupied by Russia, is swept aside.
We do a disservice to the memory of the fallen by over-simplifying the situation. By saying "the Germans killed all those people because the Germans were evil" we can't learn. I know one of the hopes with Remembrance Day is that we never forget, that we don't let it happen again. This is best achieved with a frank examination of  the facts, by humanizing both sides of the story. By remembering that on both sides there were people, just like us, living the best they could. By seeing how things can escalate out of control, by examining how our government can manipulate us, and by focusing on the humanity of all involved, this is what can save us from repeating our history.
And by illustrating all this and getting me worked up enough to type this, Studio 180 again has fulfilled their mandate.
"To produce socially relevant theatre that provokes public discourse and promotes community engagement."

More Fine Girls - Tarragon Theatre

Manic. If you had to describe this show in one word it would be manic. It's like the writers drank 30 cups of coffee, then wrote a play. It's like the actors drank 30 cups of coffee before performing. Fast talking, quick movements, manic.
The play centres around three sisters and their varying struggles with sanity. I'm not sure if the play was supposed to be a comedy, there was a lot of jokes and a good one every ten minutes or so but the plot seemed too absurdist for a comedy.
The play goes from one sister who talks to aliens and attaches her furniture to the ceiling, to another constantly bemoaning her fate, to the third, Anne-Marie MacDonald portraying Aunt Jackie from the tv show Roseanne down to the hand wringing and oversize gestures.
The problem is nothing is believable. The story is not believable and goes no where and the characters have no arc, when the story ends everyone is in the same emotional state as when they begin. Along the way we're treated to an insane person's rantings; of hidden cameras, alien abductions, far out diseases. None of it makes any sense. And the payoff, the end of they play, is a narrator saying "a year later, everything got better".  The end.
Skip this, along with the rest of this season's Tarragon offerings. Last season they had original musicals, stories from remote parts of Canada, and contemporary dramas. This year every play seems to be the result of five people locked in a room for two hours.

Good Mourning Mrs. Brown - Princess of Wales Theatre

I previously went to see Mrs. Brown's first Canadian show "How Now Mrs. Brown Cow" and really enjoyed it, a great fun evening out. For Christmas I bought my dad and his partner Linda tickets to this new incarnation which we saw last night.

I had been watching the BBC series and had seen the full season already before going in, and much of the plot of this show is presented as a live version of that one. They crammed in six episodes into one 2.5 hour show, cutting out parts and moving other parts around. This worked far better than I thought it would.

For the most part I knew what was going to happen but that didn't lessen my enthusiasm, in fact I enjoyed this show more that I did the previous show last year. One of the great things about a Mrs. Brown show is the actors regularly break the 4th wall, talking of sets and microphones, and are always keeping each other in laughter. It looks like they have great fun doing the show and that shines though and always adds a new, unpredictable element.

My favourite joke of the series was featured, when Mrs. Brown wakes up tired and says to her son "What a waste of time! I stayed up until midnight last night to watch this show called "GRAND PRIX" (pronounced 'pricks'). What a waste of time! The entire facking thing was about race cars!" As well, a great new joke, "Well, as the hurricane said to the palm tree, 'Hold on to your nuts, this isn't going to be an ordinary blow job!'"

Off-colour humour but never smutty, it was a great time at a great show and a super night out. Standouts were the excellent Brendan O'Carroll as Mrs. Brown and Gary Hollywood, with the coolest name ever, as Dino. A great time and I look forward to seeing the whole cast back next year!

New York City - September 1, 2011

In the musical theatre world, you snooze you lose.  Tickets are already on sale for some of this summer's biggest shows and the time to book is now.  The longer you wait, the further back you're going to be sitting.
Here, in no particular order, is a list of shows I plan and hope to see. And I think the Spider Man musical is the stupidest idea ever so that one is out. Also I hear the Evita revival starring Ricky Martin is not opening until 2012 now.

How to Success in Business Without Really Trying

Starring Daniel Radcliffe
Status: Got seats, September 1, 7 pm. 2nd row centre.










The Book of Mormon

Written by Matt Parker and Trey Stone, with the creator of Avenue Q
Status: Booked for Tues Sept 6 at 7 pm. 2nd row centre.










La Cage Aux Folles

Written by Harvey Firestein, previously adapted as the movie "The Birdcage"
Status: Only extended to May so far.  Really want to go, will watch for another extension.









My Big Gay Italian Wedding

Previously starring Reichen Lehmkuhl, this cast seems to rotate and I might be able to see it with a big gay star.
Status: Currently extended until May 2011, looking for another extension.






American Idiot

This show sounds great and is based on the Green Day album of the same name.
Status: Currently extended until May 2011, looking for another extension.











POSSIBILITIES

RENT

Returning to NYC for the first time since closing, this is a great show but I have seen it several times and this is an off-Broadway version
Status: Currently on sale until November.




Avenue Q

Another great show but one I have seen twice, and this is currently a star-less, off-Broadway run.
Status: On sale.







Naked Boys Singing

Who doesn't love naked boys?  The problem is if this is the exact same show I saw in Provincetown, it's quite dated.
Status: On sale.

The Boys in the Band - Ghostlight Projects - Buddies in Bad Times Theatre

The classic gay play was first produced in New York City in 1968, a year before the Stonewall riots. I had seen the film previously and while I enjoyed it, it remained something of a cultural time-piece.
The play mentions in the program it's hopes of not being dated with the director saying "I wanted the era to be somewhat unknown".  This fails miserably, but it's not like they really try. From the outfits to the records to the rotary phone, the set has obviously been designed as a period piece and the only mention of modernization is from the program, so I'm not sure where he was going with this. It still feels dated, but new life is brought from the cast and for the first time I could see the characters as real people, and the drama as believable.
The play is presented in an open concept style, possibly due to space limitations. The desired effect is sometimes reached, where you feel in the action, another guest at the party. More often though it just feels cramped. The theatre has flimsy chairs and rotating yourself around in them constantly to see the action proved tiresome. At one point I had to move slightly so an actor could hit his mark, and the crab dip served at the party was about a foot away from me, I could smell it all night long.
I don't want to seem too down on the experience, I am very glad I went, and the play is a great artifact of our collective gay history. I think the problem with doing something so culturally iconic though is it does bring comparisons, and in some cases highlight the shortfalls.
Overall the cast was good but they really needed more rehearsal time as a group. I would suggest seeing this play later on in the run after there's been more time to perfect the dialogue.  I know the play is wordy, but the lead Matthew Romantini as Michael, in the first act especially he kept saying the wrong line, then going back and correcting himself and repeating the line properly. People don't talk like this and I would have preferred if he had continued with the wrong line and worked something out, then we might not have noticed every single time he flubbed. It doesn't have to be an exact reading and the constant starting and stopping drew us away from the drama of the story, and away from his character.
It really felt like everyone went off and learned their lines individually, which is why I say the play could benefit with more rehearsal. The friend I came with said there was supposed to be a lot of characters talking over each other but often when it happened you could see the wince from the actor, the face that said "Whoops, that wasn't my place!" or conversely the long pauses where we waited for the actors to figure out who's line it was next. This happened more than an acceptable numbers of times and is something that should hopefully be ironed out later in the run.
The standouts were Jonathan Morton-Schuster as Emory and Cole J. Alvis as Harold. Both brought over the top life to over the top roles and gave fearless, nuanced performances.
I'm hopeful the few flaws I mentioned will improve and overall I'm very grateful for the chance to see this classic work live on stage.

Saint Carmen of the Main - Canadian Stage

If you're thinking of committing suicide anytime soon, make sure you stop by a showing of this play on the way. It has that great "push you over the cliff" mentality suicidal audiences are sure to love.
In the program we read the many, many, many notes of the set designer, detailing his exhaustive research in to the play, the period. S/he (I have no idea if the name "Eo" is male or female) cites ten separate influences before sharing his hope of "distilling the set to a mythic simplicity".  Which in this case means a wall with two doors and a Texas longhorn antler set. This is it for the entire 95 minutes, no set changes. He finishes saying "with this design I have tried, in my way, to be an artist".  One wall and a set of antlers. Really???  I forgot to mention there's also a beautiful carpet but as the balcony was empty and everyone sat on the floor no one could see it. And again we're left staring at beige walls.
Much has been made of turning the lead Carmen in to Lady Gaga, part of the reason I wanted to go. It's Lady Gaga with a lobotomy. No emotions, no like-ability, nothing dynamic. And one outfit worn for the whole show, a white cat suit. I have no idea where these comparisons are coming from.
The show is narrated by a chorus of transvestites and prostitutes, which sounds good, but in reality means 12 people speaking the same line all at the same time, all dressed in red. I was asleep within five minutes.
The story revolves around a singer and the power of her songs. We never hear these songs, there's no music at all in fact until the last sixty seconds of the play which feature a song sung in some language that is neither English or French and sung by someone else. Considering the play is set in Montreal, I have no idea why they chose whatever language that was.
Finally the plot, the last 20 minutes of the play is two characters describing a murder. When I was talking to the friend I went with, he revealed to me that the murder never actually happened, the whole thing was them concocting a story. How I was supposed to get that I'll never know, although if I had been conscious that might have helped. Probably not.
This is the kind of theatre that makes you not want to go to the theatre. No new ideas presented, no great acting feats and an indiscernible plot just left me wondering why I had left the house.