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Browsing All posts tagged under »National Arts Centre«
A Woman Out Alone: Mrs. Dexter and Her Daily
On the Fringe tour, there is a lot of one-person theatre. Economically, it makes sense. With a successful Fringe tour, a single actor can make a decent income from a summer’s work. Moreover, Fringe venues are normally intimate and the space more easily galvanized by a single actor’s performance. The overall Fringe aesthetic also suits the […]
History Keeps Getting Older: Mother Courage Stays The Same Age
January 19, 2010
As an undergraduate, I really liked the idea of Brechtian epic theatre: direct-audience address, narration and song, juxtaposition and contradiction, actors changing character and costume in full view of the audience, simple props and set design, and an emphasis on issues and action rather than character and emotional attachment. The notion of destroying the artifice […]
Night of The Great White Guilt: Take Off, It’s A Beauty Way To Go!
January 10, 2010
Guilt — that is, the feeling of personal culpability — is a curious emotion. It’s a feeling of unpleasantness we experience because we think we did wrong to another. Sometimes, it even motivates us to try and take steps to alleviate the feeling by trying to set right the harm or wrong about which we […]
Channeling the Ghosts Of Christmas Past: The NAC’s First Ever Production of A Christmas Carol
December 14, 2009
Growing up, Christmas for me was a schizophrenic time. On the one hand, there was time-off school, a sudden surge of treats, and plenty of gifts. On the other hand, school was always a welcome refuge from my house and family, screaming-matches were inevitable, and the gifts were always used to coerce. As a result, […]
In the Name Of Myth, Music, and Craft: Lapointe’s Limbes Is More Than Words
December 4, 2009
In the waning years of my short life in the Catholic faith, when my mother could still get me to church through a mixture of economic coercion, emotional manipulation, and outright screaming, she introduced a liturgical concession, which I can only assume was her own invention, in a bid to stem the rising tide of […]
What You Say About Her Company Is What You Say About Society: Today’s Hedda Gabler, A Mean Mean Pride
November 13, 2009
All’s well that ends well and Schaübhne Theatre Company’s revised and updated production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler ends very well. The final moments of this production border on gloriousness. Unfortunately, the 130 minutes that proceed them are nowhere near as satisfying. Overall, this up-dated version of Ibsen comes across like a well-executed soap opera intermittently punctuated […]
The Sleeping Beauty: Beauty Unbound
November 9, 2009
On Friday, November 6th, 2009, I saw my first live ballet: the National Ballet of Canada’s production of The Sleeping Beauty at the National Arts Centre. If this production is representative of what live ballet has to offer, I’ve been missing something wonderful. I attended Friday primarily because I had never seen a live ballet before. […]
Beyond The Score: A Night Well-Spent At The NAC
October 2, 2009
Whenever I have the good sense to attend an orchestral event, my favorite moment of the evening is always when the orchestra tunes up. Immediately, I am reminded of the richness and power of the raw sonic quality of an orchestra and then there is that beautiful moment when the discord of the tuning transforms […]
Another Flavor of Blog: My Very First Blog Giveaway Post!
September 28, 2009
Thanks to the good people at the National Arts Centre, today, I can offer my first ever blog giveaway! I’ve been invited to attend and blog about a National Art Centre Orchestra Special Concert: Mozart’s Final Concerto, Beyond the Score (Wed., 30 Sept, 2009. 20:00.). Check out the details here. I will pass along two […]
Radix Theater’s Assembly: A Case Study In How Not To Engage The Audience
May 27, 2009
For better or worse, I’ve decided that — as a rule of thumb — if I encounter a piece of theatre that I think fails, I won’t write about it. Any good teacher will tell you, the hardest and most time consuming essays and exams to mark are the failures and we all know public […]
February 23, 2010
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