Eleven women shared the stage last night at the Bella Rose for a fundraising performance of Birth by Karen Brody. These women were not professional actors, but rather a cast made up of talented local Doulas (Women who assist in childbirth by providing emotional support and physical comfort to the mother). The play is documentary-style, […]
Kate Watson
Posted inArts + Music
Shakespeare by the Sea’s seasoned players
Shakespeare by the Sea began with the dream of presenting great theatre in Point Pleasant Park. In 1994, Patrick Christopher Carter, Elizabeth Murphy and Jean Morpurgo invited a group of young actors from the Dalhousie Theatre Program to perform Twelfth Night in the park, and to their great surprise, over 3,000 people attended the run. […]
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Theatre
July 31-August 5 Halifax International Busker Festival Water balloon gladiator. Soccer ball acrobatics. Human statues. Men in Coats. Aerial Angels. No, these are not random words pieced together for your amusement. They are just a few of the shimmying, shilling and generally entertaining on the Halifax waterfront this summer. Imagine what they do, and then […]
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The Madonna Painter
The Madonna Painter is really quite extraordinary. The play, by French Canadian playwright Michel Marc Bouchard, is set in a small Quebec town in 1918 (although the time and place was not explicitly clear, at least to me, in the Taboo Theatre production) during a devastating flu epidemic. In response to the outbreak, the town’s […]
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Killzone: A Love Story
Heat Theatre’s mandate is simple: Produce plays that are “too hot to handle”. And there’s no doubt that Killzone: A Love Story falls within this mandate. It’s a provocative, disturbing and altogether harrowing journey into the mind of a soldier severely damaged by war and shunned by society. Although the conflict is never specifically named […]
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Dead funny
Although Count Dracula is a comedic version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, that doesn’t mean it’s without suspense. Thanks to some effective sound effects (such as the distant howl of dogs and suitably sinister music) and some pretty nifty special effects and lighting (like the eerily-lit fog, a creepy, careening bat and a stunning entrances and […]
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Kingdom and The Perfection of Man
The room doesn’t look like a dungeon. It appears bright and girlish. Its walls decorated with colourful drawings. Books and toys neatly displayed. But on second glance, this room reveals a sinister side. It’s more like a cage, the walls reminiscent of a giant spider web or fishing net, designed to trap and hold. The […]
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Mary Walsh lets it all hang out
If you’d rather laugh about problems than cry about them (and who wouldn’t?), then Dancing With Rage will strike just the right chord. The indomitable Mary Walsh takes on the absurdities of politics, the frustrations of everyday life and true, heart-wrenching tragedies with laser-sharp humour that breeds belly laughs over tears. The 90-minute one-woman show […]
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Stages opens with Our Eliza
There is no doubt that Our Eliza is a tragedy. It’s the story of a rural Newfoundland woman whose life is lived in service to her family. Pulled from school at 14 to look after a pack of younger brothers after her mother dies, Eliza (Renee Hackett) is gradually worn down by relentless drudgery and […]
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Reefer Madness!
Colleen MacIsaac In case you don’t know, the original Reefer Madness was a 1936 propaganda film that preached the evils of marijuana. Its melodramatic story of mayhem, murder and madness—all sparked of course by that dreadful hallucinogenic plant from “the garden of Satan”—spawned a musical satire and a tongue-in-cheek 2005 movie version as well as […]
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Forever Eighteen
Admit it. You’ve sometimes wished that life would give you a mulligan, a chance to go back and do things differently. Well, in Michael Melski’s Eighteen, unhappy senior citizens Ben and Claire (played by Robbie O’Neil and Elizabeth Richardson) get that chance when they fall into the Fountain of Youth. But it soon becomes apparent […]
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A classic case of murder
If I told you whodunit, you’d have to kill me, so let’s just say that Agatha Christie’s iconic murder mystery will keep you guessing till the very end. Bedford Players has chosen to stage The Mousetrap in its 30th anniversary year as a tip of the hat to the 60 years the play has been […]
