Catherine Banks’s Governor General’s award-winning play Bone Cage is brought back to the Halifax stage by the intrepid Matchstick Theatre, and on the play’s tenth anniversary, no less. The story has its characters in rural Nova Scotia, a down-and-out bunch of young men and women, whose work is clearcutting the forest and mourning its wounds. Jamie […]
theatre review
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Review: Seeds
Seeds is a documentary play that explores the four-year legal battle between Monsanto and Percy Schmeiser, a Saskatchewan farmer who the corporation took to court after a crop from their patented seed was found on his land. The play questions notions of the rights of corporations to patent a living thing, and the public’s acceptance […]
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Review: The Mystery Play
The Mystery Play is the second installment in the Parrsboro trilogy, a series of mysteries commissioned by the enterprising Ship’s Company Theatre. The plays share the main character of Sister Vivian Salter, a nun with a penchant for sleuthing, played with pluck and aplomb by Mary-Colin Chisholm. This play has Salter doubting her faith and […]
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Review: Stage Kiss
Stage Kiss is Sarah Ruhl’s charming comedy about two actors struggling to separate their roles onstage from their roles in romance. A woman (Francine Deschepper) has been away from the stage for many years and is cast in a play opposite her former lover (Christian Murray). As they begin to rehearse an overwrought 1930s melodrama, […]
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Review: Nothing Less! and A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Nothing Less! It’s 1918 in Apple Tree Landing, and the women of the small Nova Scotia town are fighting for their right to vote. They also sing and dance and practice Suffrajitsu. This is Nothing Less!, a new play by Ami McKay and Ken Schwartz, performed outdoors at the beautiful Ross Creek Centre for the […]
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Review: Pugwash
Pugwash follows the story of the first Pugwash Conference in July of 1957. On its 60th anniversary, it’s a piece of Nova Scotian history that doesn’t get much attention, but is here in the capable hands of playwright Vern Thiessen. The play is a fictional narrative following two kids, 13-year-old Conni McPhee (Gina Thornhill) and […]
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Review: I Do! I Do!
I Do! I Do! is a musical about marriage that debuted on Broadway in 1966, was nominated for a slew of Tony Awards, and over the years has boasted such stars as Mary Martin, Carol Burnett and Rock Hudson, to name a few. It tells the story of Agnes (Amy Reitsma) and Michael (Ian Gilmore) […]
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Review: Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story
2b Theatre’s latest show tells the true story of the playwright Hannah Moscovitch’s great-grandparents who came to Canada from Romania in 1908. The beloved Ben Caplan is at the helm of the play, guiding the evening along with story and song, leading to flashbacks performed out of a shipping container-turned magnificent modular set. Mary Fay […]
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Review: KAMP
Halifax artists Garry Williams and Jamie Bradley have undertaken a very ambitious project with KAMP. It is an original full-length musical about gay men in a Nazi concentration camp who, despite imminent danger, or in some ways perhaps because of it, create a musical revue in their barrack. It is rich terrain for a story […]
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Review: The Colony of Unrequited Dreams
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams To March 12 Tue-Fri 7:30pm; Sat-Sun, 2pm and 7:30pm Neptune Theatre, 1593 Argyle Street $33-$65 From its opening scene of a familiar seaside winterscape, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is a distinctly and proudly Atlantic Canadian play. Adapted by Robert Chafe from the beloved novel by Wayne Johnston, the production […]
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Nation a meditative sonic experience
I am Chandelier. This is my machine. And so we are introduced to Aaron Collier’s musical persona and Nation’s puppet master of sorts. Nation is created by Collier along with Richie Wilcox, Nick Bottomley and Matt Miller. Collier conducts from his DJ table, backed by a 30-foot wide projection screen with immersive videos of landscapes […]
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Stones in His Pockets proves clunky
Stones in His Pockets by Marie Jones premiered in Belfast in 1996, had a successful West End run, and won a slew of awards. Audiences of Neptune Theatre’s production of the Irish hit may be baffled by its previous success. What has potential to be a playful and biting satire about Hollywood culture encroaching with […]