Molière wrote farces that tilt toward tragedy. The huge achievement of Laszlo Marton's Soulpepper production of Tartuffe is that it takes both aspects to the limit without letting either of…
It's Martin Luther King's last night on earth. He doesn't know it of course, but the audience does; and that simple contrast is what sustains The Mountaintop
Charlie Gallant, a rising young actor at the Shaw Festival, gives an intense and compelling performance as Johnny Boyle in Juno and the Paycock
There is a strain of cruelty in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Peter Sellars' Stratford production embraces it, to the exclusion of almost everything else. The result is certainly striking. …
"A lady and a gentleman are making love to one another in the drawing room." That is the opening stage direction of The Philanderer, Bernard Shaw's second play, written in 1893
Edward Bond's The Sea is a great play up until its final scene
Friday July 18. A sad day for Toronto book lovers, and for theatre lovers both within and without the city
Shakespeare in High Park, formerly The Dream in High Park, took a notable step forward last year with its production of Macbeth, which was less concerned than its predecessors with playing g…
In a way that's unique among musicals, the action of Company takes place in a split second
A tricky farce falls flat in Stratford's production
It's no great surprise that Soulpepper's production of Twelve Angry Men should turn out to be a spellbinder, not to say a humdinger
The actual Dora nominations seem remarkably classy this year, which I suppose is a critic's way of saying that nestled among the possible winners are most of those who were actual winners in…
The Shaw Festival's second round of openings pairs two classic comedies from the very late 1930s: one British, one American
A program note suggests that the musical (vintage 1966) is a throwback to the idealistic Rodgers and Hammerstein shows of the 1950s. Not really, unless you're thinking of R&H at their So…
Bertolt Brecht famously believed theatre audiences should never be allowed to forget they are in the theatre
Chris Abraham's Stratford production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is an extraordinary mixture of magic and mishap
There was a beautiful musical on Broadway this season: a show gorgeously scored, cleverly staged, profoundly well acted, and honestly moving
Colm Feore's King Lear is a fine portrait of a father, a less powerful one of a king
The Stratford Festival's King John is a very good production of a play about a very bad king
Once thought too painful to perform, Shakespeare's merciless & kingly tale calls out the best in those who present it, which this year seems to be everyone
The fancy name Watching Glory Die has been affixed to a decidedly plain play
The Shaw Festival's Cabaret proves, again, that there will never be a production of this musical as good as the first one. History " including theatrical history " is against it
Fiona Reid can divide a comic line into three parts, get a laugh on each without crowding the others, and still keep the sense and the rhythm unbroken
Of Human Bondage is adapted by Vern Thiessen from the 1915 novel by Somerset Maugham, a book generally accepted as being partly autobiographical
Plays about God move in mysterious, not to say frustrating, ways. Two of them are currently playing in Toronto