From exploring dusty old houses in A Farce About Time Travel to a complicated reunion with old friends (or more than friends) in Coping Mechanisms, the McGill Drama Festival (MDF) had something for everybody. With prizes handed out for Best Script and Best Directing, the festival’s only real loser was[Read More…]
Theatre
Black Theatre Workshop’s ‘Diggers’ is a tribute to essential workers
In a town, on a hill, within a graveyard, there are two gravediggers. Solomon (Christian Paul) and Abdul (Chance Jones) live, breathe, and work the graves, day in and day out, weathering torrential rains, pandemic, and death. They are overworked. They are tired. They continue to dig. Solomon and Abdul[Read More…]
Catching up with Shakespeare
In 1592, the bubonic plague hits London. It isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last. Theatres—including the Globe—close for almost half a year. William Shakespeare writes King Lear. In 2020 (cautioned groan), Jessica B. Hill is slated to play two Shakespearean heroines at the Canadian Stratford Festival:[Read More…]
‘Legally Blonde’ features stellar vocal performances, a great sense of humour, and a whole lot of pink
This year’s Arts Undergraduate Theatre Society of McGill (AUTS) production of Legally Blonde came with a huge warning label. A week before opening night, the cast learned that asbestos had been found in Moyse Hall. The director, assistant director, and stage managers were left scrambling for a new location, and[Read More…]
TNC Theatre brings ‘Importance of Being Earnest’ out of the closet
As I took my seat among a sea of Doc Martens and flamboyantly vintage clothing, I began to feel underdressed for this performance where everything from the audience to the antique couch was stylish, carefully chosen, and, above all, queer. Tuesday Night Café (TNC) Theatre’s contemporary, lesbian rendition of Oscar[Read More…]
“The Road to Hell” is paved with quirky duos
Before I saw “The Road to Hell,” nobody would tell me anything about it. The play is modern and relatively unknown, so a cursory Google Search reveals very little. I learned that it consists of two one-act plays, with two actors in each act. A new, mysterious play with a[Read More…]
‘English’ asks provocative questions about the meaning of language
“HELLO. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE COLOUR?” The militant aggression of Elham’s (Ghazal Azarbad) tone sends laughter rippling through the audience. She wants to go to Australia for medical research with a renowned professor studying gastrointestinal diseases. She has a fantastic MCAT score. She wants to help people. She’s failed the[Read More…]
Lights, Camera, Fokus!
It was a 1920s-movie-premiere-meets-after-class-hangout. The vibe and fashion of the crowd at Cinema du Parc on March 23 seemed the perfect mix of what the night’s event represented: A showcase for some of Montreal’s up-and-coming film directors and a celebration of the friendships that made the films possible. Consisting of[Read More…]
TNC Theatre’s ‘The Suicide’ goes out with a bang
Content Warning: Depictions and mentions of suicide It’s 1928 in Soviet Russia. Semyon Semyonovitch Podsekalnikov is poor, unemployed, and about to commit suicide. As he puts the gun to his head, the audience erupts with laughter. Tuesday Night Café Theatre’s production of Nikolai Erdman’s Russian Farce: The Suicide, directed by[Read More…]
‘What Rough Beast’ explores the power and pitfalls of political discourse
Universities often reflect our broader society in terms of both shared values and differences, creating a privileged microcosm of the world. By setting her newest play, What Rough Beast, on a college campus, playwright Alice Abracen condenses complex political dynamics into a conversation between seven characters. Her script examines the[Read More…]
