Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera, The Sorcerer, debuted in 1877 with a bizarre cast of priests, lovers, and sorcerers. This Victorian-era opera about marriage and love potions was not exactly what one would expect from the occasionally club and drug-obsessed—dare I say depraved—city of Montreal. Suffice it to say, when[Read More…]
Theatre
‘La Flambeau’: The torchbearer of Montréal’s Black art scene
Content Warning: Mentions of sexual assault Are you looking for a way to celebrate Black History Month? Do you enjoy opera? How about living something that feels like a fever dream? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, look no further than Montreal’s very own production of La[Read More…]
‘Hair’ transports McGill to a night of drug-fuelled, nonsensical fun
Hair is a famously controversial musical. Delving into the hippie counterculture movement of the 1960s, the show covers antiwar tensions in the U.S., draft dodging, the sexual revolution, and pretty much every drug in the book. Now, this raunchy production has been brought to life in Moyse Hall by a[Read More…]
‘Ithacan Idol Presents: The Odyssey’ vibrantly reimagines the classic tale
On Feb. 2, audiences at Théâtre Sainte-Catherine attended the opening night of Ithacan Idol Presents: The Odyssey, this year’s rendition of the McGill Classics Play. Since 2011, the McGill Classics Play program has showcased annual student-led English performances of ancient Greek and Latin texts, in addition to offering public lectures[Read More…]
TNC’s ‘Girl in the Goldfish Bowl’ is hilariously eccentric
What’s the common denominator between the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and a mother seeking to abandon her family? The death of a goldfish. At least, this is what the precocious Iris tries to convince us of in Tuesday Night Café’s (TNC) production of Girl in the Goldfish Bowl. With[Read More…]
David Paquet’s ’Wildfire’ is a blazing success
Although January in Montreal is synonymous with grey skies and plummeting temperatures, the city’s vibrant theatre community is still blazing—and nowhere is this more evident than in Talisman Theatre’s bold production of Wildfire by David Paquet. A triptych of intergenerational trauma, the play depicts the lives of a set of[Read More…]
McGill’s Department of English Drama & Theatre gears up for ‘Pomona’
For the first time in two years, McGill’s Department of English Drama & Theatre will be welcoming a full house back into Moyse Hall when its production of Pomona by Alistair McDowall opens on Nov. 23. Originally commissioned for The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in 2014, the[Read More…]
Another day, another vampire slay
Imagine if a teenaged Wattpad author wrote the classic 1897 novel Dracula. Now, imagine that this sexy retelling is actually funny. This is the concept behind the Segal Centre’s newest play, Dracula: a Comedy of Terrors. Co-written by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen, the play features five brilliant actors who[Read More…]
‘Meet Me’ provokes reflection through interactive theatre
In the “post”-#MeToo era, consent, sexual misconduct, and cancel culture have become hot-button topics present throughout news articles, thinkpieces, movies, and TV shows alike. From fiery op-eds insisting that there is a stark difference in severity between sexual assault and sexual misconduct to columnists who disavow complaints about ‘cancel culture’[Read More…]
Finding self-love as an exiled love poet
For Ancient Romans, “following your heart” rarely resulted in finding true love—more often than not, it ended in untimely death, being transformed into a tree, or thousands of years of exile. According to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the 2022 edition of the McGill Classics Play, love is to blame for the many[Read More…]
