No one likes marionettes. In my mind, a marionette is one of three things: A lying rascal named Pinocchio, a demon-possessed puppet that haunts an abandoned Opera House, or, simply, entertainment for children. Marionettes are uncanny—miniature human figures stripped of all bodily autonomy, hanging limply with lifeless eyes. I never[Read More…]
Theatre
Finding feminist solitude in Natasha Perry-Fagant’s “The Absence of Silence”
Walking past Segal’s, the beloved Saint-Laurent grocery store, you may have noticed the phrase “#FringeBuzz” plastered to the windows on the second floor. Behind those windows is the Minimain, a black box performance space in the Mainline theatre. This is where actor, director, and playwright Natasha Perry-Fagant performed her one-woman[Read More…]
‘Medea’ perfectly blends classical tragedy with the contemporary
Continuing its acclaimed annual tradition, the McGill Department of History and Classical Studies held its McGill Classics Play, Medea from Feb. 5-8 at the Mainline Theatre. This classical text, written by Euripides, is a sequel to Jason and the Argonauts—the Ancient Greek myth where he finds the golden fleece. This time,[Read More…]
Gilbert and Sullivan remain fresh in ‘The Gondoliers’
Gilbert and Sullivan are ubiquitous in the theatre world and beyond. Their songs appear in television shows both in their original form and in parody, in shows like Star Trek and Family Guy. Yet while other productions play with their time period, projecting plot and characters into modern scenarios, much of the charm[Read More…]
Apocalypse is at the centre of Centaur Theatre’s ‘The Tropic of X’
At first glance, Caridad Svich’s The Tropic of X seems like an ordinary science fiction play depicting a dystopian future. However, it is clear that Svich grounded this political drama in reality. Criticizing North American colonialism, capitalism, and consumerism, the narrative becomes a commentary on the negative conditions that such structures[Read More…]
Tuesday Night Café Theatre hosts 24-Hour Playwriting Competition
The competition’s rules are straightforward: Twenty-four hours to write a play, 24 more to rehearse, followed by their performance. On Jan. 25, an eager audience filled up the Tuesday Night Café theatre, witnessing four concise and fully-realized plays. Each performance ran about 20 minutes. Sam Katz, U0 Arts, directed the[Read More…]
“The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)” triumphs
Shakespeare has long been the butt of jokes and the subject of moans in classrooms. Though considered foundational to many curricula, his 500-year-old prose can be impenetrable. To resolve that issue and address many of the Bard’s prepubescent critics’, Tuesday Night Café Theatre (TNC) presented The Complete Works of Shakespeare[Read More…]
‘A History of Breathing’ explores faith and trauma in a fantastical hellscape
What do you get when you cross a frog, a murderous soldier, and (maybe) god? This is the question that The McGill University Department of English Drama & Theatre Program ’s performance of A History of Breathing attempts to answer. This outlandish play combines elements borrowed from creation myths and the[Read More…]
‘Mythic’ will leave audiences enchanted
Broadway has no shortage of Classics-inspired musicals this season. Hadestown, an adaptation of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice won two Tonys, including best musical. For fans of Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief opened on Broadway in October. The creators of Mythic now playing at the Segal Centre, hope for the same[Read More…]
‘Ti-Jean and His Brothers’ brings Satan to centre stage at TNC
Tuesday Night Café’s (TNC) performance of Ti-Jean and His Brothers, a modern Caribbean folktale written by Derek Walcott and premiered at Morrice Hall on Oct. 16, is enticingly bizarre. The production is the first of the year from the entirely student-run theatre company and features plenty of up-and-coming actors from[Read More…]
