Last week I commented on a stage performance (North by Northwest) that began life as a screenplay. Aaron Sorkin’s A Few Good Men however first featured on Broadway before it became a film. I’ve never seen the movie. As a result of Theatre Aquarius’ production of A Few Good Men, it’s now on my Must…
The Madness of George III is a masterpiece of storytelling. It covers a short period—the summer of 1788 to the winter of 1789. As George III developed a host of agonizing bodily ailments and took leave of his senses, the Prince of Wales, courtiers and parliamentarians all tried to take advantage of the unstable political…
Campy special effects are not usual associations with stories of cold-war intrigue and mistaken identities; however Mirvish has found a way to combine both in its current production of North By Northwest. The result is laughter throughout and, at opening night, a standing ovation. The play is an adaptation of the movie and while it seems…
This summer feels like the season of too many plays and too few minutes at the keyboard. This is not a complaint, except for the bit about time because there are theatrical productions I have not commented on in a timely manner. When I established this blog my commitment was to comment only on the…
Where there are issues of rights, freedom, property, and love, nothing is simple.
Playwright Kate Hennig demonstrated her grip on an audience with The Last Wife at Stratford in 2015. This year, she’s doing it again with The Virgin Trial. The play covers the life of the young Princess Elizabeth (Bahia Watson) between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. It’s an unstable time for the throne. Two brothers,…
Dancing At Lughnasa is a poignant story skillfully told. It’s narrated by Michael (Patrick Galligan), the love child of the youngest of the five Mundy sisters (Fiona Byrne, Diana Donnelly, Claire Jullien, Serena Parma, and Tara Rosling), as he remembers the month of August in 1936. Michael was seven years old at the time.…
Four hundred and eighty-eight years after she was burned at the stake in Rouen, Joan of Arc was canonized by the Catholic Church. It’s a remarkable distance of time for healing of wounds and righting of wrongs. Equally remarkable to me as a writer, is that in 1923, or three years after her canonization, Bernard…
The Shaw Festival’s Androcles And The Lion is a delightful production. It’s fun, interactive, and can leave one with the impression that it’s improvisational at points. However, the impression of improv theatre is just that; these actors know their material to its core. The premise of the play is taken from a classical folktale whereby a…
Juicy bits of information, true or false, have always been hard to resist and easy to pass on. Such schadenfreude is the driving creative force in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s School For Scandal. It’s a play that was written in the 18th century, but is timely for the 21st. If one changed the set to Manhattan…
Bonnie Lendrum 