A Brimful of Asha And you thought your mom had boundary issues. Real-life mother and son Asha and Ravi Jain mine their relationship for this new play about a trip to India that inadvertently turns into a bride-scouting mission. Find out more »
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Today in Toronto: Cruel and Tender, A Brimful of Asha and more
The Conversation: Arsinée Khanjian and Megan Follows on collaborating with loved ones
The place: Caffe Doria at Yonge and Roxborough. The people: actors Arsinée Khanjian and Megan Follows. The subject: collaborating with loved ones
Before Anne of Green Gables made her a teen star, Megan Follows (above right) was known as the youngest in a family of theatre people that included actor-director Ted Follows, her father, and actor Dawn Greenhalgh, her mother. They separated when Follows was young but continued to collaborate occasionally. In the decades since, Megan has worked with various members of her acting clan, including in an all-Follows production of Noël Coward’s Hay Fever. This month, she stars as the wife of Odysseus in the stage adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s tartly revisionist The Penelopiad. Arsinée Khanjian also knows the perils and joys of working with family: her best-known roles have been in the films Exotica and Ararat, both directed by her husband, Atom Egoyan. This month, Egoyan directs her onstage for the first time ever in Cruel and Tender, by the British playwright Martin Crimp and based on a work by Sophocles. Like Follows in Penelopiad, Khanjian plays the wife of a soldier who brings his work home with him—in this case, a terrorism-fighting general who may be doing more harm than good. We invited the two to Caffe Doria in Rosedale and listened in as they chatted about mixing the personal and the professional.
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The COC announces its 2012–2013 season, featuring a revival of Atom Egoyan’s Salome, Ben Heppner in Tristan and much more
Opera nerds across the city (and in this office) were aflutter today over the announcement of the Canadian Opera Company’s 2012–2013 season. The highlights: a revival of Atom Egoyan’s creepy-cool production of Richard Strauss’s Salome, mega-tenor Ben Heppner taking on his signature role in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Verdi’s perennial crowd-pleaser Il Trovatore, with Die Fledermaus, La clemenza di Tito, Lucia di Lammermoor and Dialogues des Carmélites rounding out the season. Check out the full details after the jump.
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The Weekender: Tosca, Robbie Burns Day and six other items on our to-do list
The Weekender: Lunarfest, Tosca and Los Campesinos!
1. TOSCA
Based on a play by Frenchman Victorien Sardou, Puccini’s Tosca is set in Rome in June 1800. The opera is set while Napoleon was losing the Battle of Marengo, and as such, the political climate of the time drives much of the action. The titular character, a beautiful opera singer (Adrianne Pieczonka and Julie Makerov share the role), uses her many, um, assets to convince the corrupt police chief, Scarpia (Mark Delavan), to be lenient towards her lover, the painter Cavaradossi (Carlo Ventre and Brandon Jovanovich share this role), who has been sentenced to death for helping a political fugitive. Spoiler alert: this is not going to end well. Jan. 21 to Feb. 25. $45–$318. Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W., 416-363-8231, coc.ca.
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Mozart’s last composition is powerful and haunting, even though he was only able to complete the majority of the opening movement and some parts of other movements. Peter Oundjian conducts the orchestra, rising opera stars Simone Osborne and Frédéric Antoun round out the cast, and teen classical pianist Jan Lisiecki, who makes his TSO premiere, tickles the ivories. To Jan. 22. $30–$179. Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St., tso.ca.
Camera: a who’s who of Canadian cinema gathers at the Lightbox to kick off TIFF’s retrospective of Norman Jewison films
Canadian film honcho Wayne Clarkson with art house icon Atom Egoyan and Lynne St. David-Jewison
August 11, Malaparte.
An air-kissing who’s who of Canadian cinema gathered on the sixth floor of the Lightbox to kick off Justice for All, TIFF’s retrospective of the films of Norman Jewison. One of Hollywood’s most prolific directors, Jewison is the kind of success story this city loves to laud at every opportunity. Following the reception, everyone shuffled downstairs for a screening of Moonstruck, Jewison’s 1987 rom-com. The crowd was also treated to a Q&A with Olympia Dukakis and the screenwriter John Patrick Shanley (both snagged Oscars for the movie). But it was Jewison who got the loudest applause, for dropping a well-aimed F-bomb while recounting an on-set incident: Nicolas Cage demanded a moment to think over a line, and Jewison replied: “Don’t think, just say the fucking line.” Beats watching Moonstruck at home in your PJs for the umpteenth time.
Michelle Dean: I ♥ N.Y. (Not T.O.)
(Jack Dylan)
Dear Toronto: I’d like to say that it’s me, not you, but I’d be lying. It is you. You have no passion, no ambition. You elected Rob Ford! I’m leaving you for another city
About a year ago, in what felt like defeat, I moved to Toronto. I was looking to overhaul (some might say “ditch”) my career. I’d spent five years in New York as a corporate attorney, warring with myself from the get-go over whether I could stay in a city that I loved on employment terms I despised. When I was finally laid off and I decided to leave practice altogether, Toronto was the obvious choice for a crash landing. Though I’d never lived there, I had a lot of friends in the city, there were cultural events aplenty, and rents seemed shockingly cheap after Brooklyn and Manhattan. Maybe, I thought, I’d been crazy to stay away. Read the rest of this entry »
How Matthew Jocelyn tried to revive Canadian Stage but instead ended up scaring audiences away
As the crowd settled in for an early June performance of Édouard Lock’s Untitled at the Bluma Appel Theatre, Matthew Jocelyn, the artistic and general director of Canadian Stage, stood under the spotlight, urging his audience to renew their subscriptions. Some serious name-dropping ensued. The company will be staging Red, about the life of the painter Mark Rothko, which won a Tony last year, as well as Clybourne Park, a Pulitzer Prize–winning play inspired by A Raisin in the Sun. And Atom Egoyan—who was in the audience that day—will be directing his wife, Arsinée Khanjian, in the war-themed British play Cruel and Tender.
Awards, celebrities, allusions to well-known works: there was an unmistakable whiff of desperation in Jocelyn’s populist appeal. Last year, he came to CanStage to make it a hub for, as he puts it, “the great theatre and choreographic artists who work in this country.” But his radical, rapid revamping of the ultra-safe company has alienated audiences. He opened his first season with Fernando Krapp Wrote Me This Letter, an obscure German play, and continued into movement-based and experimental works. By the end of the 2010–11 season, the company had experienced a six per cent drop in subscription rates, and the house capacity numbers were even bleaker. A few short-run plays came close to filling the Bluma for six to 12 performances, but some long-run shows ranged from 45 to 60 per cent capacity, and that factors in tickets sold through heavily discounted specials and other promotions. After two successful decades in Asia and Europe, Jocelyn’s return to his native Toronto has been met with more jeers than cheers.
TIFF Weekend Roundup: the five splashiest parties
It girl in the making Elizabeth Olson is introduced to perennial it man George Clooney. (Image: Jeff Vespa/WireImage/Getty Images Entertainment)
The first weekend of TIFF is basically one big long party, with a non-stop crush of big premieres, boldface names and tremendous amounts of running around (sleep is usually not involved). In case you missed it, here are last weekend’s five splashiest parties:
- If you haven’t already heard, the party for A Dangerous Method at Greg Goose Soho House was pretty much the best party ever. In attendance: David Cronenberg, George Clooney, Win Butler, Régine Chassagne, Bono, Keira Knightley, Evan Rachel Wood, Emily Blunt, Adam Scott, Jonah Hill, Chris Pratt, Anna Faris, Jon Hamm, Alexander Skarsgård and many more. Read our recap »
- As usual, the Vanity Fair party had all the markers of a successful TIFF bash: happy (drunken) partygoers and a stack of celebrities sticking around for more than 10 minutes (Bono, George Clooney, Elizabeth Olsen, Alexander Skarsgård and more). It also featured some rather provocative posing by The Oranges’ Allison Janney. Read our recap »
- George Stroumboulopoulos once again took over the Hazelton Hotel for his trademark mix of big stars, CBC television personalities and gawkers. We particularly enjoyed seeing Jon Hamm in full-on shaggy-hair mode (compared with Don Draper, at least). Read our recap »
- There’s something about tall, Scandinavian vampires that sets the fan girls wild, which is exactly what happened at the Melancholia party when Alexander Skarsgård (Eric Northman from True Blood) showed up. Kirsten Dunst had the good sense to smile politely and stand aside. Read our recap »
- A rather more genteel time was had at the annual luncheon thrown by famed Hollywood reporter George Christy at the Four Seasons. In attendance: Kathleen Turner, Geoffrey Rush, Norman Jewison, Atom Egoyan and assorted Mulroneys. Read our recap »
Kathleen Turner got people talking at this year’s annual George Christy luncheon
Lynne St. David, Paul and Judy Bronfman and Norman Jewison (Image: Jordana Divon)
Famed Hollywood reporter George Christy’s annual Four Seasons cocktail party and luncheon saw Toronto’s upper-crustiest hanging with celebs in the Avenue Bar. The ground-floor space felt a bit like a fishbowl, as passers-by leaned on the glass to ogle anyone inside. The tweenyboppers camped outside were probably disappointed that Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez didn’t attend, but we did see Kathleen Turner, Geoffrey Rush, directors Norman Jewison and Atom Egoyan, TIFF co-president Piers Handling, Gina Gershon, and the Mulroney family (including Brian—it’s like this year’s TIFF is a prime minister paradise as Stephen Harper has also been spotted around town—his wife Mila, son Ben, and Ben’s twin boys. Guests argued over Turner’s best film role—some thought it was as Joan Wilder in Romancing the Stone, while others preferred her as the matriarch to the troubled Lisbon girls in The Virgin Suicides (we still maintain her best was as Beverly Sutphin in Serial Mom) as they guzzled seemingly bottomless glasses of champagne. The heat in the narrow bar had some complaining (we heard Suzanne Boyd kvetch), but as we understand it, the best solution to a heat wave is to drink excessively, so we felt fine. Check out the scene in our gallery after the jump.
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TIFF announces new Grace Kelly exhibit for the fall
Grace Kelly in the mid-1950s (Image: Photofest)
The TIFF Bell Lightbox is quickly making good on its promise of being the go-to destination for all things film in Toronto—in the last year, it’s launched the 100 Essential Cinema program and its gallery has hosted a Tim Burton exhibit, special commissions from Canadian filmmakers Guy Maddin and Atom Egoyan and a must-see Fellini exhibit (currently on display). Now, TIFF has announced a new exhibit that might just satisfy the royal obsession that seems to be omnipresent these days: Grace Kelly: From Movie Star to Princess.
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The Weekender: Cinderella, Christy Turlington Burns and six other events on our to-do list
Christy Turlington Burns, Donato DiStefano in Cinderella and Diego Matamoros in The Aleph
1. FESTIVAL OF IDEAS AND CREATION (FREE!)
CanStage’s annual Festival of Ideas and Creation is all about supporting artists and developing new works. This year’s lineup has some serious thespian credentials: director Atom Egoyan, opera director Robert Carsen and playwright Will Power. This weekend, don’t miss The Decameron: Things We Left Behind. Loosely based on Boccaccio’s collection of novellas, this new production is about four friends in a swiftly degenerating city. (Similarities to Toronto’s 2012 budget are, we’re sure, strictly coincidental.) May 9 to 21. Berkeley Street Theatre, 26 Berkeley St., 416-368-3110, canadianstage.com/festival.
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Geocaching, in a nutshell, is a high-tech take on scavenger hunts: participants search for hidden clues and race to the finish line, all aided by a GPS device. This weekend-long event, hosted by the Golden Horseshoe Monthly Geocaching Club, includes a GPS 101 workshop, guided tours and a series of themed geocache hunts. It’s the perfect way to separate the kids from their Wii for a weekend. May 14 and 15. $6.50. Kortright Centre for Conservation, 9550 Pine Valley Dr., 905-832-2289, trcaparks.ca.
Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad to get Toronto staging in 2012
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After successful productions in Ottawa and Calgary, Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad will finally be mounted in the first lady of CanLit’s hometown. The Globe and Mail reported yesterday that Nightwood Theatre will stage a production of the play, which is adapted from Atwood’s 2005 novella, next January. Nightwood’s artistic director, Kelly Thornton (The Danish Play, China Doll), will helm the show, which will feature a large, all-female cast.
Atom Egoyan to direct play for Canadian Stage in 2012
Atom Egoyan (Image: Karon Liu)
The Canadian Stage Company recently announced its 2011–2012 season, with a surprising addition to its productions: Toronto filmmaker Atom Egoyan is set to direct his wife, Arsinée Khanjian, in Martin Crimp’s Cruel and Tender next January. Egoyan took the entire year off to mount the production, which explores the motivations of a despotic general through his domestic relationships. Although Khanjian and Egoyan have worked on several films together in the past, this is their first theatrical collaboration.
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Stratford veteran Peter Donaldson dies at 57
The versatile and prolific screen and stage actor Peter Donaldson died this weekend at the age of 57 after a two-year battle with lung cancer. Though the acclaimed actor performed in films, on television and on stages across the country, he will be best remembered for his 25 years with the Stratford Festival. Donaldson debuted there in a 1977 production of Romeo and Juliet, and was still at the festival as recently as 2008, as Rufio to Christopher Plummer’s Caesar in Caesar and Cleopatra. In Toronto, Donaldson appeared in Soulpepper’s production of Glengarry, Glen Ross last year.
Barney’s Version: The drinking game
Given that this is a drinking game, and given that the movie’s eponymous Barney likes his Macallan the way Homer Simpson likes his Duff, we thought we could get the ball rolling by doling out a sip for every time Barney has a drink. Big mistake. Any attempt to keep up with Paul Giamatti’s near-constant alcohol consumption during this touching, hilarious and ultimately devastating adaptation of Mordecai Richler’s Barney’s Version would be a one-way ticket to the drunk tank.
The movie focuses on how important it is to appreciate what you have when you have it, and also on how you really shouldn’t get so drunk that you pass out and don’t remember if you shot your best friend. With those life lessons in mind, break out your poison of choice and enjoy the gospel according to Barney.
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