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The Weekender: Potted Potter, Rhubarb Festival and six other items on our to-do list

The Weekender: Potted Potter, Children’s Story Jam and Hamlet Live

1. HAMLET LIVE
Part post-apocalyptic dystopia (it’s set in 2080, and the set-up name-checks everything from violent solar flares to displaced populations to wartime atrocities), and part Shakespearean classic, this Hamlet adaptation keeps Will’s wording but places the young prince, Claudius, Gertrude and the rest of the gang in a futuristic Denmark. King Hamlet oversees a bloody battle to maintain the country’s borders, only to die at his brother’s hand “at the very height of his glory.” Now his son, the young Hamlet, is out for vengeance. In the interest of accessibility—and achieving as large an audience as possible—the play will be live-streamed online ($5), complete with multiple camera angles and on-air editing. To Feb. 11. $20–$40. The Annex Theatre, 730 Bathurst St., hamletlive.com.

2. EROTIC ARTS AND CRAFTS FAIR (FREE!)
Sweetly handmade crafts meet X-rated content at this fair, and it’s the only event of its kind in the country. Think saucy prints, bondage-inspired jewellery and maybe even a choose your own adventure–style zine. Be sure to stick around for the after-show: a cabaret (PWYC or $7) and a sure-to-be raucous after-party. Feb. 11. Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. W., eroticartsandcrafts.com.

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The Hype

From the Print Edition

February 8, 2012 | 7:55 am

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The Argument: Why War Horse’s puppets win by flaunting their artificiality

By Emily Landau | Illustration by Byron Eggenschwiler

Since it was first staged more than four years ago, War Horse has enjoyed the kind of success that’s usually reserved for Disney extravaganzas and jukebox musicals. The show, adapted from a 30-year-old children’s novel by the British author Michael Morpurgo, is about Joey, a spirited, rust-coloured stallion sold to the British cavalry during the First World War, and the valiant quest of his young former owner to retrieve him. After premiering at London’s National Theatre in 2007 and shattering box office records, it quickly moved to the West End and then to Broadway, earning the Tony Award for best play last spring.

On paper, War Horse seems like another formulaic tearjerker—a variation on Black Beauty or Seabiscuit, with some trench warfare thrown in. What sets the show apart is its use of puppets: Joey, like the other horses in the play, is a clunky-looking mechanical contraption made of wooden planks and nylon stretched over a corset-like cane frame. He bears little resemblance to a real animal. The three puppeteers who control him make no effort to conceal their presence. The one in charge of major head movements is not even inside the frame of the horse—he stands next to it in full view of the audience.

But from the moment Joey hobbles onstage as a young foal, stick-legged and unsteady, he’s as alive, and emotionally resonant, as any of his human co-stars.

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The Hype

To-Do List

February 8, 2012 | 7:30 am

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Today in Toronto: House of Dreams and The Rhubarb Festival

House of Dreams Like its recent production The Galileo Project, this is one of Tafelmusik’s imaginative multimedia extravaganzas, with period performances of the baroque repertoire nestling cheek by jowl with visual projections and narration. The conceit here is to imaginatively recreate the homes in which music by Handel, Vivaldi, Bach and others has been played. Find out more »

The Rhubarb Festival Buddies in Bad Times’ annual “convergence of contemporary performance” may be a grab bag of artistic offerings both good and bad, but you can’t fault the company’s commitment. Every February, it devotes nearly two weeks to exploring theatre, dance, music, performance art and any combination thereof. Find out more »

The Hype

The Beat

February 7, 2012 | 10:49 am

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Like vain pop legends with occasional fake British accents? Madonna’s world tour hits Toronto in September

Madonna, Tony Ward and a dancer (Image: Alan Light)

Madonna’s new album MDNA (just like MDMA—so fresh and youthful!) will be released on March 26, and her world tour will be stopping in Toronto on September 12 (tickets go on sale February 13). The news comes just after she performed at the Super Bowl’s halftime show, where she lip synced a number of old gems, dragged M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj onstage to sing her embarrassing new single and looked visibly pain-stricken from having to crouch down and get up a number of times (if she suffers another hamstring and nose injury, how will she fare in Toronto?). That said, this show is going to sell out (she is Madonna), so we hope you’ve been saving up all year—at least, that was Madge’s advice to people who want to see her perform live.

• Madonna Sets 2012 World Tour Dates [Billboard]

The Hype

To-Do List

February 7, 2012 | 7:30 am

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Today in Toronto: In the Heights and The Kills

In the Heights This Tony winner has contemporary trappings—freestyle rap, graffiti—but it’s really as old-fashioned a musical as they come. A bodega owner tries to decide whether or not to remain in Washington Heights, torn between the familiar neighbourhood and the long-dreamed-of shores of the Dominican Republic. Find out more »

The Kills After a stint with The Dead Weather, one of Jack White’s many non–White Stripes pickup bands, Alison Mosshart has rejoined her Kills co-conspirator Jamie Hince (a.k.a. Mr. Kate Moss) for more cooler-than-cool Jesus and Mary Chain worship. Though it’s still only the two of them, they’ve added a little more range and depth to their fuzzed-out new wave blues. Find out more »

The Hype

To-Do List

February 3, 2012 | 7:30 am

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Today in Toronto: Les Rythmes de la Forêt

Les Rythmes de la Forêt The rhythms of the forest being explored here will have a very non-Canadian pulse. COBA, the Collective of Black Artists, is devoted to the rituals and rites of passage of West African festivals and folklore, and this performance is devoted to works grounded in the Senegambia region. Find out more »

The Hype

To-Do List

February 2, 2012 | 7:30 am

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Today in Toronto: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and more

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre Formed in 1958, this company changed the face of American dance, revelling in modernism and celebrating the talent of black dancers and choreographers. Alvin Ailey’s iconic 1960 work, Revelations, is on the program, along with more recent pieces by Robert Battle, the company’s new artistic director. Find out more »

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The Hype

To-Do List

January 26, 2012 | 7:43 am

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Today in Toronto: Cruel and Tender, A Brimful of Asha and more

The Hype

Telling Tales

January 16, 2012 | 4:31 pm

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Will Toronto’s Azari and III open for Madonna on her next tour?

Madonna may have added writer and director to her resumé this past year, but she’s still first and foremost a pop star who promotes religion, sex and the old adage that “age ain’t nothin’ but a number.” News of Madge’s 2012 tour leaked earlier this year, and now Toronto group Azari and III are rumoured to be the opening act. While the band’s management can’t confirm or deny rumours about the tour, the Sun newspaper reports Madonna is a big fan of the band’s electronic sound—the quartet is made up of producers Dinamo Azari and Alixander III and singers Starving Yet Full and Fritz Helder (formerly of Fritz Helder and the Phantoms). Find out more about the group that may or may not be opening for Madonna’s new tour after the jump.

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The Hype

The Beat

January 16, 2012 | 3:53 pm

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We’re number four! Statistical analysis confirms that Toronto artists had more top hits in 2011 than Halifax

Now that Moneyball has made statistical analysis cool, would-be statisticians are looking beyond baseball. According to Atlantic editor and Toronto resident Richard Florida, a doctoral student in urban planning at U.C.L.A. assigned a “base of operations” (place of residence, in layman’s terms) to the artists on Pitchfork’s list of the top 100 tracks of 2011 and then counted up the number of hits that each city produced. New York, predictably, wins by a mile, but there’s good news for Toronto: we are number four, with seven top hits. Common may be surprised (and upset) to know that Drake was responsible for one of them. Read the entire story [The Atlantic] »

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