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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

To-Do List

January 25, 2012 | 11:52 am

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Tracy Morgan is coming to Toronto for one night only (but not for a werewolf bar mitzvah)

Tracy Morgan is hilarious (Image: Alex Erde)

Are you currently in the process of taking your cornbread behind a middle school to get it pregnant? Well, stop that for one second. Tracy Morgan is coming to Toronto for the Canadian International Comedy Fest for one night only on March 23 at 8 p.m. For the uninitiated, Morgan, a celebrated Saturday Night Live alum, plays Tracy Jordan on NBC’s 30 Rock. As Jordan (a character who is only slightly more exuberant and zany as Morgan himself), he’s performed sketches as a boy becoming a man becoming a wolf and he’s endorsed a revolutionary product that is sponsored by a putatively accredited physician from the Ho Chi Minh City school of medicine. Even if Morgan doesn’t revive these bit characters and hilarious jokes, at least we’ll finally be able to answer the question: who’s crazier? Tracy or Ann Curry. Tickets go on sale to the public on January 30.

The Hype

To-Do List

January 24, 2012 | 7:30 am

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Today in Toronto: Aga-Boom, Penny Plain and The Malcolmson Collection

Aga-Boom Cirque du Soleil arguably restored the idea of jumping around wearing giant shoes as a legitimate performance art, saving it from the sad antics of so many birthday clowns. Cirque veteran Dimitri Bogatirev heads a troupe that has brought its brand of extreme physical comedy to Mexico City, Moscow, Dubai and now Brampton. Find out more »

Penny Plain Marionette master Ronnie Burkett moves through wonderfully weird territory with this tale of a blind woman, a guide dog who wants to be a man, a cross-dressing banker and a serial killer. Find out more »

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The Hype

From the Print Edition

January 23, 2012 | 3:00 pm

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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
By Nathan Whitlock | Photography by Derek Shapton

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 Hype

To-Do List

January 23, 2012 | 7:30 am

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Today in Toronto: Gryphon Trio, National Geographic Live and more

Caroline, or Change It was only a matter of time before the adventurous Acting Up put on this show by big-issues playwright extraordinaire Tony Kushner. Caroline, a black maid for a Jewish family in 1963 Louisiana, struggles with the swiftly tilting world outside the basement where she spends her days doing laundry. Find out more »

Gryphon Trio Annalee Patipatanakoon on violin, Roman Borys on cello and Jamie Parker on piano make up what is arguably the country’s most distinguished chamber ensemble, one that recently snagged a Juno for best classical album. Find out more »

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The Hype

To-Do List

January 11, 2012 | 11:32 am

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The Weekender: All-Girl Pillow Fight League, a Spice Girls tribute band and five other items on our to-do list

The Weekender: The Penelopiad, Wannabe: The Spice Girls Tribute Band and The Blue Dragon

1. THE PENELOPIAD
A “mix of tragedy, burlesque and Victorian melodrama,” this much-anticipated theatrical adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 2005 novella is a response to Homer’s The Odyssey. While Odysseus is off fighting the Trojan War and taking two decades to make his way home, Penelope (played by Megan Follows) fends off 108 potential husbands. In the original, the happy ending (ha) includes Odysseus’s return and the subsequent slaughter of Penelope’s unfaithful maidservants and spurned suitors. But this is Penelope’s version of the story, and it doesn’t quite end with mass murdering (for shame, this is theatre!). To Jan. 29. $28–$46. Buddies in Bad Times Theatre Mainspace, 12 Alexander St., 416-975-8555, nightwoodtheatre.net.

2. JULIE WEISS
Julie Weiss has been creating ensembles for plays, TV and movies since the mid-1970s. In other words, she really knows her stuff. And even though only the most dedicated of film buffs tend to fangirl over behind-the-scenes creative types like Weiss, she’s worked on enough blockbusters to attract attention (from plebes and the people who hand out awards). With a resume that includes Steel Magnolias, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Twelve Monkeys and American Beauty, it goes without saying that there are plenty of insider secrets to be divulged. Sure, they’re likely to be about Weiss’s creative process, life and career highlights, not celebrity gossip, but it’s still worth checking out this CAFTCAD-sponsored talk. Jan. 14. $40. TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King St. W., caftcadpresentsjulieweiss.eventbrite.ca.

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The Hype

To-Do List

January 4, 2012 | 1:06 pm

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The Pick: Love Is a Poverty You Can Sell, a little bit of Weimar-era Kurt Weill at the Factory

(Images: courtesy Soup Can Theatre)

Contrary to what his legacy might suggest, Kurt Weill only dabbled in cabaret. Sure, he wrote a few tunes for the darkened German haunts, but mostly he focused on longer forms like opera and musical theatre. But Weill’s compositions, laced with despair, a wry wit and disenchantment, came to epitomize the sound of 1920s Weimar German cabaret for many in the West.

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The Hype

To-Do List

December 14, 2011 | 7:30 am

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Today in Toronto: The Nutcracker and Chagall Through Toronto’s Artists

Ballet Jörgen Canada: The Nutcracker Same old score, but choreographer Bengt Jörgen moves the action from Russia to Canada (not much of a stretch, at least in winter) and plunders the McMichael Canadian Art Collection for set and costume inspiration. Don’t be surprised if a Mountie and a lumberjack crash the party. Find out more »

Past Present: Chagall Through Toronto’s Artists As part of the AGO’s big-ticket Chagall exhibit, the Koffler Centre of the Arts is hosting an evening of music, dance, art and more, all inspired by the Russian modernist master’s Jewish origins. Singer Theresa Tova will team up with pianist Matt Herskowitz for an excerpt from Bella: The Colour of Love, about the painter’s wife. Find out more »

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