Ted Dykstra and Jordan Pettle in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Young Centre for the Performing Arts (50 Tank House Lane)
February 13 to March 6, 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday matinees at 1:30 p.m.
$32 to $68

Clybourne Park
Panasonic Theatre (651 Yonge Street)
February 12 to March 3, 8 p.m., Wednesday matinees at 1:30 p.m., weekend matinees at 2 p.m.
$20 to $79

Shakespeare’s Hamlet has confounded more than a few English students, so it’s a comforting thought that even the characters don’t know what a mess they’re in. At least that’s the scenario in Tom Stoppard’s absurdist 1966 comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, on now at Soulpepper Theatre. But rather than criticizing the Bard’s flare for melodrama and ornate prose, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is a frank, funny, and extremely well-written exploration of existentialism, fate, and chance.

Stoppard’s Beckettian play focuses on two neglected characters within Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, friends of the Prince of Denmark tasked with discovering the reason behind his strange behaviour (the answer is, of course, that his mother married his throne-seeking uncle and now he’s being haunted by his father’s ghost). But knowledge of the source material isn’t totally necessary to experience the best qualities of R&G: RIP, as it’s merely a backdrop to a buddy act (kind of like the thinking man’s Lloyd and Harry from Dumb & Dumber). The well-matched pair of Jordan Pettle as the fledgling philosopher Guildenstern and Ted Dykstra as the mouth-breathing buffoon Rosencrantz (though if you get them mixed up you’re not alone; they often confuse their own identities) have a sense of camaraderie and comedic timing that’s only bested by their coin-tossing technique. Their rapport with each other—and, at some very entertaining moments, with the audience as well—is crucial in imbuing the absurdity with emotion. Supported by notable actors like Diego Matamoros, Nancy Palk, and Gregory Prest in smaller parts, an estimable Kenneth Welsh as the puppet-master Player, Joseph Ziegler’s in-the-round direction, and Mike Ross’s sound design, Pettle and Dykstra carry the show through a quickfire opening, a sluggish second act, and a haunting finale.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are eternally confused, lost, and at the mercy of other people’s decisions and actions, and we all know how that ends up going for them. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a dagger-sharp play that put Tom Stoppard on the map—a cautionary tale for passivists, and a welcome companion piece for Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy. It has clearly not dulled with time.

Michael Healey, Audrey Dwyer, Sterling Jarvis, Kimwun Perehinec, and Mark McGrinder in Clybourne Park. Photo by John Karastamatis.

While Hamlet is standard fare for high-school English curricula, the details of Lorraine Hansberry’s acclaimed 1959 drama A Raisin in the Sun may be unknown to most audiences (unless they saw Soulpepper’s productions in 2008 and 2010). Thankfully, Bruce Norris doesn’t rely on the Younger’s family drama as the basis for his Pulitzer Prize–winning play, Clybourne Park. Instead, he focuses on the issues of race, gentrification, and status raised by A Raisin in the Sun—issues that made Studio 180′s 2012 production of Clybourne Park a searing hit.

Clybourne Park now returns as the third production in the Off-Mirvish series (which concludes in March with Mary Walsh’s Dancing with Rage). The entire cast is back, as is director Joel Greenberg. The only difference is the venue: it has gone from the 244-seat Berkeley Theatre in Corktown to the 700-seat Panasonic Theatre near Yonge and Bloor Streets, a move that mirrors the arc of the play. Otherwise, the production remains relatively unchanged, with Michael Healey leading a sharp cast that pits racial prejudices from the 50′s against those of modern times. At its best moments, Clybourne Park is painfully awkward, brutally funny, or unspeakably sad. At its muddier points, it can slide into reactionary rhetorical squabbling (which is still entertaining).

As we all know, the real estate market is full of highs and lows. But in this case, the move up the property ladder is definitely a good thing, at least for the many Torontonians who have another opportunity to enjoy this smart satire.

Miriam Margolyes has a complicated love for Dickens. Photo by Prudence Upton.

Dickens’ Women
Young Centre for the Performing Arts
(55 Tank House Lane)
December 12 to 15, 8 p.m., Saturday matinee at 2 p.m.
$20 to $40

If you’re not a Charles Dickens scholar or a literary buff, you might think you don’t know much about the man who wrote stories of hope and love, who promulgated messages of compassion and empathy, who even “invented Christmas.” But, according to Miriam Margolyes, creator of Dickens’ Women—on now at The Word Festival—Dickens’ life and his work are one and the same. And, just like his books, Dickens was one complicated man.

If you don’t know the name Miriam Margolyes right away, it doesn’t matter. Though she’s a renowned actress and activist (and a legend in the U.K.), to North American audiences she’s still instantly recognizable as the Nurse from Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, and as Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter movies. But on the stage, she’s something else entirely. She manipulates her round face and equally round hair to transform herself into more than 20 memorable Dickens characters, from works like Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and Little Dorrit—all while telling the author’s life story between her performed excerpts.

Margolyes’ unbridled passion for Dickens fuels the show. As a result, when she breaks character to speak about Dickens’s life and the women that influenced it, she’s just as electric as one of his fictional personalities. Also contributing to the show’s spark is the intrinsic conflict Margolyes feels in her devotion to the author, who turns 200 this year. As an outspoken feminist and gay rights activist, she admits that she disapproves of Dickens’ chauvinistic portrayals of women.

But instead of skewering each characterization, from the slight and innocent Little Nell to the cheap drunkard Mrs. Gamp (from Martin Chuzzlewit), her performances humanize them. She does the same thing for Dickens himself, in part by exposing his darker side. (He was, among other things, a man who pined after 17-year-olds and shunned his wife.) Even so, Margolyes’ characterization of the author never never becomes too one-sided. As Margolyes has said, despite Dickens’ angering portrayals of women, it’s his humour that she relishes.

She capitalizes on that humour in the first act, but the show takes on a darker mood in the second. In particular, Margolyes’ interpretation of the scene between Ms. Corney and Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist, written as clownish in the musical Oliver!, is extremely funny—but she adds an incredibly dark undertone.

Enough can’t be said about Margolyes as a performer. She’s just as believable as the trembling boy Pip as she is when she plays the cause of his terror, Miss Havisham, from Great Expectations. Margolyes masterfully places this particular piece after an explanation of an unimaginably sad moment of Dickens’ life (or rather, his wife’s). The pairing of the two stories is powerful.

The standout performance for us, though, was a scene featuring one of Dickens’ few noble female characters, the lesbian Miss Wade from Little Dorrit, whom Margolyes interprets as a powerful presence.

Margolyes has been touring Dickens’ Women since the 1980s, so it must run like clockwork for her by now. Even so, she seems as happy as ever to be performing it yet again here in Toronto, joined by local pianist Peter Tiefenbach. Just like the novels that inspired it, this theatrical production has stood the test of time.

Neanderthal puppets guide audiences through the evolution of happiness in Ignorance. Photo by Jason Stang Photography.

Ignorance
Berkeley Street Theatre (26 Berkeley Street)
November 27 to December 15, 8 p.m.
Wednesday matinee at 1:30 p.m., weekend matinee at 2 p.m.
$22–$49

Puppetry is one of the oldest forms of theatre, dating as far back as 3000 BC. Happiness is a concept that’s just as old.

While humankind—in this case, the Old Trout Puppet Workshop—has mastered the former, happiness remains an unattainable prize. It’s an idea we continue to try to wrap our minds around, the carrot that keeps us all moving, working, socializing, exercising, shopping, watching, and eating.

If that seems a bit bleak, it is. But it’s the impression that lingers after the lights dim on Ignorance, the latest philosophical exploration in puppetry by the renowned Calgary troupe, on now at Canadian Stage’s Berkeley Theatre. The show takes audiences back and forth through thousands of years of history, tracking how happiness has influenced humanity’s behaviour.

A caveman and cavewoman seek evolving sources of happiness as their wants develop from concrete, immediate needs (food, shelter, winning) to more complex ones (love, a better life, a legacy). Present-day sketches take on an age of soft-bodied grumps plagued by a nagging sense of dissatisfaction. Spoiler alert: the culprit, according to the Old Trouts, is imagination. Although it’s the thing that allows us to believe that puppets controlled by three onstage mustachioed men in grey, baggy unitards are, in fact, cave people, woolly mammoths, or giant prehistoric monsters, it also plagues us with the ability to envision a happier world—one that doesn’t exist.

Right from the get-go, we know we’re in for a bumpy ride. A happy-faced balloon, a recurring puppet in the show, teases a small boy on roller skates only to slowly strangle him with its string. Then a pleasant, unseen narrator (voiced by one of the original founding Trouts, Judd Palmer) doles out stats on suicide and how we’ll experience most of our few moments of pure bliss here on Earth before we’re 12 years old. It’s a jarring, darkly comic intro, but it properly prepares you for what’s to come.

The Old Trout Puppet Workshop doesn’t sugarcoat its topic, sure, but Ignorance is ridiculous, absurd, weird, and sometimes extremely fun. Most of the delight comes from the puppets themselves. The cave creatures are made to look as if they’re cobbled together from stone, wood, bone, and fur. The modern characters, even the children, are roly-poly sacks with faces that embody the “grumpy old man.” All the action unfolds in front of a set that’s basically a giant pair of antlers on its side. And though there are a few pacing issues in some scenes that feature the two prehistoric lovebirds, their storyline is charming, and the biological explanation of happiness is enlightening. Though they’re mostly entertaining too, the modern scenes don’t exactly have anything revelatory to say about discontentment and mass consumerism.

There’s room for improvement, but overall the Old Trout Puppet Workshop achieves its goal. Ignorance sheds some light on the pursuit of happiness, with some excellent points to chew on after you leave the theatre. It’s a show about happiness, not a happy show.

Sheila McCarthy does double duty as a helpless maid and a wise firefighter in Max Frisch's The Arsonists. Photo by Bruce Zinger.

The Arsonists
Bluma Appel Theatre (27 Front Street East)
November 11–December 9, 8 p.m.
Wednesday matinee at 1:30 p.m., weekend matinee at 2 p.m.
$24–$99

The Lesson
Lower Ossington Theatre (100A Ossington Avenue)
November 10–December 1, 8 p.m.
Sunday matinees at 2:30 p.m.
PWYC to $35

When we spoke with famed Canadian director and playwright Morris Panych about his approach to Max Frisch’s post-Second World War absurdist comedy The Arsonists for Canadian Stage, he said that he was drawn to it “through the back end.” Meaning, it was only when singer and songwriter Justin Rutledge had signed on to set the chorus parts to music that Panych finally felt connected to the weird, quirky script. After seeing it on the Bluma Appel stage, it’s clear that all the right elements are there: stunning design in set (Ken MacDonald), costumes (Charlotte Dean), lighting (Jason Hand), and sound (Emily Porter), complimented by fine acting from an esteemed cast. But it’s true, Rutledge’s original music is the hook that gives this purposefully frivolous play the edge it needs.

In the play, presented in Alistair Beaton’s English translation, a pair of arsonists (Dan Chameroy and Shawn Wright) all too easily talk their way into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Biedermann (Michael Ball and Fiona Reid). The Biedermanns, under the cover of civility, politeness, political correctness, and the belief that “not everyone’s an arsonist,” turn a blind eye to the arsonists’ increasingly obvious tricks.

To the Biedermanns, life inside their floral-wallpapered home is just how they like it: quiet and safe—as long as their neighbours are in danger, and not themselves (even if those neighbours are Mr. Biedermann’s former business partner and his wife). Short as the play is, the Biedermanns’ ignorance is only entertaining for so long. Various interludes from the all-knowing fire-brigade chorus, led by Rutledge and actress Sheila McCarthy (who plays both a firefighter and the Bidermanns’ wise maid, Anna) are crucial in bringing the absurdity back to reality.

You won’t leave The Arsonists with your mind ablaze with its message—it’s more of a slow-burning ember. But through the smoke and haze of a very odd script, Frisch’s original concept hasn’t decayed since it was written in 1953.

The Pupil (Michelle Monteith) and the Professor (David Ferry) go head to head in Ionesco's absurdist classic, The Lesson. Photo by John Lauener.

Two years before Frisch finished The Arsonists, the grandfather of “Theatre of the Absurd,” Eugène Ionesco, penned another allegory for the horrors of the Second World War, The Lesson, which he called a “comic drama.” The humour comes from a nonsensical lesson conducted by an elaborately garbed middle-aged male Professor for a pretty, young, and highly educated Pupil who struggles with simple concepts like subtraction and language. The drama comes from the Professor’s terrifying shift from placating prof to unruly dictator.

In Soheil Parsa’s current production, we’re immediately hit with a sense of foreboding as creaks and clanks echo in what seems to be a cavernous mansion/prison/secret lair of an evil genius (a haunting sound design by Thomas Ryder Payne). The Lesson takes place in a sparse white-and-red room designed by Anahita Dehbonehie, with specific features (several windows with sliding screens and an intercom system used by the Professor’s maid) that suggest constant surveillance. Bold lighting by Michelle Ramsay puts two black rolling chairs in the hot seat, and it also stands in for missing blackboards when needed. Actors Michelle Monteith and David Ferry are reunited for the first time since the multiple award-winning production of Sarah Kane’s Blasted, and their chemistry is again undeniable. Ferry’s rhythm and timing, from his early tremblings to later rage-filled tirades, is legendary. We’re horrified for Monteith’s innocent, but drawing a lesson from The Arsonists, we also want her to notice the Professor’s evil, shake her politeness, and just leave the room already.

In The Lesson, the Professor becomes his most crazed when teaching the (nonexistent) differences between Spanish and Neo-Spanish, asserting his power through a meaningless lesson. Today, leaders rely on sound bites and buzzwords (“taxpayer” and “gravy” coming to mind) that are slightly less abstract, but often equally as empty. The Lesson argues that whoever controls the discourse controls the power, and it’s hard to argue that that idea will ever become outdated. Its modern applications certainly add another dimension to the play, but the real draw to this particular production is Monteith and Ferry, a dynamic duo.

Morris Panych stokes the fire in The Arsonists at Canadian Stage.

The Arsonists
Bluma Appel Theatre
(27 Front Street East)
November 11 to December 9
$24–$99

Canadian playwright and director Morris Panych is known for his black humour, but in his latest directing project with Canadian Stage, it’s better described as charred.

The Arsonists, originally titled Biedermann und die Brandstifter, is an absurdist comedy, written by Swiss playwright Max Frisch in 1953. It opened this week at the Bluma Appel Theatre, in an English translation by Alistair Beaton. The central character is an everyman named Biedermann, who unknowingly welcomes two dangerous arsonists into his home. The story that follows was conceived as an allegory for Nazism and the willingness of “regular” citizens to be corrupted by evil.

This particular project came as a surprise to Panych. He was already planning another production with Canadian Stage when The Arsonists came into the picture. But after finding his own unique approach to it, primarily by incorporating original music by Outside Music musician and singer Justin Rutledge, Panych has developed a very personal connection to the “odd little play” he now loves.

Torontoist: What first drew you to The Arsonists?

Morris Panych: That’s a funny story. Nothing, really. I was supposed to do another play and we were in the middle of casting it, God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza. I guess because we had such a success with Art we thought that we would do something, you know, popular. But [Matthew Jocelyn, artistic director of Canadian Stage] decided he didn’t want to do that, so he showed me this script. I already knew the script because Albert Schultz [artistic director of Soulpepper] had shown it to me the year before. I was like “What is with this script? Why are people…” Anyway I read it a second time, and I thought, well, it’s fun. It’s a little crazy. It’s weird, it’s really weird. It’s an odd little play.

But what was it, in the play, that you really connected with?

There’s a Greek chorus and we didn’t have a lot of people for casting, so we decided to set it to music. I hit on the idea of using Justin Rutledge because I had seen him in a show at Theatre Passe Muraille [in Divisadero, directed by Daniel Brooks] and I thought he was really cool. I interviewed a couple other people but nobody seemed as engaged as he was in the ideas. So when Justin got on board, I thought, “Oh this could be something good.” So that’s what attracted me to the play, it was kind of through the back end. I liked the script but I wanted to make sure there was something I was into doing with it, because we had started with this whole other idea.

So now that it’s up on its feet, how do you feel about it?

There are certain things that are puzzling to me still. I like how quirky it is, I like how in your face it is, I like how it’s trying to say something intelligent and complex in a very farcical way, which is something I try to do with my own writing. I like the absurdity of it. I’m not sure everybody’s going to get it, it’s kind of crazy. I love the music, I love everything about it now. I don’t have any children, but it’s how I imagine you are with your children. You go through periods of thinking they’re puzzling or weird, but you always love them because you spend so much time nurturing it.

Tell us what it’s about.

Well you can read any one of these fucking posters they put all over the place giving the entire synopsis. It’s extremely irritating. You go, “Why would we do the play if you’ve already told the story out here?” Anyway, whatever.

In your own words?

Well, they would have to be my own words. It’s kind of a crazy parable about how gullible people will make themselves, how willing they are to not believe in the truth that’s happening right in front of them. Like, to drink the Kool-Aid and think that nothing’s really happening.

There are parallels now, like with our own government. We know what they say they’re up to, but we don’t know what they’re really doing. There are less and less checks and balances. I wouldn’t necessarily say they’re Nazis or anything, but they’re operating in a weirdly secretive way. But people have come to accept that; people are willfully blind to things sometimes. We know that in the past, in Nazi Germany, in Czechoslovakia, in Hungary, in France, and all over Europe before the Second World War people were in total denial.

Can you relate personally?

When I was younger, I was sort of a socialist, I guess. I believed in certain things, I protested Vietnam and blah blah blah, and all this sort of stuff, and I think they were all valid for me. But over time, I grew tired of my own life of questioning everything. It becomes a very difficult life of constantly turning on the TV and being angry and thinking of everyone being capitalist pigs. After a while, you just sort of fold into the general malaise of society as you get older, because you don’t have the energy to fight it after a while.

The play says it: people just want a quiet life. They don’t want trouble, they don’t want bother. They don’t want trouble. The minute they smell trouble they just run from it. And that’s how things like this happen: because people are scared, they’re thinking the worst.

Has this play shaken you up at all?

No, no. I always have a certain degree of vigilance. But how do you mobilize? What do you do? The whole proroguing thing that Harper did a few years ago, a lot of people still think that was a joke. That was serious shit. I was part of a core group of protestors. That was really an affront to democracy, and a lot of people just shrugged it off. Like, wow, this is how it starts. Who knows how far that could go given the will of people to give up their knowledge of what’s really going on just to live a peaceful, quiet existence. I think the play says that in a very comic, in-your-face, absurd way.

I know that absurdity is tricky, it’s hard to emotionally engage with absurdist theatre. You find it amusing and engaging, but the emotional content is often not there. So what we tried to do was create a little bit of emotional connection with the characters. You have to often sit on them to make them believable.

How do you want people to feel as they leave?

I have no fucking clue, I have no idea. I think you have to go in completely unarmed, no expectations. That’s why I hate these things that say “farce” and stuff.

CORRECTION: November 22, 2012, 12:15 PM This post originally stated that Justin Rutledge is signed to Six Shooter Records, when in fact he is currently signed with Outside Music. We regret the error.

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According to a new survey, fewer and fewer of the independent and commercial theatre, dance, and opera organizations that are members of the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA) are feeling “very positive” about their futures—and on Tuesday they did something about it.

November 13 marked the third annual Arts Day at the City, which saw members of TAPA, as well as Friends of the Arts (a network of arts organizations from throughout the city), meet with more than 25 city councillors to continue pushing the plan laid out in 2011′s Creative Capital Gains report, which received unanimous support from city council at the time. The report’s main goal was to make sure the city fulfills its promise of raising arts funding in Toronto to $25 per capita, up from $18.

But TAPA also used this opportunity to unveil the results from the TAPA Stats Report Phase III, a survey done between October 2011 and February 2012 that looked at the attendance, revenue, and activity of 80 of its members during the 2009–10 season. The snapshot reveals a performing arts industry that is relying less on ticket sales and more on outside sources of funding. That’s not particularly surprising, and it’s also not a particularly hopeful sign for the local industry.

Single-ticket sales reached 2.3 million in the 2009–10 season, which is pretty much on par with the years following peak sales in 2005–06. Subscriptions have continued to climb, increasing 56 per cent since 2004–05. As a result, companies reported higher attendance overall. Even so, ticket sales are making up a smaller and smaller portion of total revenue year to year: they’ve fallen from 77 per cent in 2004–05 to 65 per cent in 2009–10. This means that attractive packages and deals to get bums in seats are working (a good thing) but they’re taking a toll on the bottom line (not a great thing).

As a result, fundraising efforts and government grants are taking up the slack. Between 2004 and 2010, fundraising revenue rose from 11 per cent of total revenue to 19 per cent, and government grants went from 12 per cent to 17 per cent. Not only is this an added stress on companies in terms of manpower and instability, it’s also leading to a slight decrease in total revenue.

On a positive note, theatre, opera, and dance companies have seen attendance from high schools more than triple between 2004 and 2010, and almost half of those surveyed now spend a significant portion of their marketing budget on new media, including online and social-media initiatives. What comes next is moving away from using social media as a constant output stream amd toward using social-media tools as venues for two-way conversation.

The biggest challenge for theatrical organizations is still (and will probably always be) money. Despite the never-ending fight for funding, the general feeling remains positive, but not as positive as in previous years. The percentage of companies that feel “very positive” about their future dropped from 38 to 28 between 2008 and 2010.

But the faces at TAPA’s meeting in council chambers on Tuesday morning were not sour or defeated. They were more like game faces, ready for a day of non-stop meetings and arguments to make sure city councillors are keeping watch over the problems facing the performing arts industry, and that they’re aware of the potential benefits of doing so.

“We have to know where we’re going. We have to work in a collaborative way,” said Councillor Michael Thompson (Ward 37, Scarborough Centre) to a crowd that included theatre board members, artists, and fellow councillors. “We’re listening.”

It's child's play for Ins Choi, Mike Ross, and Gregory Prest in Alligator Pie. Photo by by Jason Hudson.

Alligator Pie
Young Centre for the Arts (55 Mill Street)
November 6–November 25
$23 (4-pack for $94)

Soulpepper’s reputation for producing classical theatre has more often than not kept the kiddos at home, but a new creation, from five plucky members of the company, is a bright, noisy, and fun-filled invitation for theatregoers young and old—and one that still fits within the company’s mandate. You can give away the green grass, you can give away the sky, but you can’t say that Alligator Pie doesn’t qualify as a “classic.”

With a background in music, Soulpepper actor and sound designer Mike Ross is at the helm of this hour-long stage performance of a selection of children’s poems by Dennis Lee, Toronto’s first poet laureate. Joined by Ken Mackenzie, Gregory Prest, Ins Choi, Raquel Duffy, and a whole lot of boxes filled with costumes, musical instruments, plastic tubes, staplers, umbrellas, bubble wrap, and more (otherwise known as a kid’s heaven), Ross’s music gives new life to both the absurdity and the gravity in Lee’s words. The interpretation is often ingenious.

Out of their various tickle trunks of tools and tricks, the cast is able to turn “The Bratty Brother” into a somber blues-y ballad delivered with gravitas by Duffy. “Tricking” becomes a hip-hop performance by Choi in an Afro wig and giant gold sunglasses, as he leans back in his rolly chair like a lowrider. “I Put a Penny in my Purse” is transformed into an anguished tango performed by Prest on the accordion, accompanied by the rest of the cast playing classroom supplies like the staplers, masking tape, a three-hole-punch. and scissors (which are cleverly introduced by naming the objects in French, likely helping the target audience with their dictées). The final song even gets a Joel Plaskett–like twang, and another incredible moment creates a melody out of plastic tubes of different lengths. Some equally stunning moments, like a declaration of friendship from Ross to Duffy, need no props at all.

It’s clear that the cast members spent their time on the individual pieces, making them clever enough for the parents and fun enough for the kids. The material is there, the talent is there, but what’s needed is some direction to tell us who these characters are and why they’re here, and to fill in some other missing pieces. Why do the characters enter from a trap door, never to use it again? What’s the purpose of the theatre-in-the-round style? Where’s the audience participation? Children’s theatre isn’t meant to be passively consumed. Ideally, it’s an experience in all senses of the word. Alligator Pie, as it is, is more of an intellectual take on a selection of children’s poems rather than a show with entertainment as its main goal.

Even so, Alligator Pie is a delightful array of music, magic, and mud (as Prest captivatingly observes, like a scientist) that will, hopefully, only become smoother and clearer when it returns to Soulpepper next year. So if you don’t get some Alligator Pie this time around, keep your green grass, keep your sky, and definitely don’t die. There will be a second helping soon enough, and it might be even sweeter.

Some old married couples sleep in separate beds, Nell (Maria Vacratsis) and Nagg (Eric Peterson) sleep in separate trash cans. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann.

Endgame
Young Centre for the Arts (55 Mill Street)
October 26 to November 17
$32–$68

As Hamm—the blind, bleeding, and eternally-seated former tycoon at the end of the world in Samuel Beckett’s Endgame—points out to his servant Clov, as long as his father Nagg is crying, that means he’s still alive.

“Alive” is, of course, a bit of an overstatement for a man who lives inside a trash can, has no legs, and survives on pap (a mealy style of porridge) if he’s lucky, or by sucking on a biscuit if he’s not. The line gets one of many small, bitter laughs bursting reluctantly from the audience throughout the 100 minutes of purgatory now on at Soulpepper Theatre. But that’s entirely the point of Beckett’s 1957 sophomore full-length play—to show the humour in the most awful, anguished, melodramatic misery possible.

When director Daniel Brooks first tackled Endgame in 1999, it won that year’s Dora for Outstanding Production. Because we didn’t see that first acclaimed rendition, we obviously can’t compare the original to this new re-imagined version. But we can guess that the two main characters, Hamm (for a “ham” actor) and Clov (for “clown”), earned their comedic namesakes. If the goal of the current production was to “dig a little deeper,” as actor Diego Matamoros (Clov) said, then it may have inspired the very tragic, human portrayals of Hamm and Clov in the current staging—a fine choice, but one that perhaps doesn’t create the tone that Beckett intended.

Matamoros is the only actor reprising his role from the 1999 production, and his comfort in the role explains his ability to more ably play-up both the realistic and humourous sides of Clov, a man who yearns to escape this crumbling house but is unable to disobey the orders of his father-figure. Joseph Ziegler is an obvious choice to take over the role of Hamm, having mastered the performance of another fallen patriarch, Willy Loman, in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. And indeed, there are moments that immediately reminded us of that show (which closed last month). Miller is a realist though, and Beckett is an absurdist: Willy is supposed to draw tears, but Hamm isn’t supposed to be a character for us to cry over.

There are a few saving graces to be found in an old, decrepit married couple living in two separate trash cans. Hamm’s parents, Nell (Maria Vacratsis) and Nagg (Eric Peterson) pop up like two extremely pale and senile Oscar the Grouches. The banter between these two ugly gremlins (not as a slight against Vacratsis and Peterson, but an applaud to the makeup team and Victoria Wallace’s costumes) is simultaneously hilarious, frightening, sad, and heartwarming. There are hardly better roles imaginable for these two stage vets, allowing Peterson to tap into his epic comedic timing and deep-rooted wiriness, and Vacratsis to blend a rough appearance with pure sweetness.

Their time uncovered by lids flashes by, while the moments between Hamm and Clov seem to last an eternity—the fault of which is only half Beckett’s.

Some of the cast of Theatre 20's Bloodless, a new musical by Joseph Aragon. Photo by Riyad Mustapha.

When the air gets colder, the nights get longer, and pumpkins start to bare their toothless grins, the theatre isn’t the first place you might think to visit as you celebrate the Halloween season. But staying away from Toronto’s stages for the next week could mean that the biggest scare you get this year is seeing a swarm of Honey Boo Boo Childs take over the party on Church Street.

Besides more obvious activities—like the special ghost tour of the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres on Monday, October 29—theatre companies big and small are celebrating the holiday with spooks, jumps, and blood.

Bloodless: The Trial of Burke and Hare
Theatre 20
Panasonic Theatre (651 Yonge Street)
To October 28 at 8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m.
$49–$69

Halloween is a time to see weird, mysterious things you’d never thought you’d live to see. And in this case, it’s a new Canadian musical (heyo!). This brand new, Sweeney Todd–inspired show, by Joseph Aragon and directed by Theatre 20′s Adam Brazier, tells the true story of Edward Hare and Edward Burke. The latter two men, with the help of their spouses, suffocated their rooming house tenants and sold the bodies to the local medical school in 19th-century Scotland. The set and costumes are dark and murky, but the music and performances range from raucous pub chants to brooding songs about the characters’ murderous schemes. And it’s all supported by an all-star cast from Stratford, Shaw, and Broadway.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Lower Ossington Theatre (100A Ossington Avenue)
To November 3 at 8 p.m.; 11 p.m. performances on October 26, 27, and 31.
$35–$45

Photo by Seanna Kennedy.

For the fifth year running, The Rocky Horror Picture Show returns to the Lower Ossington Theatre. If you’re looking for a Halloween show that you can spook right back, this is it. The highly interactive live performance calls for lots of audience participation and shouting, and is a must-see if you’ve never experienced it before.

Doc Wuthergloom’s Haunted Medicine Show
Eldritch Theatre
Performing at a secret location
October 25–28 at 8 p.m.
$25 in advance, $30 at the door

Eric Woolfe reprises the title role in Doc Wuthergloom's Haunted Medicine Show. Photo by Dawn Weaver.

This time, the location is a bit easier to find out: one just has to look at the show’s homepage to read where it might be. But luckily, that’s only part of the appeal of this year’s version of Eric Woolfe’s one-man travelling-salesman act. Instead of cure-alls and hair-growth balms, Woolfe’s Doc Wuthergloom is selling his “home exorcism almanac.” Using puppetry, audience participation, and some impressive magic tricks, Doc Wuthergloom’s Haunted Medicine Show is a tight, tiny performance. It’s well-suited to both younger and older audiences—that is, if you can find it.

The War of The Worlds
Art of Time Ensemble
Enwave Theatre (231 Queens Quay West)
October 30–November 3 at 8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m.
$25–$59

Nick Campbell and Marc Bendavid star in The War of the Worlds. Photo by John Lauener.

Another returning Halloween special comes from the Art of Time Ensemble, which sold out last year’s live staging of Orson Welles’ famous The War of the Worlds broadcast. With comedian Sean Cullen filling in for Don McKellar, the rest of the virtuosic crew are back at their microphones, including actors Nicholas Campbell and Marc Bendavid, sound effects artist John Gzowski, and designer Beth Kates.

Endgame
Soulpepper Theatre
Young Centre for the Performing Arts (55 Tank House Lane)
October 26–November 17 at 7:30 p.m.; Wednesday and Saturday matinees at 1:30 p.m.
$32–$68

Diego Matamoros, Eric Peterson, Maria Vacratsis, and Joseph Ziegler star in Endgame by Samuel Beckett. Illustration by Brian Rea.

Samuel Beckett’s acclaimed play may be the most absurd of the bunch listed here, but you really can’t get more nightmarish than the trapped foursome in Endgame: Hamm, his servant Clov, and Hamm’s trashcan-encased parents, Nell and Negg. All four characters are caught in an endless cycle from which death would be a welcome relief. Director Daniel Brooks returns to the script with a new interpretation after presenting his original version at Soulpepper in 1999. This show should be an unconventional but memorable Halloween celebration.

CORRECTION: October 30, 5:20 PM It was stated that Endgame was previously presented at Soulpepper in 2009, when it was actually staged in 1999. The above has been corrected.

Celebrate art, like this mural, with a panel discussion tonight. Photo by Taejon Cupid.

ART: Do you enjoy public art? Well, you’ve got a chance to appreciate it with others, at a panel discussion and party called “Community. Art. Change. Celebrating 20 Years of Artists Engaging Communities.” Attendees will mingle with community arts collaborators and learn more about how artists have effected social change in Toronto. Yorkdale Community Arts Centre (3401 Dufferin Street), 2–5 p.m., FREE.

MUSIC: We’re halfway through October and it already feels like last January. But never fear: here’s a gig that’ll remind you of sunnier days. Crushed Out, a Brooklyn-based surf-rock band, is dropping by Toronto to promote their latest LP, Want to Give. Even better, they’ll be opening for New York rock-and-roll legends The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Horseshoe Tavern (370 Queen Street West), 9:15 p.m., $21.50 advance, $25 door.

CONFERENCE: Technological geeks of Toronto unite! For the next few days, Digifest will be bringing a wealth of digital innovations and ideas to town. This TED-like conference features speakers from around the globe who will offer their thoughts on “hacks,” new media, video games, brainwave technology (!), and much, much more. The event also features workshops, panels, and exhibits. Corus Entertainment (25 Dockside Drive), runs Thursday to Saturday, times and ticket prices vary.

Urban Planner is Torontoist‘s guide to what’s on in Toronto, published every weekday morning, and in a weekend edition Friday afternoons. If you have an event you’d like considered, email all of its details—as well as images, if you’ve got any—to events@torontoist.com.

There's a storm brewing over Factory Theatre. Photo by {a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/lxdesign/5737724948/”}lxdesign{/a} from the {a href=”http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist/”}Torontoist Flickr Pool{/a}.

The new year might officially begin on January 1, but everyone knows that autumn is really the time to start anew. It’s intrinsic to the season: leaves change and fall, students go back to school, patios put away their chairs, and Canada gets back to its true (chilly) identity.

For theatre, this is a good thing. The past year has, well, been a rocky one. The Vancouver Playhouse shut down; Michael Healey left Tarragon over (speculated) artistic censorship; and there’s currently an industry-wide boycott of Factory Theatre since the Board of Directors fired longtime artistic director Ken Gass. Artists young and old are feeling discouraged.

But with a new season is a new start. As TIFF gets rolling this week, so does the 2012/2013 theatre year. (Technically it began with Canadian Stage’s Shakespeare in High Park, but now is when things really take off). And with this week’s announcement of Nina Lee Aquino and Nigel Shawn Williams as interim artistic directors at Factory, we may perhaps have a happy omen for better things to come.

Here’s what else has us excited about what’s to come as 2012 draws to a close.

Feral Child
Suburban Beast

DATES:
September 7 to 22

VENUE:
Berkley Street Theatre (26 Berkeley Street)

Multifaceted theatre/film creator Jordan Tannahill’s latest project features Cynthia Ashperger and William Christopher Ellis as a housekeeper who lost a son in the Bosnian genocide and a teenager of the family who employs her, respectively. The above trailer for the show gives no details—it just puts Ashperger through a wringer of expressions and emotions—but Tannahill’s previous track record with shows like Post Eden (a hit at SummerWorks in 2010) means it’s likely that the show won’t pull its punches. With a very limited 40-person theatre, this will fill up fast.

HOMEbody… lessons in prairie living
DanceWorks/Shannon Litzenberger

Shannon Litzenberger in HOMEBody... lessons in prairie living. Photo by Omer Yukseker.

DATES:
September 20 to 23

VENUE:
Winchester Street Theatre (80 Winchester Street)

Part of DanceWorks’ Co-Works series, this solo dance piece by Litzenberger will explore her prairie roots, and more generally, intends to speak to the mass exodus from rural regions and to urban living. Litzenberger was the artistic director of the Integrated Dance Artists Collective, and has worked with many leading artists and choreographers in Canada’s contemporary dance community. She’s also a prolific advocate for the arts in Canada, and was the first ever recipient of the Metcalf Arts Policy Fellowship. The wide range of connections she’s established probably helped her land top-notch collaborators like recent Dora Award–winning lighting designer Kimberly Purtell, and set and costume designer Lindsay Anne Black.

Proud
Michael Healey

Michael Healey's Proud gets its first full production this month at the Berkeley Theatre. Photo by Amanda Lynne Ballard.

DATES:
September 20 to October 6

VENUE:
Berkeley Street Theatre (26 Berkeley Street)

It seems so long ago that Michael Healey, playwright-in-residence at Tarragon, ended his 11-year relationship with the theatre after his play, Proud, was excluded from their performance season. Since artistic director Richard Rose has kept quiet about the decision, there’s only been speculation—specifically, that it had something to do with a character in the play named Prime Minister, thinly veiled as Stephen Harper, and the fear that the play could draw the Conservative Party’s ire. A staged reading in Toronto this past March gave audiences an early peek, but now Michael Healey himself will become the Prime Minister in the script’s first full production.

Dear Liar & Ismat Apa Ke Naam
Why Not Theatre

Photo courtesy of Why Not Theatre.

DATES:
September 28 to 30, October 5 to 7

VENUE:
Regent Park Arts and Cultural Centre (585 Dundas Street East)

Why Not Theatre is a huge contributor to Toronto theatre’s global contingent, responsible for the highly-praised A Brimful of Asha with Tarragon Theatre last year (that show will return to Tarragon in late November), starring local actor and writer Ravi Jain and his own mother. This fall, the company is bringing talent in from across the world: Bollywood stars Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, and Heeba Shah will perform two shows, one in English (Dear Liar) and one in Hindi (Ismat Apa Ke Naam), to inaugurate the new Regent Park Arts and Cultural Centre.

The Normal Heart
Buddies in Bad Times/Studio 180

Jeff Miller and Sarah Orenstein in Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart. Photo by Kesta Graham.

DATES:
October 19 to November 18

VENUE:
Buddies in Bad Times Theatre (12 Alexander Street)

During its first run here in 2011, Larry Kramer’s exploration of the early 1980s AIDS epidemic in New York City, The Normal Heart, broke Toronto’s hearts—all of them. A Studio 180 show should always be a highlight on the theatre calendar, but this remount of one of the most critically-praised productions of 2011 should be double-underlined with stars around it if you were unlucky enough to miss it the first time around. Or if you did catch it, remind yourself of what we called a “brilliant marriage between great theatre and great politics.”

Political Mother
Canadian Stage/Hofesh Shechter Company

Celebrated Israeli-born, UK-based choreographer Hofesh Shechter comes to Canadian Stage next month with Political Mother. Photo by Tom Medwell.

DATES:
October 24 to 28

VENUE:
Bluma Appel Theatre (27 Front Street East)

Last season, Canadian Stage’s brief dance performances were sleeper sell-out hits, so we’re expecting tickets to disappear quickly for the six-show run of the Toronto debut of Hofesh Shechter, the UK’s contemporary dance sensation. The creator grew up in Israel, and Political Mother is a fast-paced, rock and roll–filled examination of how a nation can destroy its people through extreme political indoctrination.

The Dark Comedy Festival
Dark Comedy Festival / Rob Mailloux

Maria Bamford. Photo by Bruce Smith.

DATES:
October 31 to November 9

VENUE:
Various venues

Comedian Rob Mailloux started the Dark Comedy Festival in 2011 as a showcase for stand-ups who delve into personal and often avoided topics in their industry: mental illness, illness in general, addiction, etc. The 2011 edition of the festival was so successful that it spawned a tour to Vancouver. This year, comedian Jim Norton will play both the Toronto and Vancouver editions of the festival; the Toronto edition has scored Maria Bamford as a headliner. Bamford, arguably stand-up’s most critically acclaimed comedienne right now, has tackled her own battles with anxiety and depression in her act and web series. Among her openers is local comic Rhiannon Archer, who’s recently begun speaking in her act about her own battle with lupus.

Alligator Pie
Soulpepper Theatre

Illustration by Brian Rea.

DATES:
October 26 to November 25

VENUE:
Young Centre for the Performing Arts (55 Mill Street)

In 2009, Toronto author Dennis Lee and Soulpepper actor and musician Mike Ross collaborated to create Civil Elegies, a unique performance of Lee’s iconic poems set to original music. Now, the same team reunites to take on Lee’s most beloved collection of children’s poems, Alligator Pie. Give away the green grass, give away the sky—but don’t miss this nostalgic, one-of-a-kind show featuring personalities like Ins Choi (Kim’s Convenience), Raquel Duffy (The Crucible), and Gregory Prest (The Royal Comedians).

Other shows we’re excited about: The Queen West Project at Theatre Passe Muraille (September 12 to 23) and the Queen West Street Fest (September 15); Julie Sits Waiting by Good Hair Day Productions in association with The Theatre Centre (September 14 to 23); Obaaberima at Buddies in Bad Times; and Canadian Stage’s Tear the Curtain! (October 7 to 27).

Hannah Miller has found a theatre home in Soulpepper, Toronto, and in Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Photo by Nathan Kelly.

The Crucible
Young Centre for the Performing Arts
(50 Tank House Lane)
August 8 to September 22, various times
$32–$68

In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Abigail Williams is the young but cunning villainess whose finger pointing leads to the deaths of her neighbours in Salem, Massachusetts. At the play’s opening tonight with Soulpepper Theatre, all eyes will be pointed straight at the young actress Hannah Miller, who will be playing the demanding role. It will be her first major debut on a Toronto stage.

“The show for me has many firsts, many biggests, many mosts,” she said. “It’s the most emotionally challenging role I’ve ever had before. It’s asking of me to commit 150 per cent to the imaginary world.”

At 28 years old, Miller—who has no relation to the playwright—has about a decade over her fictional counterpart, which made it challenging for her to get into the mind of the troubled teenager. Arthur Miller’s script , set in the 1690′s, is meant to be an allegory for the paranoia of McCarthyism in 1950s America (as we all learned in high school English, no doubt). In it, a lie by Abigail Williams sets off a series of witch hunts that end up consuming many lives, including that of the man she scandalously pines for, John Proctor. Abigail Williams could easily be considered one of theatre’s most wicked characters.

The first time Miller saw a production of The Crucible was in Tel Aviv, where she lived until her early twenties. “I remember being horrified by the play,” she said. “I didn’t really understand Puritanism at the time, I didn’t know that that existed or what that was. I just thought ‘These people do what, how, when?’” Her biggest challenge when she began rehearsals for Soulpepper’s show was figuring out how to root for her character.

“She is a child. But there’s something about her, there’s a transition there. Her eyes have been opened to something,” she said. “Looking back at the moment when you break into womanhood, it’s just beautiful.”

“I really spend so little time thinking about murder, because for [Abigail] it’s a play about love and the loss of love.”

Tonight’s opening comes near the end of Miller’s time in the Soulpepper Academy, a 12-month paid training program for actors 22 to 26 (an exception was made for Miller regarding the age requirements). Both The Crucible and another production, The Royal Comedians, are giving members from the Academy a chance to own one of Toronto’s most prestigious stages. Miller says capping off a year spent workshopping, creating, and collaborating with the Soulpepper company, including artistic director Albert Schultz, is a dream come true. And it’s a dream she hadn’t even dreamt when she arrived in Toronto from Tel Aviv in 2005—after two years spent as a singer during her mandatory military service—to pursue an education in classical theatre.

“I didn’t know much about Canada before I came here. I knew that my brother lived here, I knew that it was cold, and that Bryan Adams was from here,” she said. Building on some TV and film experience in Tel Aviv, she studied acting for three years at George Brown College before beginning the Soulpepper Academy. There, she has been able to satisfy her passion for traditional texts with the city’s only classical theatre company.

Not that her time at Soulpepper hasn’t exposed her to the wide variety of other theatre styles that Toronto supports. Puppetry, in particular, is a new passion for Miller.

“One of the things that I love most about Toronto is that it’s a massive city, probably twice the size of Tel Aviv in space. Population-wise it’s probably three times the size, but it’s got this steady pace,” she said. “And I know that for Canadians it seems fast, but it’s really not.”