Michael Frayn's play Democracy, currently playing at Tarragon, is not always easy to follow. For some reason, this doesn't particularly matter. The second political drama set in Berlin in Tarragon's current season chronicles the rise and fall of Willy Brandt, West Germany's charismatic leader from 1969 until 1974, and is crammed full of politicians, spies, treaties and references to the nuances of Cold War-era Germany that may occasionally go over your head. But it......

There is a moment near the end of the first act of Maureen Hunter's play Wild Mouth when Oliver Becker, playing the tortured Ukrainian WWI vet Bohdan, grabs Sarah Orenstein as proto-feminist anti-war Englishwoman Anna (pictured, left), douses her in pig's blood, and then rubs the animal's heart all over her face and body. It's a shocking and highly provocative moment, and seems to foreshadow a very dark second act. But that's not quite......

It's true. Torontoist fave Daniel MacIvor has given up doing those kinds of plays. You know, those one-man marvels directed by Daniel Brooks and chock-full of magic realism, gorgeous minimalist design, and MacIvor's own captivating performances? He's had enough of those and has moved on to "play plays." You know, linear narratives with multiple actors, realistic locations and resolvable conflicts? And that's exactly what we get with How It Works, which is being performed......

Hannah Moscovitch's play East of Berlin is familiar territory for Tarragon's extra space. Remember Rosa Laborde's Léo, which was remounted last season? Well, here's another show in the same space that's set in South America, has political subject matter, spans the life of its main character, and features only two other actors, a man and a woman, both of whom he has sex with. This may be a bit of a tangent, but Torontoist......

Living Tall is basically an entirely perfect one man show, and it's only playing at the Tarragon Extra Space until Sunday, so you'd better get your act in gear. The script by Mike Geither is tight, hilarious and fascinating, Karin Randoja's direction is focused and inventive and Ker Wells' performance is astounding and completely compelling. The show, which was quite successful at this year's SummerWorks festival, is structured as a pop psychology sales seminar......

Alon Nashman's one-man show Kafka and Son returns to Toronto for the Fringe. This is a piece he's been doing for some time, and it shows; it's one of the most professional-looking productions you're likely to see at the Fringe this year. In fact, sitting inside the Tarragon Theatre's mainspace watching the talented performer enact Kafka's famous "Letter to his Father," it's easy to imagine that you're seeing a show from the theatre's regular......

A lot of the Big Ticket shows in town these days are shows that we've had the chance to see before. This is not a bad thing. There's nothing more exciting than seeing a brand new play that blows your mind, but it's also good to know that if a play is good enough, it can have a life that extends long after its initial run. Probably the highest-profile of these remounts is John......

Brown leaves outside and it's suddenly colder than a witch's tit. Hello, fall! But besides meaning a death to sun and happiness, the fall brings in the new season of independant theatre! Yay! Tarragon has just opened its season with Generous, a new play by Michael Healey. Generous is a strikingly different play from his more naturalistic works like The Drawer Boy and Rune Arlidge. Generous is actually four two-act plays with inter-twining plots and......

"Goodness," a play by Toronto playwright and novelist Michael Redhill (pictured) has been picked as the best play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The play was produced by Volcano and Tarragon Theatre last year but it shone at Edinburgh beating out over 1500 other plays to take the Carol Tambor Theatrical Foundation award. The play will now go on to New York City, it will receive a production at Performance Space 122 in March.......

Salvatore Antonio is everywhere these days. He’s one of the three actors in Léo at Tarragon Theatre. He’s a regular on Ken Finkleman’s new series At the Hotel. And his first full-length play, In Gabriel’s Kitchen, opened last night at Buddies in Bad Times. Torontoist recommends Léo, a taut one-act play by up-and-comer Rosa Laborde, wholeheartedly. Antonio is excellent as the title character, a charismatic poet caught in a love triangle and the currents of......

Last October, Torontoist was at a rather boring mass book launch at Theatrebooks. Among the books being launched was York theatre professor Don Rubin’s Canadian Theatre History: Selected Readings. Rubin, in classic Trying-Too-Hard-To-Be-Cool Prof style, bounced up to the podium to say how happy he was to be included in an evening with so many Canadian playwrights, because Canadian playwrights were such great "shit-disturbers." His reading was immediately followed by Susan Coyne reading from her......

The Tarragon Theatre’s got a couple of winners on its stages right now. In the Mainspace, David S. Young’s adaptation of Alistair MacLeod’s epic novel No Great Mischief is playing to well-deserved sold-out houses. Even on a Tuesday night this Torontoist theatregoer and his fake date had trouble finding seats next to each other, so do arrive early if you want a good placement. The reviews haven’t been very kind to the show about the......

Theatregoers and cannibalistic journalists will have a chance to catch a glimpse of former Globe and Mail columnist David Macfarlane's new journocentric play this weekend. Fishwrap, about a washed-up newspaper columnist, is being workshopped publicly at Tarragon Theatre on Saturday at 8 pm as part of the admirableWorkSpace program put into place there by newish artistic director Richard Rose. Gossipy scribes -- ourselves included -- have been salivating for this show since we first read......