Louis Train - Page 2

Lucius is an exuberant, charismatic serial killer who claims to have found God while incarcerated. His exact religious philosophy is unclear - he preaches justice but cannot account for his own atrocities.  Angel was arrested for shooting the leader of a dangerous religious cult. He doesn't think he's done anything wrong, but he lacks Lucius'  energy and confidence; whereas Lucius can convince himself - and others - that God loves all sinners, Angel is plagued by doubts, first in the competence of his attorney, and, eventually, in himself.

MARJORIE PRIME is set some 30 years in the future, after scientists have invented Primes, charmingly lifelike holographic representations of dead people you can buy to keep you company after a loss. Say your husband's passed away - I'm so sorry, but look! here he is, or something that looks and talks just like him. (It is the exact premise of the Black Mirror episode a?oeBe Right Backa??, which first aired some two years before MARJORIE PRIME premiered off-Broadway, in 2015.)

Theatre Passe Muraille kicks off 2020 with an Arabic-language double-bill. Is it novelty or innovation? A bit of both, I think.

SWEAT is a work of social realism, that controversial genre of fiction, film, and drama that tries to be romance and documentary all in one. It casts light on an often ignored part of American society, that is, those disenchanted workers - and ex-workers - whose dreams have been disrupted by some thirty-odd years of decline in the country's once robust manufacturing industry. For those of us with a New York Times subscription, SWEAT will feel like a continuation of a familiar trope, a vivid illustration of an idea that's been described to us again and again, especially more frequently since 2016. SWEAT seems to be answering the question: Who are these angry, bitter people who have set the country on its current course, and how did they get that way?

EVERY SILVER LINING is about being a teenager, and cancer. Clara (Allison Wither, who also composed the music and wrote the lyrics) is a teenager. She reads books, goes swimming, and ignores her friends. Her brother, Andrew (Daniel Karp) is dying of leukemia.

As in the best novels by Philip Roth, playwright Hannah Moscovitch delights in convincing us that her character's predatory behaviour is a minor flaw, not that bad in context, and that he's not that much worse, really than anyone else. Annie is intelligent, independent, has some sexual experience; it's not as though Jon's screwing a child. And come on, he's only human. 

Jess is torn between her obligations to her family and her dream of being a soccer star. Everyone tells her she has what it takes to make it big - except her parents, who remind her that her commitment, first and foremost, should be to her family. I won't tell you how BEND ITa?? ends, suffice to say that this is an uplifting musical, more Hairspray than Les Mis, and everyone, on stage and in the audience, ends up getting what they want.

Patrick Combs was knee-deep in credit card debt when he got a piece of junk mail that caught his eye - a phony cheque for nearly $100,000. He knew the bank would never cash it, but he had nothing better to do, so he popped it into an ATM and - lo and behold, it cleared. Now Patrick Combs, slacker was Patrick Combs, celebrity, and public enemy number one to his bank, which did everything in its power to threaten and entice him into giving the money back.

TORONTO, I LOVE YOU has been playing on and off for a while now but, like the 6ix itself, the story is always changing. At the start of each show, the cast takes a few suggestions (Koreatown! The Alexandria Park pool!) so every night the action ends up somewhere different.

Thorne and Mullen have a natural stage chemistry, an easy back-and-forth that lets them bounce dialogue and jokes off each other like a game of table tennis. They are joined in I BE LIKE.... by Gavin Pounds, who opens the show with a stellar bit of inspirational comedy, and is a welcome addition to each scene he is in.

Although STAND! is full of romance, it is boldly honest in its historical depictions. Xenophobia and racism take centre stage in the story. Canada gets at best an ambivalent treatment, as a place where the lucky are lucky but the unlucky struggle just to avoid harm. One of the central questions of the film is the conflict between individual and institution - a defining issue in North America going into 2020 as well.

SOLDIER ON comes to us from the UK, where a variety of audiences, military and non-military alike, have had the chance to enjoy its easy humour and satisfying plot. It tells the story of a group of servicepeople and their families who have come together to talk through their issues and put on a show. If the play within a play sounds pretentious, it's not - SOLDIER ON is effortlessly accessible and universally charming, even to those of us with no connection to the subject matter.

In life, we all get dealt a hand the moment we're born. The choice is whether to play it or try for better cards. Walter Washington never knew his own father, but he kept trading in his cards, refusing to become a wanderer, a deadbeat. He got a job on the force, an apartment, a family, a spoon collection. Still, the world kept dealing him 3's and deuces. Getting shot forced Walter into early retirement so he could watch his wife, Dolores, turn terminally ill and die before his eyes.

Dr Jon Lien, the whale man of Memorial University, earned his nickname over a lifetime of rescuing trapped whales off the coast of Newfoundland. His brilliant career, as well as the painful circumstances surrounding his death, inspired Newfoundland's own Robert Chafe to write BETWEEN BREATHS, a short, music-infused drama that traces Jon's life from his last moments backwards through his career, uncovering his boundless capacity for compassion and respect for the joy of other creatures.

In the world premiere of Anosh Irani's BUFFOON, at Tarragon Theatre, Anand Rajaram plays Felix the clown, a child of the thrilling, vicious world of the circus. On a bare gray stage with nothing but a chair for company, Felix tells his life's story, beginning with his frightening birth, through the first book he read (Moby Dick), his first kiss (a?oeThat's the tree trunk, Felixa??) and many, many moments of loss.

Later this month, We Are Here Productions, in collaboration with Cue to Cue Productions, will present SONGS FOR  A NEW WORLD, a song cycle to benefit the Canadian Women's Foundation, at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Broadwayworld caught up with co-directors Matt Lacas and Chelsea Johnson to talk collaboration, the casting process, and what it's like directing for a good cause. 

Theatre Gargantua's THE WAGER is a flat-Earth musical with talking birds. 

DEAD PARENTS SOCIETY is a sketch comedy revue about mourning. Each skit addresses the death of a parent, the mourning process, going back to work or dating after loss. The premises are grim. The pain is real: each of the performers has lost a parent. The mood is anguished. And the show is hilarious.

TROUT STANLEY brims with confusion and delight, like a birthday cake when it's nobody's birthday. Set somewhere in rural BC, it follows a pair of lugubrious but charming sisters, Grace and Sugar, as they cross paths with a mysterious man, Mr Trout Stanely, who's wandered in off the street. Neither they nor we really know what anyone's intentions are, only that, if patterns repeat themselves, somebody is going to die.

If we're going by technical categorisation, THE PARTICULARS, on now at the Theatre Centre, is an experimental piece of drama that incorporates elements of dance and movement; if we're going by my own personal descriptor, THE PARTICULARS is a Fringe show with wings.