Feature: Ilana Lucas Picks The Top Toronto Theatre of 2023

It’s been a strong year for Toronto theatre.

I saw 145 shows this year in Toronto and beyond, and am happy to report that theatre is alive and well. I’ve laughed, sobbed, coughed (discreetly into a mask), and cheered my way through our stages in 2023.

Here are some local highlights.

FIFTEEN DOGS (Crow’s Theatre)

FIFTEEN DOGS, the first recipient of Crow’s Theatre’s Canadian Literature Adaptation Fund, made a great argument for the program with Marie Farsi’s snappy adaptation of André Alexis’ Giller Prize-winning philosophical work about whether dogs, given human intelligence, would engage in the same self-destructive behaviour as people and change from our happy companions to miserably self-aware canine curmudgeons. Julie Fox’s set design played with proportion and scope to bring the audience into the dogs’ world, and the fur-rific cast threw itself into the roles with wild abandon, particularly Stephen Jackman-Torkoff’s electric poet pup, Peter Fernandes’ canny and obsequious beagle, and Tom Rooney’s majestic poodle. It was a mutt see.

ENGLISH (Soulpepper)

Soulpepper’s production of Sanaz Toosi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play was a masterclass in allowing a simple, well-constructed premise expound on a difficult theme. Five students in Karaj all try to master this most frustrating of languages under the watchful eye of Ghazal Partou’s patient instructor Marjan, whose love the language hasn’t prevented her skills from deteriorating after moving back to Iran from England. The students each have their own dreams and represent a cross-section of who takes the TOEFL exam: young, wide-eyed students who want to explore, more advanced learners who seek to show off their prowess, future doctors and professionals for whom the language is a final roadblock for career purposes, and grandmothers desperately trying to connect with their emigrant families who have left both their language and their older family members behind. Anahita Dehbonehie and Guillermo Verdecchia’s efficient design and direction effectively captured the atmosphere of a small classroom with a wide world outside, and winning performances, particularly by Banafsheh Taherian as abandoned grandmother Roya, gave audiences a window into the many shades of bilingual identity, its joys and its sorrows.

Also worthy of inclusion: Soulpepper’s production of SIZWE BANZI IS DEAD, Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona’s story of the deadly bureaucracy of apartheid. Directed with Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu with engaging production design by Ken MacKenzie, the show placed the audience on three sides of a thrust stage and effectively recreated the ramshackle tin-plated photography studio where Sizwe (Tawiah M’Carthy) declares his own death. A searing performance by Amaka Umeh as both hyper-extroverted photographer Styles and blunt but sympathetic “fixer” Buntu, who comes up with a plan for Sizwe to improve his life at the expense of his identity, made this sadly still-relevant story consistently compelling.

BEHIND THE MOON (Tarragon Theatre)

Anosh Irani’s script, full of metaphor and rich description, showed us the underbelly of the Mughlai Moon restaurant, where Vic Sahay’s unctuous Qadir Bhai takes advantage of new immigrant Ayub (a fabulously unravelling Ali Kazmi), telling Ayub that he will soon receive his own franchise but making no steps to actually elevate him beyond employee, cleaner, and family servant. Michelle Tracey’s set design was a pitch-perfect recreation of a small Indian take-out in Toronto, down to the unseen stairs to the basement that one could picture with uncanny accuracy, and an ominous tree branch outside which shook with the cold wind. When the wind blew in taxi driver Jalal (Husein Madhavji), the script fully embraced magical realism, linking the three men together as it tore Ayub and Qadir Bhai apart.

FIRST MÉTIS MAN OF ODESA (Punctuate! Theatre/The Theatre Centre)

A bout of Covid prevented me from attending this show until its last day, which was unfortunate, because after seeing it, I wanted to tell everyone I knew to see it as well. FIRST MÉTIS MAN OF ODESA was a war story, an art story, and a love story, woven from the fabric of writers Matthew MacKenzie and Mariya Khomutova’s lives. Urgent and up-to-the-minute present in its tale of the invasion of Ukraine and long-distance love and pregnancy during the pandemic, the show never forgot the small, specific, personal hearts beating at the centre of the huge global conflicts it tackled. Music by Kyiv-based Daraba helped sound designer Aaron Macri create a vivid soundscape of the streets of Odesa, both in peacetime and in war. Not only that, but projections by Amelia Scott and movable set pieces let the two actor-writers deconstruct the stage as things fell apart. In a year of well-deserved despair, the play was both reality check and bright spot, showing love abides through terrible times.

NEW (Necessary Angel/Canadian Stage)

Necessary Angel’s production of Pamela Mala Sinha’s NEW at Canadian Stage was an invigorating look into the lives of three young married pairs of Bengali students in international student housing at a Winnipeg university in the tumultuous 1970s. Sinha’s gorgeous, complex, and compelling script gave us clear, fully-realized characters with one hand on the phone to their parents, promising to uphold religious tradition, while the other holds a glass of whiskey. Yet it’s not just Indian tradition that’s reevaluated in light of their lives in Canada; there’s an entirely novel Canadian counterculture around them surrounding politics, multiculturalism, and the role of women, and the characters participate with varying levels of eagerness. Alan Dilworth’s fluid direction and Lorenzo Savoini’s triple-duty set elegantly allowed us to explore multiple different stories, and Mirabella Sundar Singh was a revelation as the newest immigrant to the Winnipeg scene, who gained the strength to forge an unexpected life for herself. A real delight, this play truly felt new.

FATAL CHARADE (El Kabong Theatre Projects)

The Fringe Festival roared with life this year, with dozens of companies making their debut on Toronto stages, and other known names seeing a welcome return. Of the 59 Fringe shows I attended, the one that blew my socks off was the one I almost decided not to see. Proof that it’s all about taking a chance, FATAL CHARADE told the story of a punishment in Ancient Rome where a convicted prisoner was sentenced to act in a play and be murdered on stage. It was never clear in Jack Rennie and Andrew Cameron’s tragicomedy whether the prisoner (Varun Guru) deserves his fate, and whether, not knowing his crime, we should forgive him because he happens to have acting talent and charm. On the other hand, it asked whether any crime could be worthy of this punishment, and whether reform or even greater social change might be possible with the type of bonds that are formed on stage. I hope it gets another life post-Fringe. On a serious note, Fringe, a major supporter of new work and artists of all career stages, is hurting for funding right now; it could use your year-end (or year-beginning New Year’s resolution) tax-deductible donations. Click here to donate.

APPROPRIATE (Coal Mine)

Coal Mine had a brilliant 2023, with sizzling performances in Lucy Prebble’s story of love found in corporate drug testing, THE EFFECT and the absolutely haunting duet of Moya O’Connell and Aiden Correia in Adam Rapp’s THE SOUND INSIDE, where a terminally-ill Ivy League writing professor tries to make meaning out of her life in a fraught friendship with an eager male undergrad. But the miners struck gold with Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ APPROPRIATE, a sprawling family story about money, heritage, history, and, yes, appropriation. Jacobs-Jenkins’ play, currently on Broadway, features a white family with serious internal rifts that fractures further when the grandkids discover their late grandfather’s estate, currently up for sale, contains Confederate memorabilia including a photo album of murdered Black people. Ted Dykstra’s production played up Jacobs-Jenkins’ tense script, an overstuffed set by Steve Lucas and Rebecca Morris revealing nasty surprises and seeming to move on its own. The gothic, supernatural horror was supported by notable performances by the full cast (with particular standouts Raquel Duffy and Amy Lee) and underscored the play’s message about the past coming home to roost in a present that seems determined to repeat its mistakes.

HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING (The Howland Company/Crow’s Theatre)

The Howland Company’s HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING at Crow’s was uncomfortable, vital theatre that took a searing look into how the religious right wing thinks. The discomfort in Philip Akin’s production of Will Arbery’s Pulitzer finalist, both mental and physical for lack of an intermission, was necessary so that we never looked away from these educated, passionate characters whose beliefs are anathema to so many of us. Terrific performances by the entire company, especially Hallie Seline’s empathetic chronic pain sufferer Emily, gave us fully realized human beings in all their flaws and glory, with pitch-perfect costuming by Laura Delchiaro helping to identify each one’s personality. Thoughtful, unsettling, and passionate, the show was a debate-starter and a metaphorical bucket of water.

THE MASTER PLAN (Crow’s Theatre)

Crow’s Theatre had a banner year, with show after show hitting the right notes with critics and audiences alike. Perhaps their biggest coup was Michael Healey’s THE MASTER PLAN (I won’t see NATASHA, PIERRE, AND THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 until January, so it doesn’t have to compete). Healey’s story of the collaboration gone horribly awry between Toronto Waterfront and Google Sidewalk Labs, part documentary and part work of fiction, immersed the audience in all the backroom dealings, playing on our familiarity of Toronto bureaucracy and NIMBYism to get large laughs, while challenging our knee-jerk assumption that Google was evil and not to be trusted (it wasn’t to be trusted, but it’s complicated). With Peter Fernandes going from beagle in FIFTEEN DOGS to truly hilarious tree here, he became one of few actors whose 2023 roles would logistically allow him to pee on himself, and cemented himself as a 2023 acting highlight. Sharp dialogue, great turns from Christopher Allen, Mike Shara, Philippa Domville and the rest of a dynamite cast, and the most uproarious use of “Chekhov’s Cake” I’ve ever seen made Chris Abraham’s production a multilayered confection.

THE LEHMAN TRILOGY (Canadian Stage)

While THE LEHMAN TRILOGY’s otherwise well-constructed script by Italian playwright Stefano Massini (adapted in English by Ben Power) came up far short of truly grappling with the horror and aftermath of a rags-to-riches immigrant empire still built on slavery and crushed dreams, the epic scale of Philip Akin’s production at Canadian Stage could not be denied. Ben Carlson, Graeme Somerville, and Jordan Pettle delivered Dora-worthy performances as three generations of Lehman Brothers, their wives, and a long list of business partners. Camellia Koo’s set of a nearly endless staircase for the brothers to climb resulted in a show that was both relentless in its narrative and physicality, and the hundreds of feet crushed under the platform served as a constant, disturbing reminder of the stories that weren’t being told in this race to the top. The script, beautiful in its own right with stories of haunting dreams and burning ambition, may have forgotten these stories, but the production never did.

HADESTOWN (Mirvish)

The touring production of Anais Mitchell’s update on Orpheus and Eurydice was a feast, with oodles of energy, beautiful songs, and a relevant message. We all know the story, so it’s a measure of a strong show when you honestly hope he won’t look back this time, and gasp when he does.

LETTERS FROM MAX: A RITUAL (Necessary Angel/The Theatre Centre)

Necessary Angel’s production of Sarah Ruhl and Max Ritvo’s LETTERS FROM MAX, A RITUAL, was simple, unadorned, and breathtakingly beautiful, maybe my favourite play of 2023. It perfectly blended sentiment, philosophy, and realism with glorious language to tell the story of Ruhl and Ritvo’s real-life friendship, cut tragically short by Ritvo’s far-too-young death from cancer. Maev Beaty and Jesse LaVercombe breathed life into Ruhl and Ritvo’s epistolary exchanges, and director Alan Dilworth shows how much can be said with a few projections, a desk, a couple of chairs. It felt transcendent, a spot of light heading into the cold of winter.

OTHER SHOWS OF NOTE:

COOLEST IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES:

LE CONCIERGE (Vincent Leblanc-Beaudoin/Théâtre Français de Toronto, in association with DopoLavoro Teatrale)

This show by Vincent Leblanc-Beaudoin and Théâtre Français de Toronto took us on a wild ride in a largely-silent 80-minute journey through the nightly route of a janitor (Vincent Leblanc-Beaudoin) living in a school basement, as we each donned our own jumpsuit and punched in our time card. The eerie atmosphere of a school after dark in the dead of winter became a rollicking walking nightmare, with set and costume designer Melanie McNeill, lighting designer Sarah Mansikka, and sound designer Andrea Gozzi able to replicate a Disney Parks-type hallucinatory feel with comically-outsized cleaning products used to fantastic effect. But it also succeeded in its quieter, more contemplative moments, where we witnessed the intimacy of personal moments that only happen when we feel safe in our own solitude.

work.txt and asses.masses (The Theatre Centre)

This diptych at The Theatre Centre was formed with two shows about the meaning and nature of “work” in our current world. Both were self-guided; in work.txt, a seventy-minute show, we built the set and volunteers delivered the lines from scripts, and questioned what sort of work and what sort of rest give actual value to our lives. In asses.masses, we played more than seven hours of an interactive video game about a donkey revolution, where the donkeys wished to take back their rightful place working by the side of humans, even if humans don’t need them anymore; the show dealt with themes of obsolescence, the inability to turn back the clock, and the desire to give life meaning through tasks and achievements. Both shows touched on something unique about the way we engage with work in today’s world, and brought entire audiences together to achieve something. What it was might be debatable, but it definitely stayed with you after you left the theatre.

NO SAVE POINTS (Outside The March)

Sébastien Heins’ autobiographical solo show about his family’s battle with a degenerative genetic illness, co-directed with Mitchell Cushman, also used video games as a metaphor, presenting an attempt to vanquish a system with a set of carefully-prescribed moves and planned routes that ultimately fails due to circumstances beyond your control. Heins, also stellar in Canadian Stage’s TOPDOG/UNDERDOG, was the erstwhile Player One at our helm, while Outside the March’s production allowed audience members to influence his movements with a game controller transmitting to sensors on his body. The four games we played, co-created by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, Damien Atkins, Rovan Silogix, Aylwin Lo and Kemi King, and brought to life by designers Anahita Dehbeonehie, Heidi Chan, Melissa Joakim, Laura Warren, and Niloufar Ziaee, all used different techniques so that everyone could participate in some way, such as voting which choice Heims’ doomed astronaut was going to make as he went about his day. As Heins confronted the “demon” plaguing his mother, a dry eye in the house was harder to find than an invincibility star.

OUTSIDE TORONTO:

Shaw’s THE APPLE CART (dir. Eda Holmes) and Stratford’s MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (dir. Chris Abraham) were both winners this year, with snappy dialogue and solid design choices bringing audiences closer to the action. MUCH ADO’s added text by Erin Shields wove into the play fairly seamlessly, giving Hero (Allison Edwards-Crewe) more agency over her fate, while Maeve Beaty and Graham Abbey as enemies-to-lovers Beatrice and Benedick squabbled brilliantly under the set’s brass ring/mirror (designed by Julie Fox) dangling above their heads. THE APPLE CART’s slick white set (Judith Bowen) was the battleground for Tom Rooney’s King Magnus, Martin Happer’s proletarian Billy Boanerges, and Sharry Flett’s Lysistrata; Shaw’s 1928 play was eerily prescient for the way things are…were, in 2023.

That’s a wrap on our stages for 2023. What are you most excited for in 2024?

Photo Credits: FIFTEEN DOGS (Dahlia Katz), LETTERS FROM MAX: A RITUAL (Dahlia Katz), asses.masses (provided by the company), MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (David Hou), LA CONCIERGE (Matthieu Taillardas), APPROPRIATE (Dahlia Katz), BEHIND THE MOON (Cylla von Tiedemann), HEROES OF THE FOURTH TURNING (Dahlia Katz), NEW (Dahlia Katz), THE MASTER PLAN (Dahlia Katz)

 

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