"I really enjoyed the diversity and innovation of these works, and I think Brief Encounters is a wonderful way for artists to experience new things and create new working relationships with people that they may never otherwise work with."

Stage Review

Reviewed by Tessa Perkins

This inventive, multidisciplinary experiment pairs two artists from different disciplines and gives them two weeks to come up with a performance that fuses their art forms and pushes the boundaries of their comfort zones. Brief Encounters is an initiative of The Tomorrow Collective who have involved 218 artists in eighteen of these shows which showcase unique collaborations and raw creativity. Presented as part of New Works' monthly performance series, Dance Allsorts, this show offered a wide assortment of artistic talent. Add a comment

THEATRE REVIEW

Production: GOODBYE TO ALL THAT

Author: Luke Norris      

Company: Royal Court Theatre  

Director: Simon Godwin

Principal Actors: Roger Sloman, Alexander Cobb, Susan Brown, Linda Marlowe

Venue: Royal Court Theatre

Location: Sloan Square, London, England

Run: February 23rd to March 17th, 2012

Reviewed by James Karas

Goodbye to All That is a brilliant first play by Luke Norris that premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Norris has taken a simple idea and nurtured it into a well-constructed play that is moving, funny ironic and thoroughly enjoyable.

The simple idea: Frank, a married man, falls in love with another woman, Rita. He feels liberated by the act and is about to separate from Iris, his wife of forty years and go to live with his new love. In the process of leaving his wife, he suffers a stroke and that puts an end to the affair and for all intents and purposes to him.

As a stroke victim he requires extensive and expensive medical attention that his wife cannot afford. His lover can and wants to but we realise the biting irony that if he gets well he will leave his wife. What is his wife to do? Is she to nurse him back to health for his mistress?

OPERA REVIEW

Production: The Tales of Hoffmann

Composer: Jacques Offenbach

Company: Vlaamse Opera and Canadian Opera Company

Director: Lee Blakely

Principal Singers: Russell Thomas, Andriana Chuchman, Erin Wall, Keri Alkema

Venue:  Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts

Location: 145 Queen St. West, Toronto, Ontario

Run: April 10th to May 14th, 2012

Reviewed by James Karas

The Canadian Opera Company has opened its spring season with the mostly tried and true The Tales of Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach. It is a respectable and enjoyable - if not inspired - production directed by Lee Blakeley with set designs by Roni Toren.

The Tales of Hoffmann tells three love stories of the poet of the title and it ranges geographically  from Nuremberg to Paris to Munich and to Venice. All of the travelling to come to the one woman who combines the other three loves.

Reviewed by Tessa Perkins

Created as a collaboration between theatre artists in South Africa and Canada in 2005, Ubuntu is a unique multi-cultural and multi-national celebration of the things that connect humanity and the things that distinguish us from one another. With a highly physical performance style, and a moving story with well-rounded characters, this play was gripping from beginning to end.  

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