Toronto – For those who keenly feel the bite of Winter, even during one as mild as this has been (no snow on Christmas? C’mon), and despair that summer is further away than it’s ever been, it will comfort you to know that everyone’s favourite annual summertime fest of theatre and wackiness, the Toronto Fringe, is bringing the Next Stage Theatre Festival to a stage near you once again.

Now in it’s fifth year, Next Stage brings you a selection of remounts of shows from recent Fringe’s and beyond to warm your hearts and minds in the dead of Winter from January 4 through the 15th. Plus there’s an outdoor beer tent, which may not warm you that much, but the tent is heated, so at least you won’t get too cold. The Panic Manual will have at least a couple of reviews, baby permitting (I think this is going to be my new catch phrase. “Yes, I’ll be at your house party – baby permitting, of course”), but until then here are some projected highlights of the festival.

Uncalled For Presents: Hypnogogic Logic

A hit not only at last summer’s Toronto Fringe, but an award winning show in Montreal’s Fringe as well, I reviewed Uncalled For’s offbeat show last summer. It’s funny, inventive, and polished sketch comedy from a seasoned troupe who really know what they’re doing. Watch for the sketch about the “Falling Wish Foundation,” who’s hardboiled officers won’t grant your wishes for money or power but will happily bring Freddy Mercury back to life in your body if you ask.

Living With Henry and Tiki Bikini Beach Paradise Party A-Go-Go

Two shows that were also hits of the 2011 Fringe, though two I didn’t see myself, both these shows are musicals but slightly different in tone. Living with Henry is about living with HIV/AIDS; Tiki Bikini is a parody of 60′s beach party movies. So yeah, one is likely a bit heavier than the other, but they both got five N’s from NOW in the summer, for whatever that’s worth. See them both in the same evening and you might gain some insight into what it’s like to have a manic-depressive episode!

Love is a Poverty You Can Sell and Morro & Jasp: Go Bake Yourself

Next Stage is trying something new this year, staging a couple of shows in the Factory Theatre “Antechamber.” I don’t know exactly where that is, but I think it must be in the small bar space they have at the top of the stairs, near the entrance to the Mainspace. At the very least, it’ll be cozy. Anyway, Love is a cabaret show that apparently had a cast of eleven at the 2010 Fringe, so you’d have to think this is a somewhat scaled back version. Morro & Jasp are one of the city’s favourite recurring Fringe acts; this appears to be a new show, so if the space is small you might want to get advance tickets. Both should be worth checking out just to see how they use the space.

LoveSexMoney

There is significant buzz at the moment around Theatre Brouhaha, who’s playwright/artistic director Kat Sandler won the Fringe’s 2012 New Play Contest. This is noteworthy, because last year’s New Play winner, Kim’s Convenience, was a runaway Fringe hit. LoveSexMoney is not the play that won that contest, which was a work called Help Yourself, but rather is a show that had a brief run last February at Factory. Based on a 2009 news story about a woman in Nevada who attempted to sell her virginity online, it’s said to be a comedy that explores “intimacy in the Information Age,” which sounds like a name for a line of really bad romance novels. Anyway, sounds like it could be good, and if you see it and Help Yourself is good next summer, you can be all “well, I heard of Kat Sandler WAY before you did” to somebody.

For a full listing of shows and the festival schedule, check out Next Stage’s website, and watch for a couple of reviews this weekend.

Picture by Doug Hamilton

Toronto – Remember when Green Day was just a smartass punk band who wrote songs about masturbation and named their breakthrough album after a slang term for poop? Yeah, I know, it’s kind of hard. After winning Grammys, penning ballads, having said ballad sung by a character on ER, they’re no longer a little punk band but full on rock stars and as such, have moved into the next stage of their career – transforming their American Idiot album into a musical. Now I will admit right off the bat that I’ve always been a little skeptical of the so-called “juke box musicals,” or as Ted Leo put it, “those half-assed musicals that cheapen (the) music and embarrass everyone involved.” However, unlike shows like Mamma Mia!, We Will Rock You or Rock Of Ages, American Idiot is based around an album that already was a concept album so it has that going for it. And so, despite my prejudices, I went in with a relatively open mind in hopes of being dazzled by the production.

First, here’s what was good about American Idiot – the music, of course.  After watching this show, I was reminded of how strong these songs were and noticed how well they worked as showtunes of sorts.  The cast were all likeable and good performers.  Van Hughes in particular was quite good in his role as Johnny, the lead character.

And now for what I didn’t particularly like.  As good as Hughes and the rest of the cast were, I felt that they didn’t really have a lot to work with.  Sure, Hughes really sold the role with the right amount of snotty attitude and a bit of charm, but really there wasn’t much to his character other than “stereotypical rebel punk guy.”  The rest of the cast also didn’t have that much to work with.  In fact, other than a few main characters, the rest of the cast is basically just nameless people singing bits of Green Day songs.  As far as exposition, there was little in the way of dialogue with the songs taking up the bulk of the time onstage and probably rightfully so.  I realize that many musicals rely largely on the songs themselves to tell the story, but I felt that the story itself was a little sparse.  And I will admit that I forgot many of the characters’ names and had to look them up afterwards.  

That said, it was an enjoyable production, albeit one that veered slightly into cheese every now and then (particularly the “Extraordinary Girl” scene involving wire-flying that just made me think of the “Streetcar Named Marge” episode of The Simpsons).  If you’re a fan of Green Day and/or musical theatre, you just might like this. 

So was it a half-assed musical that cheapened the music and embarrassed everyone involved?  Not quite.  If anything, seeing the songs in this setting improved my opinion of them.  Also, that Ted Leo video is even funnier now after seeing this.  That alone makes it worthwhile.

American Idiot plays at the Toronto Center for Arts until January 15th, get tickets here

The gorgeous Toronto Centre of Arts was home to the opening of the award winning Broadway musical Memphis Tuesday night. Now as you know, I don’t general find myself in a theatre setting (or North York) but the lure of watching a Tony winning musical named after a city I am about to visit next March was just too great for me to miss out on.

Memphis is a play loosely based on the life of DJ Dewey Phillips, one of the first DJ’s in America to play black music on white radio. The musical plays out over a course of a few years and chronicles Dewey (renamed Huey…where’s Louie?) as he struggles to play black music on white radio and in the process, he meets and falls in love with a black female singer named Felicia.

The play starts off with Huey strolling into an all black night club, where Felicia is singing and the people in the club are doing crazy dancing (like you used to see in the Gap commercials). I personally, have never entered a club to see people doing choreographed dancing – maybe I am going to the wrong clubs. Anyways, as you would expect, all the black people in the club immediately stop what they are doing and tells Huey to leave (although I would have preferred if one of them said “You get gone, son”). Recognizing the racial tension within the space, Huey proceeds to tell them he is in love with their brand of music (if this happened in 2011, it would obviously be dubbed ‘blackwave’ or something) and that he wants to promote it on the local radio. The club’s owner, and Felicia’s brother has doubt about his character.

The rest of the show plays out like the movie Honey, where Huey struggles to gain acceptance from the black community and at the same time, struggles to put the music on the air. Soon enough he does play some black music on the air and of course, things start rolling. The youth start listening, people start dancing, haters start hatin’ and so on. I won’t spoil the plot but as you would expect, there are struggles, drama and ultimately redemption for the characters involved.

I’m not particularly sure how to review a musical so here are some short notes about Memphis. This way I don’t have to make any attempt in tying them together in some grand scheme.

- If I wasn’t so sure that Memphis took place in Memphis in the 1950s, I woulda swore that everyone on stage was a hipster based on their wardrobe. Cardigans, colorful plaid, skinny trousers, thick rimmed glasses, side parts, sun dresses – it’s like a stroll thru Trinity Bellwoods on a summer afternoon.

- Can’t believe they couldn’t of worked in Ebony and Ivory but for most part, the music was quite good. Who would have known Bon Jovi founding member David Bryan was capable of writing catchy doo-wop tracks. One of the things I liked a lot about the music was that it was catchy and told a tale without treading into typical show-tune territory. Like a night at shake-a-tail, with better dancers.

- Speaking of dancing, everyone on stage was fantastic. The choreography was a nice blend of what I imagine dancing would have been back then mixed with the physicality of dance shows these days. What I mean by that is that everyone on stage was completely too fit and can pull off moves that would normally break a person’s neck.

- One of the things that constantly amaze me at these musicals are the sets. It’s like watching a low grade Transformers movie. It might be a box one minute, but the next thing you know, they pull a few levers, press a button and that little box becomes a freakin piano. I kinda want whoever designed these theatre props to make all the furniture in my house.

- I also appreciated the story of a DJ struggling to play what he wants. As someone who has DJ’ed on various occasions, I can understand the frustration one goes through when you are not allowed to play what you want although in hindsight, I probably shouldn’t of cued up 2Pac’s Hit ‘Em Up at my friend’s wedding.

At a running time of over two hours, the musical might have seemed long for the casual musical goer like myself. However, with funny modern day jokes, good music, a nice story and exceptional dancing, Memphis was quite an enjoyable time. Those looking to dip their toes into this theatre world find Memphis to be a welcoming experience.

Information:
Memphis
Toronto Centre for the Arts, 5040 Yonge Street
December 6-24, 2011
Tuesday – Saturday @ 7:30pm * Saturday and Sunday @ 2pm
Wednesday, December 7 & 14; Tuesday, December 20;
Thursday, December 22 and Friday, December 23 @ 2pm
Saturday, December 24 @ 1pm

Tickets can be purchased online at www.DancapTickets.com

Toronto – If you were to make a list of great love affairs of the 20th century, you might not put Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger near the top. But Heidegger, a German philosopher who rather controversially joined and endorsed the Nazi Party in 1933, and Arendt, a Jewish thinker and student of Heidegger’s, had a torrid love affair when both were at the University of Freiburg. We know this in part because they wrote a stack of love letters to one another, which were published in English in 2004 in a book containing their correspondence from 1925 all the way to 1975.

It’s a fascinating story if you like history. Heidegger, one of the greats of 20th century existential and postmodern thought, and Arendt, his student and later a very well known political theorist herself: lovers against the backdrop of the early rise of National Socialism, a movement Heidegger joined, supposedly to try and sway it in scientific and humanitarian ways, and one which eventually forced Jews like Arendt to flee or be killed.

The play takes place both during the early days of their affair at Freiburg and much later, after Arendt moved to America and became a teacher in her own right. A Jewish student working for the University newspaper comes to her to get clarification on some comments she made about Heidegger, primarily her assertion that getting caught up in the Nazi Party was just a mistake, or an “escapade,” as she later calls it. Her defense of a man who seemed like such a strident party member, particularly when he joined, was made rector of the university, and proceeded to talk and write a great deal about Germany’s future under the führer mystifies this student, whose father was in a concentration camp. Arendt tries to show her that things just aren’t that simple, that her ideas of good and evil are just too naive, but never really changes her mind.

Richard Clarkin portrays Heidegger very well, from professor to seducer to party apologist to foregiveness seeker, and Leora Morris is adequately innocent and earnest as the student, Eva. The star is Severn Thompson as Arendt, however, who has no trouble taking her character from ingenue to worldly professor and back again, with numerous stops in between. It’s an intelligent show with a great cast, and one of the best I’ve seen at SummerWorks.

Hannah’s Turn runs through Sunday August 14th as part of SummerWorks. Check the website for schedule and tickets.