SummerWorks Reviews: Hot Marmalade and Social Work

Mr. Marmalade
SW Description: Comparable to an episode of Rugrats on LSD, Mr. Marmalade centres around Lucy, age four, and her abusive relationship with her imaginary friend, a violent, sex-obsessed drug addict. The play examines children pressured into adult situations. Our site-specific production takes audiences on the opposite journey, inside the walls of a kindergarten classroom.

Cast: David Storch, Amy Keating, Katherine Cullen, Sebastien Heins, Ishai Buchbinder, Jason Chinn, Producer: Simon Bloom, Designer: Jon Grosz, Audience Guide/Stage Manager: Ava Jane Markus.

My Rating: 4/5 Stars

My Review: Four year old Lucy knows too much about the sully side of adult life. Her vocabulary is full of phrases she has obviously overheard, and her adult imaginary friend, Mr. Marmalade (David Storch) is a manifestation of what she has absorbed. Absurd and heartbreakingly funny, we laugh at the well-acted performance of Amy Keating (Lucy) as we follow her character around a classroom filled with childish displays of innocence that are in stark contrast to Lucy's worldliness. There were a few times when the audience is forced to move too quickly from place to place and there needs to be more adult-sized seats for those with mobility issues, but for the most part, I appreciated the staging and thoroughly enjoyed this biting satire. Warning: This is an adult play with adult language.

Remaining Performances
St. Mary Catholic School.
20 Portugal Square (one block North of King and Bathurst).
Kindergarten Room 219.
Saturday August 13th 3:00 PM

KASPAR
SW Description: Three overwhelmed Children's Aid workers fight a hopeless battle against an ever-growing stack of cases. To catch up, they speak in truncated language, piling new thoughts upon unfinished ones, only to get stuck even deeper in the pitfalls of paragraphs, moral obligation, failed judgment and hidden self-interests. Borders between clients and caretakers begin to blur.
Cast: Ese Atawo, Miranda Calderon, Jacklyn Francis Set & Costume Designer: Ashley Corley Sound Designer: Lyon Smith

My Rating: 4/5 Star
My Review: Truncated lines reflect the fractured work and lives of the three social workers, and the broken world of their clients. A set cluttered with laundry and hanging newspaper enshroud the women further signifying an eternal Sisyphean connection between the two worlds. Unexpected humour helps to break up the tragic tone of the piece. Wonderful performances by a very talented cast.

Remaining Performances
Lower Ossington Theatre
Saturday August 13th 2:00 PM
Sunday August 14th 4:30 PM

www.summerworks.ca
August 4 - 14th
Various venues
Single Tickets $15
Box Office: 416.504.7529

SummerWorks Review: 5 Stars for This Greek ONE

Danforth

SW Description: The events of the play surround two characters. One is a 23-year old Greek waiter named George who has a confidence issue when it comes to a girl he likes. The other is a 15-year old Greek kid named Kostas D.

My Rating: 3/5 stars

My Review: It was fun spending some time listening to the boys and men of the Danforth talk about cars, women, haircuts. They talk of borders as if they live in a world outside of Toronto, a world in which Greek culture comfortably flourishes with its sense of community, but also confines with its traditions. The cast is larger than needed (the female roles could easily have been played by one actress, for example), and the character of George is not well-acted, but I loved the actor who played Kostas, and enjoyed seeing this Toronto story on a mainstream stage.

Remaining Performances
Factory Studio
Friday August 12th 5:30 PM
Saturday August 13th 3:00 PM
Sunday August 14th 8:00 PM

Eurydice
SW Description: A retelling of the Orpheus myth from his dead bride’s point of view.
My Rating: 2/5 Stars
My Review: I was really looking forward to seeing this play, unfortunately, it was a disappointment. There is nothing wrong with Sarh Ruhl's writing, but this staging of it has some rough spots. In this version of the myth, Eurydice is portrayed as a girlish young woman with a high pitched voice. I don't know why Kristina Nicoll directed Caitlin Driscoll to use this style of voice, but I found it irritating and distracting from the story. There is a fine line between portraying Eurydice as a naive young woman easily seduced by the Lord of the Underworld and depicting her as a girl. Further, the chemistry between Driscoll's Eurydice and Justin Rutledge's Orpheus is lukewarm, resulting in only a mild interest in their doomed love. Driscoll is at her best with actor, Hardee T. Lineham (Father). Lineham's performance is the strongest of the castmembers, exhibiting a profound sense of fatherly love for Eurydice and a touching determination to help her navigate the Underworld. The choral trio of the Stones add humour to the plot, but the actors lack the comic timing that should have made this trio into the scene stealers they were obviously meant to be.

Remaining PerformancesPasse Muraille Mainspace
Wednesday August 10th 8:00 PM
Friday August 12th 10:30 PM
Saturday August 13th 12:30 PM

ONE
SW Description: A critically-acclaimed theatre sensation. One is a visually stunning re-imagining of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth that follows the desperate journey of Philistine; a librarian whose devoted search for a lover ‘lost at sea’ takes her beyond the living world and into the strange and all-consuming world of the dead.

My Rating: 5/5 Stars
My Review: In contrast to Eurydice, ONE is a well-staged dance drama that captivates the eyes and the ears. There is a certain satisfaction that comes with viewing a work that achieves success on many creative levels. Amber Borotsik and Cole Humeny have the chemestry that makes us understand why Eurydice would want to go to the Underworld in search of her true love. The clever use of the record player as a keeper of memories, and the wonderful banter between Borotsik and Keith Wyatt as Charon is smartly and rhytmically staged. Rather than list everything I enjoyed about this interpretation of the piece I will simply urge you to buy a tickets and list thank the team for their excellent work by listing them all here.

Company: REDtoBLUE Performance
Playwright: Jason Carnew
Director: Eric Rose
Cast: Amber Borotsik, Cole Humeny, Kristi Hansen, Keith Wyatt
Associate Lighting Designer/Stage Manager: Lester Lee
Sound Designer: Matt Waddell,
Production Design: Snezana Pesic.

Remaining Performances
Factory Studio
Thursday August 11th 10:00 PM
Saturday August 13th 3:00 PM
Sunday August 14th 5:00 PM


SummerWorks Info/Tickets
http://www.summerworks.ca/2011/tickets.php:
416.504.7529

SummerWorks Review: Hurray for The Trolley Car

Trolley Car
SW Description: In German-occupied Paris, impulsive Florence is drawn into a tempestuous love triangle with her husband’s cousin Inez. Originally commissioned and premiered by Solo Collective from Vancouver, this sleek three-hander presents a boldly theatrical look at the choices we make during frightening times—and our complicity in the events that follow.

My Rating: ****½ 4.5/5 Stars

My Review:
The familiar plot of the love triangle is given a refreshing polish by Amiel Gladstone’s script which offers the right amount of levity in apposition to the serious nature of the play. Gladstone may have borrowed some dialogue and the character of Inez from Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit, but this does not diminish the fact that The Trolley Car is Gladstone’s creation.

Monica Dottor hooks the audience from the very moment she steps onto the stage as Florence. Dottor’s vocal and facial inflections express perfectly Florence’s attraction to a life of parties and passion as well as the weighty consequences of her decisions. As Florence’s seductress, Rosa Laborde’s Inez is a shadowy woman who is both sultry and icy. As for Matthew Tappscott, it is not easy to play an ordinary man, a butcher with no significant high or low notes, but far from disappearing into the background, Tapscott’s stage presence makes his character memorable in a play dominated by the two women.

The set piece consisting mainly of rail ties visually reinforces the interconnectedness of the three characters and is a constant reminder of the theme of choice, a question that runs throughout the play. Kudos to the production team for creating a sound and lighting design that moves with Gladstone’s script and characters.

I took a chance on seeing this play because director, Ruth Madoc-Jones was attached to the project. My faith in Madoc-Jones’ strength as a director and her knack for choosing good work paid off with this brilliant three-hander.

Remaining Shows:
Factory Studio
Wednesday August 10th 5:30 PM
Saturday August 13th 12:30 PM
Sunday August 14th 10:00 PM

SummerWorksAug. 4th - 14th
www.summerworks.ca

SummerWorks Reviews: Long Dark Night, Dancing, Still Life

LONG DARK NIGHT
SW Description: A film noir musical comedy set in the red light district of an anonymous city, Long Dark Night follows one night in the life of philandering alcoholic private detective Skip Tracer as he becomes entangled with the beautiful but dangerous Femme Fatale.

My Rating: Play *** 3/5 stars; Actress, Jessica Moss ***** 5/5 stars

My Review: Jessica Moss is the best reason to see this play. She is perfect in the role as Irene Pffeffener, the secretary in love with her drunken, not so bright, private dick boss, Skip Tracer (John McNeill). Moss has the right cadence for her 1940’s Gal Friday character and a good singing voice. Her comic timing and wonderful chops brings the right comic timing and vocal ability to the show’s first song, “Good For You”, an internal monologue in which she expresses her love for Tracer. Moss dominates her duet with Colin Murphy’s Frankie, a shady insurance man. Perhaps a body mic would help Murphy project beyond the front row of Theatre Passe Muraille, but his lyrics were lost to anyone further back. With songs that reveal character and further the plot, Murphy’s lack of vocal range has a negative impact on the play.

Her vocals don’t come in until late in the play, but Julianna Ozorio (Tuesday Mae) has voice has the right smokiness needed to play the role of an aging nightclub owner. Her first song offers up some advice that will never be forgotten. (Title is a spoiler). Besides her ability to sing, Ozorio can also act; she plays the part of a brassy dame with a few years on her like nobody’s business as demonstrated in another great song, “You Don’t Have to Go Home.”

Sonia Linder is adequate as Femme Fatale and there are a couple of scenes later in the play where I connected with her character, but she needed to add more va-va-va voom! to the role of a mysterious woman looking for her missing husband.

John McNeill shows that he has seen a few film noirs himself, parodying the genre’s gumshoes with evident delight. His Skip Tracer is soaked in just the right amount of booze and buffoonery to act as the perfect foil for Moss’s plucky gal friday, Irene.

Marring this amusing little play is the intrusive positioning of the slide projectionist at the back of the stage. Surely there is a better place for her to do scenery changes. Annoying!

Remaining Shows:
Passe Muraille Mainstage
Monday August 8th 8:00 PM
Wednesday August 10tth 10:30 PM
Friday August 12th 5:30 PM
Sunday August 14th 5:30 PM

dancing to a white boy song
SW Description: 3 actors, 3 stories, 3 arts forms…
A multidisciplinary theatrical creation exploring the issues of youth, immigration, culture and the tensions of ‘otherness’, told through the eyes, voices, and bodies of 3 characters through poetry, movement, visual imagery and spoken words.
Inspired by personal stories and experiences of the African immigrant.

My Rating: *** 3/5 stars

div align="justify">My Review: This play succeeds on so many levels that I really wanted to give it more stars. Actors, Simeon Taole, Esther Kamba, Keriece Harris give equally strong performances playing multiple roles, but the description promised 3 main characters and, regrettably, not all three are equally developed. The strongest of the three characters, is that of a young girl struggling to fit into Canadian school culture and dealing with a body that does not look like the other girls. Harris plays this role with versatility, humour and gravity. Taole is convincing in his role as a PHD student whose intelligence is and hyphenated culture is questioned in Toronto and in South Africa. Kamba is superb as the mother of the school girl, but her role as a single woman new to Canada does not offer her enough of a chance to show us who this woman is. This is a shame, since, there is no doubt that Kamba is a talented actor. Program notes suggest that this is a work in progress, so I am hopeful that this character is one that will be augmented in the next incarnation of this project. Maybe at that time I can give it the stars it deserves.

Remaining Shows:
Theatre Centre
Tuesday August 9th 7:30 PM
Thursday August 11th 5:00 PM
Friday August 12th 10:00 PM
Saturday August 13th 12:00 PM

SummerWorks Review: Hero & Leander

HERO & LEANDER
Company: Common Descent
Lyrics: Wade Bogert-O’Brien, Music: Scott Christian, Book: Kevin Michael Shea
Director: Kevin Michael Shea

Description: Two would-be lovers must overcome the dangerous sea that divides them, and hide their affair from a disillusioned Venus. Common Descent turns ancient tragedy into romantic comedy in this musical about love, sex, and commitment.

My Rating: ** 2/5 Stars

My Review: There is a great story here, but as I watched the play unfold, I concluded that the current version wasn't ready to be told by this ensemble. With the exception of Rob Kempson, who plays Ganymede, a former prince, now love slave/boyfriend of the callous, non-monogamous Neptune, the cast is not strong enough to take the material to the heights and lows the scripts demand. The character of Venus should a Diva of a lush, with more bawdy dialogue than she is presently given. Actress Kimberly Persona tries her best, and her song about love "what is it?" should have brought the house down, but the role is too big for her and the number goes nowhere. Kaitlin Torrance in the role of Hero has a lovely voice and projects well, but she lacks the ebullience needed for the ingenue role. Fraser Elsdon has the athletic body needed for the Leander the lifeguard, but he doesn't sizzle with Torrance's Hero. Neptune, the debauched Olympian looking to foil the budding love between Hero and Leander is competently played by Rick Jon Egan, but in a play with such potential for delightful decadence, competent is just not good enough. this play is an ugly duckling waiting to be a swan.

Factory Theatre Mainspace
Saturday August 6th 7:30 PM
Sunday August August 7th 10:00 PM
Wednesday August 10th 7:30 PM
Friday August 12th 2:30 PM
Saturday August 13th 5:00 PM
Estimated Running time: 75 minutes

www.summerworks.ca
August 4 - 14th
Various venues
Single Tickets $15

SummerWorks 2011: August 4th-14th

SummerWorks, Toronto's Indie Theatre and Arts Festivalis comng up soon, so watch this spot for reviews and interviews!

Mexican Jail Pic Gets 3 Emmy Noms!

Congratulations to Presumed Guilty for it's 3 Emmy nominations. Below is a reposing of my review as well as my interview with the directors at TIFF 2009.

REVIEW

It's hard to watch this documentary without shaking your head or wanting to raise your clenched fists in frustration at the Mexican "in-justice" system. It's almost like you are watching a satire, where the main characters have to navigate in a world of insane and absurd logic. Unfortunately, for Toñio, he is spending 20 years behind bars based on evidence provided by one witness. The other three witnesses that were never interviewed in his case all stated that they saw him at work during the time of the murder he was supposed to have committed. Given the fact that Toñio works in an open market, where he is highly visible, how could he have been accused of this crime? The answers will boggle your mind. In Mexico, since you are presumed guilty, you have to prove your innocence. The catch. If everyone presumes you are guilty, then the case is obviously closed. NEXT! Crazy, but true.

Lawyer turned filmmaker for this project, Roberto Hernandez and his partner, Layda Negrete, were working on prison stats when they were approached by Toñio's girlfriend Eva. What happens next is a true story that, even if you are familiar with the Mexican system, will still defy reason. Sharing the director's chair with Hernandez is English Surgeon director, Geoffrey Smith. Spread the word about this one.

INTERVIEW
PRESUMED GUILTY directors, Roberto Hernandez and Geoffrey Smith.

donna g: How did you two meet?

Roberto: Martha Sosa introduced us. She is the famous producer of a famous Mexican film titled "Amores Perros". How she got involved in the film is also quite a story.

Geoffrey: Through Martha Sosa, one of the Producers on the film

donna g: Could you please describe your division of tasks as co-directors?

Roberto: Geoffrey and I worked on the edit of this film for 2 months in Valle de Bravo. Before Geoffrey got involved, I filmed this story with the help of my family. We followed Toño's case for 2.5 years. Between Layda and myself we obtained the access to shoot in Mexico's prisons, and we edited the film into a 90 minute rough cut with editor Felipe Gomez (Historias del Desencanto). But the technical difficulties we faced were enormous (recall the footage was recorded by lawyers), and the film needed one last big push for it to be fully shaped in to the drama we have today. Geoffrey saw our rough cut and came on board to help us do just that.

Geoffrey: My job was to help take a set of challenging and difficult film rushes and help Roberto tell the clearest and most dramatic story.

donna g: How would you define Layda's role in the fimmaking process?

Roberto: In a word? Crucial. Layda and I met in prison, many years ago, while lifting data on the criminal courts. Criminal justice reform in Mexico was her cause before it became my own. She worked undercover as an assistant to a prosecutor in Mexico City and designed groundbreaking inmate surveys with some of her colleagues. She learned that 80% of defendants never see a judge, or that prosecutors are more often in charge of trials than judges themselves. But she was not able to make a political impact with these scary findings, so I talked to her about making a documentary short. Soon after that making El Tunel (The Tunnel) we were on CNN with our statistics and inmates telling their stories. That's how Eva and Tonio's friends found us. Layda was key to this film, because she helped me obtain access to film in the prisons and courts, and her family supported us during many difficult months of shooting. She was also a great fundraiser... and also the mom of our child. Without her the film would not exist. Without her I would not have been able to persevere so fiercely in recording more than 300 hours of footage.

Geoffrey: This is Roberto and Layda's film and they have nursed it through years of hard work. Layda is a formidable talent as she is very perceptive about the real and inherent flaws in the Mexican Judicial system, and is extremely good at articulating them.

donna g: Roberto, you and Layda were already doing stats research on the Mexican prison system, yet, in the film there are moments when you are surprised even shocked by some of the challenges you encountered with this case. Why was that?

Roberto: With a 95% conviction rate, and a judge that had already heard the evidence and convicted Tonio in a previous trial, we knew we were fighting against the odds. But, what else could we do? Isn't hope the last thing that dies? We were also facing a prosecution with no physical evidence and a witness that did not seem credible, so I guess we had reasons to be hopeful.

donna g: Geoffrey, what surprised you about the Mexican judicial system?

Geoffrey:A great number of things. On occasions I simply could not believe what I was seeing in the film rushes. As Layda explains, the trial is really just a formality as everything has been decided beforehand. That is just so different to what I know of the process in the UK and the US, and it gives rise to.

donna g: Tonio's girlfriend, Eva shows such devotion and love for Tonio. Is this the reason you accepted her case? (If, not why did you accept the case?)

Roberto: No, but it was a plus. Indeed it was helpful that Tonio had many friends who offered to help us through the maze of handling a production long distance. But I took the case because from the very first moment we met, I knew Tonio was innocent and his friends and then girlfriend seemed to understand that it was important to try an “out of the box” strategy if he was to have a fighting chance.

Above all, I took the case because I wanted to make a documentary that would help people question their own biases, and I saw an opportunity here. Most people tend to be biased against a person just because the police arrests them. There are studies that show, for example, that people are willing to presume a person guilty just on the basis of the charge. For example, if you are accused of sexually abusing a child, it is virtually impossible to get an impartial jury. This is sound social science, this holds true everywhere in the world, not just in Mexico. Humans have a propensity to think like this. That is why it is important to have criminal procedures that protect us against making mistakes because of biased reasoning. But in Mexico, neither politicians nor policymakers are aware of this biases, much less of the importance of designing procedures that protect defendants against them.

When I saw the evidence against Tonio, I had a lot of background that helped me understand how the police had pinned the crime on him, or how the system was using, actively, every method it could to represent him like a criminal. But, according to our statistics, we were facing a typical investigation by Mexican detectives. The typical investigation lacks physical evidence (92% of charges in Mexico City do not have any). The typical defendant never sees a judge in court. The typical defendant is not arrested with an arrest warrant, etc. All this was just like Tonio's experience of the system. Finally, the most vulnerable defendants are the innocent ones, because they are not prepared to offer a bribe to a corrupt policeman. Those who are innocent tend to think that a real justice system exists in Mexico because they have never been through it before. In contrast, the recurrent offender knows that the system is for sale, and are prepared to pay.


donna g: In the film there are rows and rows, and stacks upon stacks of case files representing people's lives. How did you gain access to this room?

Roberto: This is the room where we were lifting data and collecting it in forms many years ago. In that room, when I saw it, for the first time I had this insight that whatever our statistics found, they would not be as compelling as a single photograph of that room. That's when I first came up with the idea of making the film. When we filmed our first documentary (El Tunel), the one that was aired on CNN, I spent an entire day filming in the archives.

donna g: Did you have any hesitations about filming the Mexican police officers involved in Tonio's case?

Roberto: No. I think that it is fundamental to see their faces. We spent many hours looking at the court records to find out the names of the detectives who arrested Tonio, and then we convinced an attorney, Rafael Heredia, to cite them in court. In Mexico, because the system presumes guilt, detectives are allowed to never show up in court to testify. Rather, they can incriminate someone just by filling out some forms. But Rafael Heredia, who has worked for decades in the system, understood how important it was to bring them to court to testify, and he supported the idea.

donna g: I find the "face to face" process, where the accused faces his accusers, fascinating. Is this something that happens frequently in all cases.

Roberto: Yes and no. Mexicans have a "right" to interrogate their own accusers, and many of them do. I do not think it is a good practice, or a right that should remain in our constitution. But in this case it was our last chance to expose the weaknesses in the case against Tonio, because the system places less restrictions on this unregulated right than on what Tonio's attorney is able to do.

It was unique in this trial that the defendant had been trained with a trial advocacy book to interrogate effectively. We used Duce & Baytelman "Juicio Oral", which is a very good translation to Spanish of the principles of trial advocacy, a book that is now used in Chile to train lawyers in a system that underwent substantial reform very recently. This book was sent to the prison straight to Tonio's hands. And we trained Tonio with this material through several hours, on the phone. Essentially, we wanted Tonio to learn how to ask yes or no questions rather than open ended questions. Any lawyer in North America knows how crucial this is for cross examination. And Layda and I worked with him through his training as much as we could do so, long distance.

donna g: Geoffrey, how was working on this documentary different than working solo on The English Surgeon?

Geoffrey: Roberto is a brilliant partner as he knew all his material backwards, speaks perfect English and is very fast as an editor. We were editing in a divine villa outside of Mexico City which enabled us to just concentrate on the film, and I felt we were able to bring the very best out of each other. It was a special experience and one I would gladly plunge into again..

donna g: Roberto, how were you able to balance your work/family life with making a film that took almost 3 years to complete?

Roberto: I still don't know the answer to that!

donna g: Will the film be released in Mexico, and if so, do you think it will outrage enough people that demands will be made for judicial reform?

Roberto: I would be surprised if the film is not released in Mexico. It has all the ingredients a good film could possibly have. The drama is strong, the story is real. We put all our heart in it. And I think if audiences give themselves a chance to watch this, they will not regret it.

Geoffrey: A big part of why I said yes to taking part in this film was because I believe the film will make a huge impact in Mexico.Roberto, Layda and the producers have a fantastic plan for getting the film lunched there, and as countless Mexican citizens know someone directly or indirectly who has suffered at the hands of the Justice system I know it will prove to be the catalyst for real and lasting change.