Fall openings, Part 2: Roberto Zucco, 1939, Izad Etemadi, Come From Away and more

If you see me or one of my theatre-reviewing colleagues out and about, please excuse our haggard appearances. We’re just trying to keep up with the slew of fall openings. Here, if you missed it, is Part 1 of my review wrap-up. I also weighed in on Crow’s Theatre’s Rosmersholm (now extended one last time until October 17) here in the Toronto Star.

Look for my reviews of Goblin:Macbeth and Wonderful Joe soon; after they’re published, I’ll link to them in my Other Writing section.

Bold Buddies opener

Buddies in Bad Times’ opening production, Roberto Zucco (Rating: ✭✭✭✭✭), is exactly the sort of show I was craving during the lockdowns: big, bold, expressionist, non-plot-driven theatre that could never work as a film, Netflix series or podcast.

The inaugural play programmed by artistic director ted witzel, it’s an audacious, stylish, high-stakes gamble that pays huge theatrical dividends.

Written by French playwright Bernard-Marie Koltès in the late 80s, right before he died of AIDS-related illness, the play is nominally about the central character, a serial killer (Jakob Ehman) who escapes from prison and in a series of vignettes continues on his murderous streak and his relentless search for... something.

But although inspired by a real-life murderer named Roberto Succo, it’s no biographical play and is certainly not a procedural, psychological portrait or even a traditional thriller. Instead, it looks mercilessly at the society around Zucco, one where mothers berate sons, siblings loathe each other and pairs of prison guards and cops debate the meaning of evil while violence occurs right under their noses.

Witzel’s production is superb, Michelle Tracey’s grey-toned sets, Dasha Plett’s compositions and Logan Raju Cracknell’s lighting creating a lurid Euro hellscape that will likely bore its way into your subconscious.

Koltès, in Martin Crimp’s crackling adaptation, gives most of the action and a couple of juicy monologues to the supporting characters, and the actors disappear into their roles with complete commitment.

It’s especially gratifying to see long-time collaborators Daniel MacIvor and Fiona Highet reunite in a series of layered, suggestive performances as faulty authority figures or lonely outsiders. But it’s also great to see Samantha Brown, Oyin Oladejo and Kwaku Okyere triumph in this kind of heightened theatrical environment. Brown is particularly effective as the young girl who forms a bond with Zucco and seems untouched (so far) by the corruption around her.

Ehman, meanwhile, slips cat-burglar-like through the crevices of the scenes with a quiet menace and uncertain motivation. How refreshing in this era not to have his actions explained away by childhood trauma or sexuality.

This is a remarkable, uncompromising work that bodes well for the future of Buddies.

Roberto Zucco continues at Buddies in Bad Times, 12 Alexander, until October 5. See info here

1939’s reclaimed lives

To coincide with a 1939 visit to Canada by England’s King George VI, a well-meaning literature teacher at a fictional residential school in Northern Ontario engages several Indigenous students to mount a production of Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well. It doesn’t turn out the way she expects, but the experience changes the lives of the students themselves.

That’s the premise of Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan’s 1939 (Rating: ✭✭✭), which premiered at the Stratford Festival two years ago and is being remounted – with most of the same cast – by Canadian Stage and Belfry Theatre in association with Stratford.

Lauzon, who also directs, and Riordan focus less on the physical abuse suffered by the students than on the cultural and emotional harm done to them. (It’s especially fitting that the play’s run coincided with the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.)

Early on we learn that eager learner Beth (Grace Lamarche) and the homesick Joseph (Richard Comeau) are sister and brother, but because it’s forbidden for siblings to be in the same institution, they’ve kept it a secret from their teachers — a clever inversion of the Shakespeare motif of characters who don’t know they’re siblings.

In a more comic vein, the students’ teacher (Catherine Fitch) brings in an old recording of British thespian Ellen Terry to illustrate how she wants her students to speak Shakespeare’s dialogue. Instead, led by Evelyne (Merewyn Comeau), who sees similarities between her character, Helena, and her Mohawk healer grandfather, the students begin to find their own points of entry into this work, reclaiming and affirming their identities along the way.

Some of this feels contrived, perhaps because we haven’t been given a good sense of the students — and their interactions with each other. Apart from Asa Benally’s costumes, at times it’s even hard to tell what era or period we’re in. But all this could be on purpose, since the children have been robbed of so much of their culture — even, in some cases, memories of their parents.

The playwrights find a visual metaphor for this erasure in the transitions between scenes; students write notes on various blackboards — which dominate Joanna Yu’s set — but they’re quickly erased by their instructors. At two hours and 30 minutes, however, even these transitions can feel repetitive. Also repetitive is some of the broad humour involving a priest and hockey coach (Nathan Howe) who becomes flatulent when he’s nervous. Yes, there are fart jokes.

Still, there’s lots to admire about this production, including warm and engaging performances by the cast — which also includes include Brefny Caribou, John Wamsley and, in a particularly underwritten role Amanda Lisman.

If at first it feels uncertain whose story this is, by the end it becomes clear. 1939 gives shape, voice and a sense of liberation to the generations of Indigenous children who were — and continue to be — denied so much.

1939 continues at the Berkeley Street Theatre (26 Berkeley) until October 12. See info here

Izad Etemadi: Remember his name

Izad Etemadi’s stage credits include several appearances at the Next Stage Festival as his hilarious Persian alter ego Leila, the moving ensemble piece Box 4901 and, at London’s Grand Theatre, the musicals GROW and Elf. (I’m still kicking myself I didn’t hop on a train to see the latter two.)

But nothing prepared me for the utter transcendence of his new autobiographical solo show, Let Me Explain (Rating: ✭✭✭✭✭), which debuted earlier this year at the Hamilton Fringe and enjoyed a too-short run at the Theatre Centre at the end of September.

The show’s title comes from his having to explain all sorts of things to people around him, such as: how to pronounce his name; the difference between Iranian and Persian, which both apply to him; and where he’s from. Later, as he pursues a career in musical theatre and acting, he’s forced to explain to insensitive casting directors that he can play more than terrorists.

As the show, sensitively directed and dramaturged by Matt White of Green Light Arts, progresses, another thing he’s worried about is having to explain to his immigrant parents that he’s gay.

While most of these themes have been covered in any number of solo shows, Etemadi’s show is completely his own. Clutching a bedazzled microphone and receptive to every little reaction from the crowd, he takes us through each stage of his tale. Some early bits feel like sections from a stand-up routine — there’s a hilarious one about how a particular mispronunciation of his name sounds like an Apple product for anti-depressants — but eventually things deepen and get more complex.

He and White, aided by lighting designer Paul Cegys, know how to pinpoint significant scenes, such as the blush of young love/lust, a life-changing trip to New York City and, most poignantly, interrupting his parents during an episode of Friends to come out to them.

The funniest section, however, is a musical sequence that draws on Etemadi’s unique cultural upbringing (he was born in a refugee camp in Germany). It’s too good to spoil in a review.

Besides, if there’s any justice in this world, another theatre company (Crow’s? Off-Mirvish?) will give this show another life and help develop it further so you can discover that scene — and the wonder that is Izad Etemadi — for yourself.

Izad Etemadi: Let Me Explain ran September 26-29 at the BMO Incubator at the Theatre Centre.

Return from Away

One of the saddest local theatre stories in the last few years was watching homegrown hit Come From Away, cancelled like everything during the worst of the pandemic, triumphantly reopen in December 2021, only to close permanently a week later because of illness and the Omicron variant.

Now it’s back (Rating: ✭✭✭✭✭), hopefully for a good long run (it’s already been extended until March 2025), with a cast that’s as good as any I’ve seen. (Disclosure: I’m a minor investor in the show, which I first saw in workshop form at Sheridan Theatre’s Canadian Musical Theatre Project.)

If anything, David Hein and Irene Sankoff’s musical inspired by real-life stories of the Newfoundlanders who helped out and hosted airplane passengers stranded at the Gander airport after 9/11 resonates even more in these fractured and polarized times.

At its heart, it’s about our capacity for kindness and compassion, even under the worst circumstances. The way Hein and Sankoff interweave dozens of stories remains masterful, the score and Christopher Ashley’s Tony Award-winning direction propelling the production forward with so much momentum that there’s only one or two places for applause breaks.

What’s remarkable is that the same moments always affect me, beginning with a scene in which a bus driver uses his knowledge of the Bible to comfort an African couple, even though he doesn’t speak their language, and going on to the nearly wordless sequence in which the frightened, tired passengers see footage of the attacks for the first time. In arguably the most poignant sequence, a Jewish Newfoundlander instructed by his parents to hide his faith decides to visit a rabbi at a makeshift prayer centre, the sounds of various religious songs harmonizing around him.

The cast, many from the last production, is as strong as ever. Ali Momen and Jeff Madden have the comic cadences and dynamic of their same-sex couple Kevin J. and Kevin T. down pat, while Barbara Fulton and James Kall play two older passengers who find a connection. Only upon repeat viewings does it become clear what a smart idea it was to interweave the two couples’ narratives.

(One of the pluses about seeing a great show multiple times is discovering new things. The song “Costume Party,” in which the stranded passengers don donated clothes, was never my favourite, but only this time did I realize that it’s really about trying on new things, something that Madden’s Kevin T. is willing to do, while his partner isn’t.)

In a show with few big solos, Cailin Stadnyk — a standby for earlier productions – simply soars in “Me and the Sky,” her number about her character Beverly Bass’s groundbreaking career as a female pilot. One might quibble that the song’s lyrics mention her short height, when Stadnyk is very tall. But her performance, and the song’s artful construction — listen carefully and you can feel the song begin to lift off — will make you forget that.

Hein and Sankoff cleverly plant narrative elements — a firefighter son who hasn’t been heard from, a pregnant Bonobo monkey, an ongoing local labour dispute — that all pay off later, and they know how to mix humour and heart.

Backed by a lively, lusty band under Bob Foster’s direction, the cast — who also include Kyle Brown, Saccha Dennis, Steffi Didomenicantonio, Lisa Horner, Cory O’Brien, Kristen Peace and David Silvestri — understands every moment of this show.

One of these days, I’d love to visit Gander and see Newfoundlander Jillian Keiley’s production. But for now I’m happy to revisit this version; here’s hoping it doesn’t go away any time soon.

Come From Away continues at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, 260 King West, until at least March 2, 2025. See info here

No thanks

Larissa FastHorse’s satirical The Thanksgiving Play was a hit in New York — where, in 2023, she made history as the first female Native American playwright to have a play produced on Broadway – and is currently one of the most-produced plays in North America.

It’s a shame the production we’re getting (Rating: ✭✭) by Pop-Up Theatre Canada, as part of the off-Mirvish season, doesn’t work, although it’s hard to tell if it’s the script or Vinetta Strombergs’ heavy-handed direction that are responsible for this.

The premise is simple: an elementary school teacher named Logan (Rachel Cairns) is mounting a play that explores the first Thanksgiving. To help create this devised theatre piece, she’s hired two amateur actors, her partner Caden (Colin A. Doyle) and enthusiastic history teacher Jaxton (Craig Lauzon), as well as the professional actor Alicia (Jada Rifkin), whom she believes is Indigenous but actually isn’t.

Thus, we end up watching four white characters lurch embarrassingly through the process of trying to create a work dealing with Native American themes.

Only so many laughs can come from well-meaning liberal types stumbling over each other not wanting to seem culturally insensitive. But FastHorse doesn’t develop the characters at all. Near the beginning, we’re told that the stakes are high for Logan, since 300 parents have signed a petition for her firing over a previous show. Not exploring that situation — what caused it? — seems like a missed opportunity.

Strombergs doesn’t help things by including video clips of other failed attempts to celebrate the traditional holiday — as if Logan has searched online and found them. Surely this exploration of cultural sensitivity and coming to terms with our colonial past can produce something more biting than images of frozen turkeys as bowling balls.

The result is a thin comedy sketch stretched out to 90 interminable and mostly unfunny minutes.

The Thanksgiving Play continues at the CAA Theatre, 651 Yonge, until October 20. See info here

Two new theatre podcasts

Podcasting takes a lot of volunteer work, which partly explains why Phil Rickaby’s Stageworthy and Michael Healey’s Just One More are, well, no more.

So it’s encouraging that two new theatre-related podcasts have sprung up recently to give Toronto theatre lovers something to listen to between shows.

Joel Greenberg, who retired earlier this year as the artistic director of Studio 180 Theatre, has launched Life in Stages, a weekly conversation with established performing arts professionals, including actors, directors and writers. Like Healey’s podcast, the conversations cover an artist’s career and aren’t focused on someone’s latest project, giving them an evergreen quality.

Janine Marley’s A View from the Box is a biweekly podcast that seems like a natural extension of her posts and social media vlogs on Toronto theatre.

As of today, both podcasts are two episodes in, and I may weigh in later on when they’ve found their footing.