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Exploring the Doras
The best of this season’s Toronto theatre
Time once again to be a Dora explorer. The Dora Mavor Moore Awards, for the 201617 Toronto theatre season, are presented Monday at the Elgin Theatre. Here are some thoughts on the season, as reflected in the people and productions who have been nominated, or not, in the Doras’ various categories.
NEW PLAY For the Doras, there are two major divisions of Toronto theatre: General (bigger theatres) and Independent (smaller ones.) Each has its own set of prizes.
It was not a great season for new Canadian plays. The five nominees for best General play include Stupidhead! A Musical Comedy by Katherine Cullen and Britta Johnson. Cullen wrote the autobiographical script, Johnson the songs; and of course their show really belongs in a Best New Musical slot.
I fear that Stupidhead’s uncertain genre, and its modesty of scale (its two writers are its only performers), will tell against it, but you never know. I certainly enjoyed it more than David Yee’s acquiesce or Kristen Thomson’s The Wedding Party. The two remaining nominees — Nick Green’s Body Politic and Diane Flacks’ Unholy — I missed. NEW PRODUCTION Last Monday, the Toronto Theatre Critics presented their own seasonal awards. Their — well, our — choice for best new play was Mouthpiece, by Norah Sadava and Amy Nostbakken, another author-performer twohander. This didn’t make the Doras’ best play cut but it is one of the favoured five for Outstanding New Production, General Division.
The others are Body Politic, Master Harold.. and the Boys (which came from the Shaw Festival, courtesy of Obsidian) and two from Soulpepper: Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts I, II and III) and Incident at Vichy. If I had to choose, and it’s a tough one, I’d go for Father Comes Home. With all those parts, scale should count for something.
Father Comes Home is an American play (by Suzan-Lori Parks), and virtually all the best new plays of the season were American — first time I can remember that happening. The Realistic Joneses was one; Stupid F---ing Bird was, I’d say, another.
And of course there was John. Annie Baker’s play of that name, in its Company Theatre production, was the most exhilarating evening I had in Toronto all season. It was a play that broke rules not out of bravado but because it needed to, and without ever sacrificing its own consistency. It’s a bit of a shock to realize that this production (employing topflight talent and staged in Canadian Stage’s Berkeley Street premises) counts as Independent rather than General, but obviously it will walk off with Outstanding Production in that division.
Oh no, it won’t. It hasn’t even been nominated. What were they thinking? Or were they thinking?
John actually did win the critics’ Best Production award. Or rather it shared it with Robert Lepage’s dazzling 887. This could have made anybody’s shortlist in any number of categories: play (it was the best Canadian play of the year), direction, design, performance (Lepage’s own, which was superb).
At the Doras, it’s up for Outstanding Touring Production, and yes, it does come from far away, Quebec in fact. I expect it to win, though there is serious competition from the Scottish visitor, The James Plays. Or rather from the first of them, James I: The Key Will Keep the Lock. This was indeed the best part of the one-day trilogy, but I still can’t see the point of singling it out from the whole marathon experience. PERFORMANCES: MALE AND FEMALE It’s a standing complaint against the Doras that — unlike other prize-giving bodies from Hollywood’s exalted Academicians to Toronto’s humble reviewers — they make no distinction among actors, other than that of gender. There are no separate categories for Leading and Supporting, which, considering the sheer amount of acting that goes on in any season, is both wasteful and invidious.
Best Actor contenders (General Division) include Darren Herbert (though strangely not Dion Johnstone) in Father Comes Home, Joseph Ziegler in The Last Wife (though strangely not his Soulpepper peers Diego Matamoros and Stuart Hughes in Incident at Vichy), and both Andre Sills and James Daly in Master Harold. My guess is it’s between those last two, both of whom have been honoured by the critics: Sills as principal, Daly as support. This must qualify Allan Louis, the third hand in this three-hander play and every bit as good as his colleagues, for Most Consistently Overlooked Performer of the year. Among the General Ladies my own choice would be Lisa Berry whose best moments in Father Comes Home were terrifying.
The Independent Acting categories are where John comes into its own. Philip Riccio, whose Company Theatre produced the play, is up there for his performance. The hot tip, though, is Robert Persichini in Superior Donuts, a valued performer in a rare leading role. The female section includes two actresses from John — Nancy Beaty and Nora McLellan (the latter the critics’ choice for Best Supporting Female) — and I’m certainly not about to come between them. I’m also pleased to see Christine Horne recognized for her Prince Hamlet, a performance that was under-appreciated by many people including, frankly, me. I have to roll my eyes at the nomination of Ellen Ray Hennessy whose performance in The Death of Mrs Gandhi wasn’t even the year’s best Maggie Thatcher; that would have been Kate Hennig in The Audience.
DIRECTION Among the Generals, Weyni Mengesha (Father Comes Home), Alan Dilworth (Incident at Vichy) and Philip Akin (Master Harold) are all worthy contestants. Independents: John, a rather remarkable directing debut by Jonathan Goad, is ignored again but Prince Hamlet isn’t, nor was it likely to be. Ravi Jain’s work has sometimes been overrated (I’m looking at you, 39 Steps, or trying not to) but this, a re-ordering of Shakespeare that still showed deep understanding of the original, was a stunner. MUSICAL THEATRE Who wants to go up against Come from Away? Well. somebody has to and some things have, from the estimable Passing Strange to the deplorable Matilda. Perhaps contradicting myself, I’d go for Dan Chameroy in Matilda as Best Musical Performance. The female nominees include two worthy women from Come from Away: Jenn Colella, who has the show’s only solo number, and Astrid Van Wieren. Though, if the Ensemble category has to exist, Come from Away should have been a nobrainer for it; it’s what the show’s about. But it seems the Doras don’t think so.