Our critic’s picks from a year of vital theatre in Toronto
An assortment of shows that could have easily turned this year’s Top 10 list into a Top 20
RICHARD OUZOUNIAN It was a very good year.
Theatre in Toronto offered us a lot to look back on with pride and happiness this year, with an assortment of shows that could have easily turned this Top 10 list into a Top 20. But, even more importantly, this was a year when traditional theatre boundaries got fuzzier and entrenched organizations made a real effort to come out of their silos.
As a prime example, one of the edgiest and most groundbreaking works all year was Peter Sellars’ chamber version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
It was presented by the Stratford Festival, historically our most traditional organization.
Matthew Jocelyn also kept things bubbling over at Canadian Stage, programming outside-the-box shows such as London Road and Kiss & Cry, which kept audiences on their toes and in their seats at the same time.
Here are my choices for the Top10 shows of the year, with three additional nods to special people and organizations. 1. Spoon River (Soulpepper) This was the event of the year, an expansive, imaginative production that not only broke through traditional staging patterns but opened up our ideas of music that could be used in the theatre.
Mike Ross composed soul-stirring music for Edgar Lee Masters’ collection of poems and Albert Schultz created a magical production to embrace it. And the Soulpepper company, young and old, have never looked more versatile. It’s coming back in March. 2. King Lear (Stratford Festival) Antoni Cimolino, Colm Feore and a rocksolid company gave an unflinching interpretation of one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays and the result was aweinspiring.
There were no gimmicks, no window dressing; this was “the thing itself,” with the Stratford company revealing its depth in the way that every part was played with distinction.
Not only a fine show in itself but a cheering sign of what’s to come. 3. London Road (Canadian Stage) A verbatim musical about the serial murders of five prostitutes in Suffolk, England, might not seem like the stuff of great theatre, but this was surely one of the year’s best shows. Jackie Maxwell directed at the peak of her form, Reza Jacobs delivered every nuance of the music and a cast of our country’s best musical theatre performers filled every role superbly. 4. The Philanderer (Shaw) It had been a decade since the last great Shavian production here ( Man and Superman in 2004), but this first Shaw play made for crackling good theatre. The charismatic Gordon Rand starred, the inspired Lisa Peterson directed, and the thrilling Moya O’Connell and Marla McLean saw to it that sparks flew all night. 5. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Stratford) That mad genius Peter Sellars rearranged Shakespeare’s comedy for a cast of four (Dion Johnstone, Trish Lindstrom, Mike Nadajewski and Sarah Afful) who performed with an intensity seldom seen on this continent. He plunked it down in Stratford’s Masonic Hall and designed it like an acid trip in blank verse. The end result was exhilarating beyond belief and another exciting sign for the Stratford of the future. 6. Vitals (Outside the March) Mitchell Cushman and his Outside the March theatre company made magic again with this unique work, set in a house in the city’s west end. Rosamund Small wrote a sharp but sympathetic script about an EMS worker coming to the end of her rope. Katherine Cullen played her with unvarnished honesty and Cushman led us on a merry chase as we followed her around. Exciting stuff, but we’ve come to expect that from this company. 7. Sextet (Tarragon) Morris Panych soared to the top of his considerable form, both as writer and director, with this provocative look at six classical musicians snowbound in a desolate motel. It was funny, sad, sexy and thought-provoking all at once. Ken MacDonald designed it with consummate skill and a wonderful cast completed the experience. 8. Glenn (Soulpepper) David Young’s play about Glenn Gould acquired all sorts of deeper resonances in this new and startling production by Diana Leblanc. Poetry, music, movement and words all took us to different places in the four-sided view of Canada’s greatest musical iconoclast. And there could not be four better men than Brent Carver, Steven Sutcliffe, Jeff Lillico and Mike Ross to bring him to life. 9. Retreat (Theatre Brouhaha) Let us now celebrate Kat Sandler, the prolific, cheeky writer-director who created this nightmarish comedy, her10th play written over a four-year period. Yes, it was rough and a bit ramshackle, but it had undeniable talent stamped all over it, not just from Sandler, but from a cast who took every chance possible to make it work. 10. Dead Metaphor (Off-Mirvish/ Canadian Rep) George F. Walker can still shock us like no one else, as he proved with this bile-black comedy about a sniper returned from Afghanistan who suddenly finds his talent for killing is no longer wanted on the voyage. Cynical as hell, but with a moral centre underneath and Eric Peterson giving one of his greatest performances. THREE WORTH MENTIONING Jordan Tannahill: The 26-year-old writer/director was clearly the man of the year. He walked off with both the Governor General’s Award in English playwriting for his collection of solo plays, Age of Minority, and he received the Ontario Arts Council’s John Hirsch Director’s Award for a wide assortment of inventive stagings, including this fall’s highly praised Concord Floral. Through his company, Suburban Beast, and his performance space, Videofag, he not only creates important work on his own but encourages and nurtures other young artists as well. David Ferry: The Energizer Bunny of the Toronto theatre scene, Ferry spent much of the year touring Canada, the U.S. and Australia as a cast member for The Last Confession but bookended it with two cutting-edge productions, playing Romeo in Mitchell Cushman’s senior-citizen spin on Shakespeare, The Last of Romeo and Juliet, for Barrie’s Talk is Free Theatre, and ending the year starring in and directing a critically acclaimed indie production of the controversial Blackbird. He also turned 63 this year. More power to him. Second City: Our city’s improv theatre company had a banner year, not only turning out two awesome-mainstage shows, Sixteen Scandals and Rebel Without a Cosmos, but delivering the year’s single brightest piece of comedy with their collaborative project with the TSO, The Second City Guide to the Symphony. And then, as if that weren’t enough, they mounted two new shows for the holiday season, Holidazed and Confused and The Naughty Listers. Nice work.