By Gene Kosowan
February may be the shortest month of the year, but that doesn’t make it any less formidable from a weather standpoint. It also shouldn’t deter you from venturing outside for some of the best live theatre this city has to offer. For the brave and the curious, here are a few options. [Image credit: http://istockphoto.com/izusek]
While Plain Jane Theatre dubs Ah, Romance! as “a revue of song, dance and other passionate musings,” it’s interesting to note that some of the city’s best comedic and dramatic actors are in the lineup, including Ron Pedersen, best known for his involvement in MAD TV. Expect more than a tune here and a soft-shoe there at the Varscona, but with a new twist on some classic swoon-worthy descants.
I doubt Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had comedy in mind when he penned the classic The Hound of the Baskervilles, though there were moments of jocularity between the cerebrally arrogant Sherlock Holmes and his frequently befuddled assistant Dr. Watson. The Mayfield Dinner Theatre treatment of Baskerville is considerably lighter fare as literature’s most famous investigators try to unravel the curse surrounding a lecherous patriarch that threatens his lineage.
Running at La Cite Francophone, this coproduction between Concrete Theatre and L’UniTheatre uses the backdrop of Ukraine during the 1920s from its short-lived independence from the newly-formed Soviets to the east to further jeopardy in the hands of Stalin. But Bello, which explores the Mennonite culture during that period, chooses to highlight a more fable-oriented setting highlighted by song and dance to deal with the reality of oppression.
From enduring a tailspining energy economy to recovering from the worst natural disaster on Canadian soil, the city of Fort McMurray has taken some pretty severe knocks that past couple years. In Bust, Theatre Network chronicles the situations by profiling two families caught up in a municipal mess. Following the backlash of a controversial refereeing decision in a kids' hockey game, the intensity heats up and becomes a catalyst for dividing the city even further.
Absolute chaos ensues when the classic Hatfield-McCoy family feud is paired with the dictatorial teachings of Machiavelli in this improvised soap opera offering more scandal than anything you’d glean through the pages of the National Enquirer. International award-winning improvisational troupe Die Nasty holds court at home base in the Varscona every Monday night to spin the fictional standoff between the Gabourgias and the Spinellis in 15th century Venice.
The Citadel mounting of Ayad Ahktar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about faith and race relations seems more timely than ever, given the unrest over decisions being made by the current administration in the White House. Disgraced is actually set in New York earlier this decade, but the same turf is explored when a hotshot Asian lawyer takes on the establishment at a dinner party and winds up discovering some hidden truths about himself and his values.
If you like your improvisational comedy to be nitty, gritty and seat-of-the-pants extreme, here’s a chance to see 90 minutes of trial by terror in its unfettered splendor. Every Friday night, The 11 O'Clock Number! hunkers down in Holy Trinity's basement, fielding audience requests to hilariously cobble together songs, scenes and other production elements in the hopes of creating a brand new musical once the dust settles.
With Jubilations Dinner Theatre housed in a mall that serves as a perfect location for truants, it’s fitting the company would stage an update on one of cinema’s most legendary AWOL students. In Ferris Bueller's School of Rock, the original slacker discovers karma as a high school teacher with a class of insubordinates – until he tries to win them over with rock ‘n’ roll. There’s just one problem: the school board and the PTA aren’t exactly taking a shine to his idea.
Don’t expect any live, rhythmic calisthenics from Kevin Bacon here, given the obvious inconvenience of age and geography. But in this installation of Footloose – which tells the story of a teen from Chicago who rails against authority in the pocket of a fire-and-brimstone preacher – expect the MacEwan University Theatre troupe to hold its own from the moment the lights dim to the final curtain call.
As proof that girls aren’t the only ones who just wanna have fun, singer-songwriter Cyndi Lauper abandoned her Top 40 world to pen Kinky Boots, a Tony-award winning musical that hits the Jubilee Auditorium for a half-dozen nights of camp. When a young man inherits an underperforming shoe factory, he faces the perils of bankruptcy until an adventurous drag queen with dreams of hitting the catwalks in Milan enters his life.
This winter, some Edmonton shows will have you rolling in the aisles, while others might be suspenseful enough to have you squeezing the stuffing out of your armrests. Whatever play you catch, all are likely to make you forget about what’s in Old Man Winter’s bag of tricks outside. Stay warm, everyone, but above all, stay entertained.
