Recent Blog Posts - Ephemeral Pleasures

Unexpectedly touching and hilarious: Small Mouth Sounds
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I have just seen some of the funniest stage business that I’ve seen in about a year.  And some touching character reveals that I didn’t see coming, despite thinking at the start that I recognized all these characters because I had been in yoga classes or support groups or retreats wit...
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Sweat, at the Citadel
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I’m at work the other day putting on high-visibility coveralls and safety boots.  And it occurs to me, I saw that on stage last night, middle-aged women matter-of-factly wearing Carhartt work trousers and boots for work without it being a joke or even worthy of comment.  And I have never se...
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KaldrSaga: stories and storytellers
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KaldrSaga: stories and storytellers
It’s a Norse-inspired start to the dark and cold of the theatre year – from the chanting and thread-spinning witches of the Malachite Theatre production of the Scottish play being reminiscent of the Norns who control destinies in Norse mythology, to a more explicit tribute to the gods...
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The Malachites’ Macbeth
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The Malachites’ Macbeth
I think I’ve probably seen more productions of the Scottish play than of any other Shakespeare play.  At Stratford I saw Maggie Smith play Lady Macbeth, and in a later Stratford production the handwashing scene was played on a starkly-lit stage covered with a large piece of white cloth that...
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Christmas pleasures
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It’s almost Epiphany, time for me to throw out the leftover turkey, finish the chocolate and mince tarts, unplug the tree, and get back to rehearsing and watching theatre. But first, I want to tell you about two Christmas-ish theatre productions.  This year I didn’t see Christmas Caro...
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The other Miss Bennet, in Christmas at Pemberley
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I have not always been a Jane Austen fan.  When I was young, I had some difficulty understanding irony, cutting politeness, and the dry humour of understatement, so I think my early attempts to read Pride and Prejudice and Emma probably left me missing most of the point.   A performance of Pride ...
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Deaths and lives, a hundred years ago.
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On the Remembrance Day weekend, I saw Raes Calvert and Sean Harris Oliver’s First World War play Redpatch at the Citadel.  And tonight I saw Hannah Moskovitch’s What A Young Wife Ought To Know at Theatre Network.  Both of them showed me the human consequences of historical facts that ...
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Beautiful: The Carole King Musical
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The Broadway Across Canada series of touring musicals makes a stop this week at the Jubilee Auditorium with Beautiful:  The Carole King Musical. It can be described as a jukebox musical, a script written to showcase music that’s already familiar to the audience.  But it’s not like Bac...
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Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, but oh so good …
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Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, but oh so good …
The original Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was a 1988 movie with Steve Martin and Michael Caine.  I can’t remember if I ever saw it, or if I just saw the trailer in a theatre and got a general sense of it – a goofy story of con artists trying to beat each other at their shared […]
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Spooky October performances 2018
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I’m not managing to see everything on Edmonton stages these days, but I wish I could.  I wish I’d seen Lenin’s Embalmers at U of A Studio Theatre, or the Maggie Tree production Blood: A Scientific Romance.  From what I’ve read about them, it looks like the creepy or parano...
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Fringe 2018 – the first half
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At midweek, I’m just catching my breath long enough to sit down with my program book (my second program book, after the first had an unfortunate beer accident) and start coming to terms with not being able to see everything I want to see. What I’ve seen so far: Don’t Frown at th...
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In good Company
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Russ Farmer as Bobby, Emily Smith as Marta.  Photo credits Nanc Price. Stephen Sondheim’s 1970 musical Company shows us a group of friends in their 30s, five married couples and the single guy, Bobby (Russ Farmer in the current Foote in the Door production). In a series of gentle vignettes,...
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Tracey Power’s Glory!
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Tracey Power’s Glory!
Kate Dion-Richard, Gili Roskies, Katie Ryerson, Morgan Yamada, and Kevin Corey in GLORY. Photo: Barbara Zimonick. (Set & Lights: Narda McCaroll. Costumes: Cindy Wiebe.) When I read that Calgary’s ATP would be putting on a new play about women hockey players, and specifically the Preston...
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Blue Stockings, by Jessica Swale
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Blue Stockings, by Jessica Swale
Blue Stockings is set at the University of Cambridge, in 1896, and mostly at Girton, a women’s college of the university.  It follows a study group of four young women in their first year at the college, Tess (Lucy Vogue), Carolyn (Monica Lefurgey), Celia (Jocelyn Jay), and Maeve (Maggie Sa...
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To separate, to cling, to Cleave
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One character in Elena Belyea’s new play Cleave explains the concept of words that are autoantonyms – words that have two near-opposite meanings, like screen, fast, or bound.  This gives the viewer a hint toward unpacking the play’s title, as it may refer to characters clinging ...
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