iPhoto caption: Monica Dottor and Ellora Patnaik in “cicadas.” Photo by Jae Yang.
REVIEW: cicadas is a jam-packed eco-thriller experiment with a dual personality
Hauntings (of people and land), climate anxiety, existential uncertainty, family history, and mathematics all collide, leaving the audience with a tremendous amount of story to digest.
iPhoto caption: Members of the company of 'Macbeth.' Photo by Yves Renaud.
REVIEW: Ex Machina’s leather-clad Macbeth is slick, current, and unmistakably Quebecois
Given that this production premiered in English at the Stratford Festival last year, I was curious how Robert Lepage might adapt the work for a Francophone context. By layering narrative adaptation, rich linguistic translation, and visual elements of mass media, Lepage delivers a Macbeth that is current and compelling.
iPhoto caption: Christian Van Horn and Karen Cargill in 'Bluebeard's Castle.'
REVIEW: COC’s Bluebeard’s Castle/Erwartung is a hypnotic exploration of light
Rather than retread the ground of an overall analysis, I’d like to zoom in on an element that particularly interested me: Simonovitch Prize-winning designer Robert Thomson’s expressionistic lighting for Bluebeard’s Castle, which nicely enriches the opera’s ambiguous psychological landscape.
