Alex Poch-Goldin, Cynthia Jiminez-Hicks, John Ullyatt in Murder on the Orient Express, Citadel Theatre and Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. Photo by Nanc Price
CJ Eldred and the company of & Juliet, Broadway Across Canada. Photo by Evan Zimmerman for Matthew Murphy
By Liz Nicholls,
This is the week you can have your most persistent, long-standing questions answered from the stage.
Here’s an introductory short-term small-scale answer to a question it may not have occurred to you to ask: where has been since last weekend? And why is this little post so late in the week? I’m in London, dear readers, to see theatre. Outside it’s high summer, and gloriously green. Me, I’ve been in Emerg at St. Thomas’s. This is not a play, alas. Before the first show of my schedule, I starred in an an accident, with multiple fractures instead of curtain calls. So my return to Canada has been delayed. So, there’s one question answered.
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And, moving right along, here’s another. Haven’t you always wondered, secretly, what would happen if Juliet, that love-lorn 13-year-old Capulet girl with the first-ever boyfriend she met two days ago, didn’t go along with the big-finish downer ending of Shakespeare’s tragedy,? What if Juliet didn’t kill herself over the guy, and instead took charge of her own destiny? What if Shakespeare’s wife Anne Hathaway turned dramaturg, and demanded a major rewrite of the narrative? That’s the intriguing proposition of & Juliet. Isn’t it a tickle to think of superstar Will getting notes from his other half?
& Juliet, Broadway Across Canada, photo by Evan Zimmerman
Broadway Across Canada brings to the Jube, for a short tun through Sunday, a hit 2019 Broadway/ West End rom-com musical comedy hit that comes with its own 30-song jukebox stuffed with pop songs from the chart-topper archive of Swedish hit-maker Max Martin, who’s supplied super-dance-y chart-toppers to the likes of Katy, Britney, Ariana. The book is by David West Read, the Canadian born writer of Schitt’s Creek. Tickets: ticketmaster.ca.
Murder on the Orient Express, Citadel Theatre and Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. Photo by Nanc Price.
Another question: who dunnit? Murder on the Orient Express, launching the new Citadel season tonight, is a 2015 stage adaptation of Agatha Christie’s masterly (I think we could say seminal) 1934 murder mystery by the dexterous American playwright Ken Ludwig (Lend Me A Tenor). The Citadel co-production with the Royal Manitoba Centre, and directed by latter’s artistic director Kelly Thornton, stars Alex Poch-Goldin as the fussy Belgian brainiac with the extremely high-functioning leetle grey cells. He leads a 12-member cast that includes actors from both Edmonton and Winnipeg. A play set on a luxury train, in the 30s? It’s bound to be a playground for a deluxe designer team: Brian Perchaluk set, Joseph Abetria costumes, Hugh Conacher lighting, Dave Clarke sound. It opened Thursday, and runs through October 11. Tickets: citadeltheatre.com. Look for a review when I get back.
OH, ANNE! Carter-Ryan Theatre. Photo by Marc J Chalifoux
A question from the Theatre Network mainstage: can the country’s most celebrated character, known around the world, come to life outside the harmless signature Canadian musical where she’s been ensconced since 1965? That would, of course, be Anne, the impulsive, fanciful red-haired orphan from Green Gables. And OH, ANNE!, Bridget Ryan’s original new musical comedy from the Carter-Ryan Theatre and Gallery in Canmore, is currently running at Theatre Network, where it opened the new season last week. Look for a review when I’m back in Anne’s home country.
It’s a re-imagining, and re-flavouring, in every way: Ryan created it for a cast of four, all female, for one thing, and the score is Celtic sea shanties. OH, ANNE! runs through Oct. 18 on the Nancy Power MainStage (tickets: theatrenetwork.ca). And it comes with a chance to see Coast to Coast to Coast, an exhibition of the wonderfully bold, colourful paintings and sculptures by the Indigenous artist Jason Carter (who’s also the resident designer at the Carter-Ryan Theatre and Gallery in Canmore). ’s interview with creator/director Bridget Ryan is here.
Jessica Rose, Michaela Washburnm, Cassandra Bourchier in Kohkum’s Babushka by Lianna Makuch and Joleen Ballendine. Photo by Abigail Edwards.
There are major cultural questions at play in Kohkum’s Babushka, produced jointly by Punctuate! Theatre and Pyretic Productions, which has public performances this weekend at La Cité francophone (before a showing Sept. 30 in honour of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation). And this new play by Lianna Makuch and Joleen Ballendine, inspired by Marion Mukala’s book and the BFF relationship between the playwrights (one Ukrainian and the other Métis), is for kids! Have a peek at ’s interview with the two playwrights here. Tickets: https://www.punctuatetheatre.com/kohkoms-babushka.