Click here and browse the audio clips to listen to Alvina Ruprecht’s review of Blood Brothers.
Ottawa Citizen Blood Brothers reviewBlood Brothers, which has just opened an auspicious five-week run at The Gladstone, could catch some fans of Broadway musicals by surprise. After all, we are accustomed to buoyant shows with a jolly ending: Mamma Mia, which recently played the NAC for the third December in a row, comes to mind.
Watch the Blood Brothers commercialsAre plays about dysfunctional actors in hopeless productions this season’s unstated theme at The Gladstone?
In September we had Noises Off, the British farce about a misfiring theatre company mired in an ever-worsening production. December saw the hilarious The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society’s Production of A Christmas Carol, a play about a community theatre gang so inept that, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, it was a wonder they still knew how to breathe. Now, we have Shakespeare’s Danish Play, a reasonably successful show by A Company of Fools about a five-member troupe and a doomed production of Hamlet.
Farndale Ave Christmas Carol – Ottawa Citizen ReviewEverywhere across the English-speaking world, community theatre companies are readying stage adaptations of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. None could hold a candle to that of the good ladies and one gentleman of the Farndale Avenue housing estate’s company.
The Final Twist – Ottawa Citizen ReviewPoor Charlie Nicholson. Debt-ridden and suffering from writer’s block, he accepts an assignment from a legendary actor to write a play. Subject: the murder of the actor’s troublesome wife, Eden Dundee. Problem: does the actor, Sir Merlin Foster, just want a bang-up play to revive his flagging career, or does he intend to actually do away with said troublesome mate, using the play’s plot as his modus operandi? The answer to that puzzle keeps eluding Charlie and us, the audience, in The Final Twist, which just opened at The Gladstone.
Noises Off – Ottawa Sun ReviewAs someone who’s actually attempted standup comedy, I thought I had a good sense of humour.
Then I attended the opening night of Noises Off at The Gladstone. Many, many people wet themselves they were laughing so hard, while I sank deeper into an introspective funk, wondering, have I completely lost my sense of humour?
Perhaps.
Noises Off – Ottawa Citizen ReviewNoises Off deserves big applause
Pray that you are never so unlucky as to wind up in the audience of a show like this. Then again, it’s so bad that it’s almost good. I’m referring, of course, to Nothing On, the calamitous British sex farce that a staggeringly incompetent touring company presents in Noises Off, Michael Frayn’s hilarious farce-within-a-farce, which just kicked off the new theatre season at The Gladstone.
Noises Off – (Cult)ure ReviewLast Thursday, September 3, the Gladstone Theatre opened its 2009/2010 season with Noises Off. The well known farce by Michael Frayn is a staple of the Ottawa theatre scene and has been staged by various theatre groups of all stripes over the years. I, however, had never seen this old chestnut performed before, so I was pleased when (Cult)ure’s theatre editor asked me to attend the show and review it for the magazine.
Theatre Review: A Guy Named JoeListen to Alvina Ruprecht’s review of A Guy Named Joe here.
