Urban Shocker
Doyenne
All gone, Roy, but next year I may sell exclusively to jam wraiths on this forum ... if people beg loud enough.
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Roy G Biv
Senior Member
Stratford:
Bart' Fair- Director Antoni Cimolino prefaced the show with a few words, bragging that it was the first ever North American production of Ben Johnson's chaotic comedy.... and after seeing it, I can see why. It's not stage-worthy. If you want three hours of pseudo-comedic meandering, capped off by a loose moral-of-the-story-moment (obviously Johnson's justification for being a bad-ass himself), check it out. Otherwise, go to Rundles for a nice meal.
Three Sisters:
- Chekov's famous play about the nature of family and happiness brings that brooding Russian gloom that is perfect for the Tom Paterson theatre. This was an unbelievable production (perfect direction by Martha Henry), with Oscar-calibre acting (Lucy Peacock as Masha). More importantly, it was theatre at its best: captivating, gut-wrenching, and intimate. Phenomenal, world-class theatre.
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum:
-It's a Sondheim summer at Stratford, as both musicals (West Side Story) are getting rave reviews. This Vaudevillian production was hilarious and campy, allowing Bruce Dow to be Bruce Dow. I LOLed my face off.
I'm going again in September, and will check out The Importance of Being Earnest, and West Side Story. Go to Stratford people. When they get it right, it's world-class. We're lucky to have this festival in our backyard.
Bart' Fair- Director Antoni Cimolino prefaced the show with a few words, bragging that it was the first ever North American production of Ben Johnson's chaotic comedy.... and after seeing it, I can see why. It's not stage-worthy. If you want three hours of pseudo-comedic meandering, capped off by a loose moral-of-the-story-moment (obviously Johnson's justification for being a bad-ass himself), check it out. Otherwise, go to Rundles for a nice meal.
Three Sisters:
- Chekov's famous play about the nature of family and happiness brings that brooding Russian gloom that is perfect for the Tom Paterson theatre. This was an unbelievable production (perfect direction by Martha Henry), with Oscar-calibre acting (Lucy Peacock as Masha). More importantly, it was theatre at its best: captivating, gut-wrenching, and intimate. Phenomenal, world-class theatre.
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum:
-It's a Sondheim summer at Stratford, as both musicals (West Side Story) are getting rave reviews. This Vaudevillian production was hilarious and campy, allowing Bruce Dow to be Bruce Dow. I LOLed my face off.
I'm going again in September, and will check out The Importance of Being Earnest, and West Side Story. Go to Stratford people. When they get it right, it's world-class. We're lucky to have this festival in our backyard.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Steaming grandly through Royal Bank Plaza yesterday evening, I espied a deliciously haywire photographic blowup, After The Party, on one of the walls at the north end. Though the identifying information isn't up yet, it's by artist Dean Baldwin of Reverse Pedagogy and no.9:
http://www.reversepedagogy.com/full.html
http://www.no9.ca/mission.html
Run, don't walk, to see it!
http://www.reversepedagogy.com/full.html
http://www.no9.ca/mission.html
Run, don't walk, to see it!
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Saturday morning to the Market for provisions. Eccles cakes, the weekly carrot cake, butter tarts, a cherry pie, those brown heirloom tomato things, some peaches and plums, and more veggies - all from the north market - and some Ontario cheeses and sourdough bread from the south. Home for brunch.
On Saturday afternoon - a glorious day - after a chance encounter with a friend in the financial district my peregrinations took me west along King, stopping off here and there to dispense good cheer and spread joy among my people.
Cynthia Findlay Antiques, near the Princess of Wales Theatre, was my first stop - an education in itself with many lovely things on display, some of which were once mine - and a quick chat to Cynthia. Then ducked along the delicious little alternative universe that is Pearl Street, and took a boo at the fancy-schmancy murals around the theatre's loading dock. Thence onwards, to admire the new fillum centre, and skirting around the back of the Clewes condo that's just to the east of Spadina. Crossed that great divide, and ducked into a few furniture stores on the south side of King.
Westwards, ever westwards ...
Dropped into Navarro Gallery and had a nice chat with Roberto about this and that - a 1940s wartime painting that he'd missed at the previous Sunday antique market, a 1932 British architectural magazine I'd seen there ( which he'd bought ) that featured a striking Modernist Citroen dealership in Paris, and a spread about the "famous Canadian architect" John Lyle and his works. Roberto has a model of Andrea Bruno's entry in the ROM competition on display, which came as quite a surprise. A heated discussion of the relative merits of the Bruno and Libeskind designs followed.
Then around the block to look at the new condos to the south. And home for tea
On Saturday afternoon - a glorious day - after a chance encounter with a friend in the financial district my peregrinations took me west along King, stopping off here and there to dispense good cheer and spread joy among my people.
Cynthia Findlay Antiques, near the Princess of Wales Theatre, was my first stop - an education in itself with many lovely things on display, some of which were once mine - and a quick chat to Cynthia. Then ducked along the delicious little alternative universe that is Pearl Street, and took a boo at the fancy-schmancy murals around the theatre's loading dock. Thence onwards, to admire the new fillum centre, and skirting around the back of the Clewes condo that's just to the east of Spadina. Crossed that great divide, and ducked into a few furniture stores on the south side of King.
Westwards, ever westwards ...
Dropped into Navarro Gallery and had a nice chat with Roberto about this and that - a 1940s wartime painting that he'd missed at the previous Sunday antique market, a 1932 British architectural magazine I'd seen there ( which he'd bought ) that featured a striking Modernist Citroen dealership in Paris, and a spread about the "famous Canadian architect" John Lyle and his works. Roberto has a model of Andrea Bruno's entry in the ROM competition on display, which came as quite a surprise. A heated discussion of the relative merits of the Bruno and Libeskind designs followed.
Then around the block to look at the new condos to the south. And home for tea
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Aaron
Active Member
My goodness.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Designed in 1929 by Albert Laprade and his associate Léon-Emile Bazin, and located at 32-34 Rue Marbeuf, Paris.
http://www.histoire-image.org/site/oeuvre/zoom.php?oeuvre_id=847
Yesterday afternoon I went to the Koichi Sato poster exhibition at the Japan Foundation in the Colonnade:
http://www.rgdontario.com/viewEvent.asp?ID=452
http://www.akasamedia.com/arts-culture/posters-JAL.htm
http://jftor.org/whatson/index.php
http://s3146115.blogspot.com/2008/11/designer-sato-koichi.html
http://www.histoire-image.org/site/oeuvre/zoom.php?oeuvre_id=847
Yesterday afternoon I went to the Koichi Sato poster exhibition at the Japan Foundation in the Colonnade:
http://www.rgdontario.com/viewEvent.asp?ID=452
http://www.akasamedia.com/arts-culture/posters-JAL.htm
http://jftor.org/whatson/index.php
http://s3146115.blogspot.com/2008/11/designer-sato-koichi.html
TonyV
Senior Member
Hi all you Urban Shocker's Neighbourhood Watchers .. I am back from some weeks in Muskoka (with trips to the city to break up the quiet).
The cultural season soon will be upon us and many of us will return here to post our reviews. Please do your best to keep up the tradition.
... Toronto is loaded with goodies to come, but she ain't above some rippin'. I got to thinking about those ridiculous catch phrases that are boldly emblazoned on our two most important cultural palaces. Roy Thomson Hall still has that dumb "Intimately Powerful" sign -- I can only imagine that they read that on one of their washroom walls (was there a phone number near it, and if so may I please have it?). Fort Kulchur, aka The Four Seasons, still says "Home At Last" although the illustrious opera company arrived there over three years ago. These two signs give me the icks. Can we please be rid of them?
The cultural season soon will be upon us and many of us will return here to post our reviews. Please do your best to keep up the tradition.
... Toronto is loaded with goodies to come, but she ain't above some rippin'. I got to thinking about those ridiculous catch phrases that are boldly emblazoned on our two most important cultural palaces. Roy Thomson Hall still has that dumb "Intimately Powerful" sign -- I can only imagine that they read that on one of their washroom walls (was there a phone number near it, and if so may I please have it?). Fort Kulchur, aka The Four Seasons, still says "Home At Last" although the illustrious opera company arrived there over three years ago. These two signs give me the icks. Can we please be rid of them?
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Amen, bro. I say we go down there and kick some highbrow ass ...
Tonight I'm off to see The Boys In The Photograph. Comp tickets, and my Mother wanted to see it. I'm not much of a Lloyd Webber fan ( when was the last time I saw anything of his? Cats in the mid-80s! ). And the only Ben Elton play I've seen is Gasping, a "scathing satire" that deflated on the London stage right before my eyes in '90.
This thing's about an Irish soccer team, apparently. Maybe there'll be a shower scene that'll get delightfully out of hand ... and it'll morph into The Boys In The Pornograph.
Tonight I'm off to see The Boys In The Photograph. Comp tickets, and my Mother wanted to see it. I'm not much of a Lloyd Webber fan ( when was the last time I saw anything of his? Cats in the mid-80s! ). And the only Ben Elton play I've seen is Gasping, a "scathing satire" that deflated on the London stage right before my eyes in '90.
This thing's about an Irish soccer team, apparently. Maybe there'll be a shower scene that'll get delightfully out of hand ... and it'll morph into The Boys In The Pornograph.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
No such luck. Just the usual commercial product - snappily unmemorable tunes with cloying lyrics, lots of quick scene changes, a bit of menace and violence, a happy ending ... and then out onto King street and home. A preview audience, but I can't imagine the show will change much. The headset mikes are a bit obtrusive, and the little thing stuffed down the back of the guy's underpants ( something to do with the mike I assume ) looks silly - like some sort of colostomy bag - in the bedroom scene.
TonyV
Senior Member
Perhaps a bit of gratuitous hanky panky might have redeemed the production after all.
Do tell about Madama Butterfly, once you've seen (heard) it. There are two principals to share the role of Cio Cio San.
... bringing to mind a really funny(?) send-up of this opera, a hit tune penned by an American, probably a response to Puccini's not-so-veiled America bashing:
"Poor Butterfly"
"There's a story told of a little Japanese,
Sitting demurely 'neath the cherry blossom trees,
Miss Butterfly's her name" ....
(Of course the nearly-operatic Sarah Vaughan sang this little hit tune just beautifully)
Do tell about Madama Butterfly, once you've seen (heard) it. There are two principals to share the role of Cio Cio San.
... bringing to mind a really funny(?) send-up of this opera, a hit tune penned by an American, probably a response to Puccini's not-so-veiled America bashing:
"Poor Butterfly"
"There's a story told of a little Japanese,
Sitting demurely 'neath the cherry blossom trees,
Miss Butterfly's her name" ....
(Of course the nearly-operatic Sarah Vaughan sang this little hit tune just beautifully)