Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Shakespeare in Toronto

Even leaving aside the Stratford season coming up (and I'll be seeing quite a bit of Shakespeare, including Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew and Love's Labour's Lost), there is a lot of Shakespeare to be seen.

I'm just back from the Bollywood-infused version of Much Ado About Nothing at Tarragon.  I did enjoy it, though I agree completely with the Mooney review that they tried just a bit too hard to remind us that the play was set in Brampton and also Benedict was a fairly minor player in the play, relative to many productions.  But I would still recommend it, and it runs through May.

In the washroom, there were posters for upcoming productions around town for Othello and Macbeth.  So assuming one saw Lear last year at Stratford, one could basically get in all the major tragedies in one calendar year (sort of a Shakespeare Grand Slam).  Now I don't actually care for Othello; I think it relies far too much on coincidence and absolutely nobody revealing what they know in time to avert tragedy, so I will pass on that.  I may go see Macbeth, particularly as I wasn't all that impressed with the version from Bard on the Beach two years ago (basically one of the few productions I thought was a bit of a misfire).  It's also playing at the Alumnae Theatre space, which isn't that far from my house, now that it is biking weather.  However, I am still seeing a lot of theatre and need to scale back in order to actually make this move happen (we close on Thurs!).  For those reasons, I decided not to see Liver at the Storefront, despite the rave review in the Star.

What I will be seeing, however, is Julius Caesar and The Comedy of Errors in High Park this summer.  The main question is whether I should take my son to see Comedy of Errors.  As far as I can tell, they do not have any matinees, and it would be fairly late for him.  I guess I will decide closer to the time.

I'm sure there are several others that I have missed, but there is certainly quite a bit on offer for those who can't get enough of the Bard.

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