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Anna Fuerstenberg

THEATRE

Something Like Jazz

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The Jazz Singer, Segal Theatre

by Anna Fuerstenberg
18.06.2010

The play opens with the choir of a synagogue on a balcony of a very costly set, while the rest of the cast on the stage is dancing and singing something like jazz. This liturgical music mash is one of the best moments in the show, symbolizing the hero’s conflict and origins in the most [...]

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FESTIVAL CITY

Frantic Fringaholic

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Festival St-Ambroise Fringe de Montreal

by Anna Fuerstenberg
15.06.2010

The best play yet, Jesus Jello: The Miraculous Confection, is written by a witty and talented playwright and directed with great imagination and humour. Joanne Sarazen has crafted a very funny script and when Tristan Lalla does a poignant disquisition on the use of a narrator, while actually doing the job as God, she demonstrates [...]

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FESTIVAL CITY

Pigeons…

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Festival St-Ambroise Fringe de Montreal, Dead Pigeons Society, Théâtre Ste. Catherine

by Anna Fuerstenberg
11.06.2010

There is a feeling of improv and spontaneity in this work that is fun for the first half hour. It is a great idea: a send up of the self-importance and posturing of the writer-publisher relationships that can and do exist in Montreal’s flourishing literary community.

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FESTIVAL CITY

… and rants

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Festival St-Ambroise Fringe de Montreal, Rant, Théâtre Ste. Catherine

by Anna Fuerstenberg
11.06.2010

This was Keir Cutler’s eighth rant. I have witnessed two of the previous performances and he is consistently provocative and interesting. This rant is a self indulgent look at problems with anger management. The writing is wonderful and the performance including Keir’s glaucoma like bulging eyeballs is over the top, which is more like the [...]

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THEATRE

Postmodern Shakespearean Buzz

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The Roman Tragedies, National Monument

by Anna Fuerstenberg
29.05.2010

Hold on to your hat. There is not a single gizmon gimmick or technological buzz that is left out of this trilogy of plays based on Shakespeare’s Roman plays. There is a moment when Antony seems to be playing with an iPad. There are multiple screens onstage where actual news is being played to remind [...]

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FILM

Non-Actors In Cathartic Roles

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Ajami, AMC

by Anna Fuerstenberg
06.05.2010

Ajami is not a linear film, and you are not in Hollywood by a million miles. A Bedouin Mafioso walks into an Arabic café in a very poor neighbourhood in Jaffa and when the owner refuses to pay “protection” money, begins shooting the place up with an automatic. The owner responds by taking out his [...]

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THEATRE

Enchanting With Child-like Reservations

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Andersen’s Inkwell, Geordie Productions

by Anna Fuerstenberg
05.05.2010

In order to appreciate the full impact of Andersen’s Inkwell, the current offering by Geordie Productions, I took my seven-year-old friend Massimo along. He is quite literate and had never before gone to the theatre. The D.B. Clarke is just the right size theatre for a first outing, and I thought this play was a [...]

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THEATRE

The Relevance Of Rabbits

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Harvey, Segal Centre

by Anna Fuerstenberg
26.04.2010

There is a huge amount of charm in Harvey. The story, about the mild and exceedingly well mannered Elwood P. Dowd, and the six foot three and something inch rabbit he takes on as his best friend, is more charming than funny. It has an old fashioned quality to it, a play of manners set [...]

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THEATRE

Bringing Out The Buried Bodies

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Holy Mothers, Theatre Ste Catherine

by Anna Fuerstenberg
07.04.2010

One of the really fabulous things about theatre in this city is that no one seems to realize it is not supposed to be so diverse. Here we have a Dutch director, Jacqueline Van de Geer, mounting an Austrian play with local actors, Marie-Noelle Dufour, Caroline Fournier, and Michaela Di Cesare, in English.

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THEATRE

Wild and Wooly

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WILDSIDE FESTIVAL, Centaur Theatre

by Anna Fuerstenberg
09.01.2010

The 13th annual Wildside Festival, at the Centaur Theatre through Sunday, January 17th, definitely lives up to its name. The festival brings together six cutting-edge plays – and it’s a wild and exhilarating ride all the way.

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THEATRE

Local Playwrights Go Public

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Tableau d’hôte Theatre, Infinithéâtre

by Anna Fuerstenberg
12.12.2009

Montreal’s been a sad place to be a playwright. The two major theatres were, and some say still are, much too interested in doing second-hand U.S. and U.K. productions, and neglecting both Canadian work and local playwrights. However, there has been a sea change with Centaur’s production of Bated Breath, and In Piazza San Domenico, [...]

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THEATRE

The Devil Does Country

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Haunted Hillbilly, Segal Centre

by Anna Fuerstenberg
11.12.2009

Haunted Hillbilly is hilarious and delightful, a romp on the dark side of honky-tonks and revival tent culture with a finger-snapping, toe-tapping integrity that is eerily contagious. When Hyram Woodside, played with great gusto and subtlety by Patrick Costello, sets out to become the brightest star in Country music, he trades in the humble cowboy [...]

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THEATRE

Justified Theatrics

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Sexy béton II: Justice, Segal Centre

by Anna Fuerstenberg
01.12.2009

Outrage is a very difficult emotion to sustain. Therefore I attended the second of Porte Parole’s one-act plays about the collapse of the Concorde Bridge in Laval with some trepidation. This play about the search for justice was a much more difficult one to mount. The extraordinary thing was that all the talk about lawyers [...]

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THEATRE

Revisiting Sweet Innocence

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HIPPIES & BOLSHEVIKS, Freestanding Space

by Anna Fuerstenberg
27.11.2009

I will say it again, the three flights of stairs to the Freestanding Space makes one think: “This had better be worth it.” Hippies and Bolsheviks by Amiel Gladstone so very clearly is.

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THEATRE

A Truly Bittersweet Suite Ending

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Criminal Genius, Risk Everything, Mainline Theatre.

by Anna Fuerstenberg
26.11.2009

The final two one-acts of George F. Walker’s Suburban Motel Suite, Criminal Genius and Risk Everything, have been launched. Genuinely satisfying as theatre, the two served to provide a workout for laugh muscles I haven’t used in years.

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