TV

Much Ado about Downton Abbey

Thumbnail image for Much Ado about Downton Abbey

Downton Abbey, Masterpiece Theatre

by Marianne Ackerman
25.02.2012

As Shakespeare demonstrated, historical fiction is always about the present. For a prime example of the genre’s paradox, look no further than Downton Abbey. Set in a Yorkshire castle before, during and after the First World War, this gorgeous upstairs-downstairs saga is really about social change, especially the fragility of the 1%.

[...]

THEATRE

Scary Monsters, Super Creeps

Thumbnail image for Scary Monsters, Super Creeps

Scary Tales and Broken Hearts at the Mainline Theatre

by Kallee Lins
24.02.2012

Scary Tales and Broken Hearts takes you into the world of your childhood in which anything can be imagined, yet nothing is quite as you expect.  The dancers of Entre-Deux take the audience through a series of vignettes inspired by fairy tales, your wildest dreams, and your darkest fears.

[...]

THEATRE

Agog about Gollywog

Thumbnail image for Agog about Gollywog

Gollywog, by Bonnie Farmer, Black Theatre Workshop

by Beverly Akerman
20.02.2012

Though decades separate Bonnie Farmer’s two plays, her new Gollywog has the makings of a hit. Born in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, Farmer came to Montreal at the age of two when her mother took a job as a cook in a convent. The family only lived there a year or so, Farmer explains. “They weren’t expecting a cook with a baby in tow. Our room was right off the kitchen and I kept getting into things. It was dangerous. I remember these beautiful marble floors. I remember seeing the nuns in their pyjamas.”

[...]

BOOKS

Saying I Do

Thumbnail image for Saying I Do

Interview with Jeffrey Eugenides, author of The Marriage Plot (Knopf Canada)

by Martyn Bryant
19.02.2012

Jeffrey Eugenides, author of The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex, opens his latest novel The Marriage Plot with an epigraph by François de La Rochefoucauld: “People would never fall in love if they hadn’t heard love talked about.”

[...]

BOOKS

Sines and Symbols

Thumbnail image for Sines and Symbols

Alice Major, Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science, University of Alberta Press

by Matthias Lalisse
18.02.2012

In her new book, Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science, Edmonton poet laureate Alice Major asks an interesting and provocative question: What do science and poetry have in common? She asserts that the two domains are “Intersecting Sets” with multiple points of contact.

[...]

MUSIC

Listen Up!, Vol. 2

Thumbnail image for Listen Up!, Vol. 2

Rover reviews of albums by Adam Cohen, Brixton Robbers, Markéta Irglová, Gypsophilia, David Guetta and more...

by Rover Staff
13.02.2012

Cleaning a little house here in the music department at Roverarts, and discovered these previously misplaced record review gems from the end of the year past…      

[...]

BOOKS

12 Hommes, 12 Livres

Thumbnail image for 12 Hommes, 12 Livres

Second installment of Joseph Elfassi's series about men and their books.

by Joseph Elfassi
13.02.2012

J’ai demandé à 12 hommes de me recommander des livres importants pour eux. Mon but final est de réévaluer mon rapport avec eux et avec les hommes en général. Thé froid et feuilles de vigne avec mon ami Pierre-Olivier, guitariste, chanteur et parolier du groupe Winston Balafre et conseiller pédagogique. On explore Le Pouvoir du Moment Présent du guide spirituel Eckhart Tolle.

[...]

BOOKS

Revolution Mother

Thumbnail image for Revolution Mother

Interview with Carmen Rodriguez, author of Retribution (Three O'Clock Press)

by Heather Leighton
13.02.2012

Like many, I’m drawn to novels that explore Latin American politics, particularly those rooted in Argentina and Chile. I was immediately intrigued when I heard about Retribution by poet, translator and activist Carmen Rodriguez, mainly because the author lived through the 1973 coup d’état. Rodriguez, her husband and their two young daughters were exiled to Vancouver in 1974.

[...]

BOOKS

Michael the Menace

Thumbnail image for Michael the Menace

Here Comes Trouble, by Michael Moore, Grand Central Publishing

by Eric Hamovitch
12.02.2012

The world needs more Michael Moore. He’s a shit disturber. Here Comes Trouble opens with the almost murderous reaction to his denunciation of the Iraq war while accepting an Oscar at the 2003 Academy Awards. This act took place in a climate of supine acquiescence by most of the US political establishment to a war launched four days earlier under blatantly false pretences. For a brief time, Moore was effectively leader of the opposition. He spent a much longer period under armed protection.

[...]

STAGE

History Made at the Majestic

Thumbnail image for History Made at the Majestic

A look at the family of artists behind Phantom of the Opera’s phenomenal success on Broadway

by James Gartler
11.02.2012

Last fall, two twenty-something New Yorkers waiting by a stage door for a glimpse of Bernadette Peters struck up a conversation about the current crop of shows on Broadway.  “Phantom’s definitely going to be closed within five years, no question,” one remarked to the other, who nodded emphatically in return, “oh for sure – it’s [...]

[...]

PODCAST

Rover Art Talks

Thumbnail image for Rover Art Talks

Listening to guest artists at the Rover Art Fair, December 2011

by Marc Seltzer
10.02.2012

The December 2011 Rover Art Talks produced three distinct conversations that highlighted the diversity of art experiences and art production in Montreal — and beyond. Art writer Isa Toussignant and a live audience engage with photographer Linda Ruttenberg, artist Jane Stewart and painters Fiona Ackerman and Luc Paradis in articulate conversation about their experiences and ideas.

[...]

THEATRE

Emotional Centre Does Not Hold

Thumbnail image for Emotional Centre Does Not Hold

Scientific Americans at the Segal Centre lacks conflict and passion.

by Anna Fuerstenberg
10.02.2012

It is never a good sign when they hold curtain on opening night. There is usually a great reason, but the audience gets restless and hostile and, in the case of Scientific Americans, very sleepy. I thought that the actors did remarkably well and the play may have had really important things to say. But [...]

[...]

FILM

Danse Macabre

Thumbnail image for Danse Macabre

A look at Pina - a dance film/eulogy best avoided by those confounded by contemporary convulsing

by Sarah Fletcher
07.02.2012

Perhaps I should have smoked a joint before this one. Alas, I exited this 3D experimental dance film clouded in sober confusion. What in hell was up with the hippo, and why did the lovely dancer in silk fondle him with such graceful abandon? She’s way out of his league, though he doesn’t seem to [...]

[...]

BOOKS

Forest for the Trees

Thumbnail image for Forest for the Trees

Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe, by Charlotte Gill, Greystone Books

by Gina Roitman
05.02.2012

Travelling by camper van around New Zealand, a land where 70% of the endemic forests have disappeared over the last 180 years, there seemed no more suitable place to crack open Charlotte Gill’s riveting and disturbing account of 20 years as a tree-planter in the forests of Canada. Make that, a tree-planter where the forests used to be.

[...]

THEATRE

Emotional Hook Misses Mark

Thumbnail image for Emotional Hook Misses Mark

Spectacular set not enough to overcome clichés

by Anna Fuerstenberg
03.02.2012

In Absentia at the Centaur is a play fraught with symbolism. There are bare trees, a frozen river, the endless winter and the barren (or is she?) heroine of the piece. When Collette’s husband goes missing in Colombia while working for an oil company, she hunkers down and plays psychic possum. Her older sister Evelyn, [...]

[...]

Page 7 of 88« First...56789102030...Last »