Musical Theatre and Dance

I believe that theatre is at its most exciting when it is taking chances and pushing at the walls that define genre. Even if the risks taken don’t pay off 100%. The world premiere of Orphan Song by Canadian playwright Sean Dixon at Tarragon Theatre is a case in point. Orphan Song sits in an imagined prehistory (40, 027 BCE) where a Homo sapiens couple, Mo and Gorse, take in a Neanderthal child and embark on a journey filled with danger, unexpected mayhem, and discovery.  

Stories set in prehistoric times are notoriously difficult to pull off without invoking nervous laughter. On opening night there was an initial hesitation from the audience in accepting the simplified, stilted, language of these early human characters, and yet this hesitation dissipated in the face of the absolute conviction of the actors who give themselves wholeheartedly to the simplicity of diction and wide brush strokes of communication necessary. Sophie Goulet’s performance as Mo was superbly grounded, as was the magical work of puppet master Kaitlin Morrow, not only as the Neanderthal child Chicky, but as the creator of the stunning puppets and master teacher of the puppetry technique in the show: the excellent team of puppeteers brings compellingly to life not only the beguiling Neanderthals, but a wide range of wildlife from the small and unthreatening hedgehog to the terrifying hyenas and more.

Live theatre is back and breaking down the walls of convention in every direction. George F. Walker’s Orphans of the Czar at Crow’s Theatre is an uncannily apt combination of an iconic Canadian voice and the state of Russia just before the revolution, bringing new insights from that time that apply to ours through strong performances, inspired in some cases with a physical theatre/clown style. Over at Tarragon Theatre, Sean Dixon’s new prehistoric fable of family, adoption and the communication between species, Orphan Song, draws on the twin disciplines of magical puppetry and music as language to share important universal truths – and the season is just getting started. 

One of the things I enjoy most about covering this Music Theatre beat is how much territory is encompassed in that title. From the most classic of classical ballet in the transcendent performances by Harrison James and Heather Ogden as Prince Florimund and Princess Aurora in Nureyev’s version of The Sleeping Beauty for The National Ballet of Canada’s recent revival in March, to traditional Broadway-style musicals such as those now in previews at the Shaw Festival (Damn Yankees) and the Stratford Festival (Chicago) – and from traditional opera to experimental amalgamations of unlikely elements that somehow cohere to make something that unmistakably fits the category. This spring experimental music theatre is popping up everywhere and in widely varying formats: interestingly, the three very different shows that I look at here, choose to explore very dark themes, using a tool kit in which music is an essential, integral, ingredient.

As I started to write this column in early February, we were under full lockdown … again. No theatres or concert halls were allowed to present performances for live audiences …again, and we were forced to turn to our computers (again), for virtual versions of our favourite performance genres.

The unforeseeable Omicron lockdown was doubly heartbreaking after the gradual resurgence of the fall, for creators and audiences alike; nowhere more poignantly, for me, than in the official closing of Come From Away only a week after its glorious reopening, its staging refreshed and the company thrilling – perhaps even more alive, if that’s possible, to the potential of the show than they had been at their original opening just under two years before. 

Pick your own heartbreak, though. Come From Away was just one of many shows that closed, never opened, or were postponed again. Some were able to pivot, including the Next Stage Festival which did a wonderful job of presenting a fully digital slate of a wide variety of shows. Most of the new live season that should have begun in January, however, was either cancelled or postponed until a time in the future that felt even more indefinite than before, because having the rug pulled out from under us after having hope dangled, was harder to bear than just hunkering down stoically, the way we had before. 

Yes, there were some new digital performances to immerse ourselves in, in the interim,  but not as many as earlier in the pandemic as when it was the only option. Tossed back and forth between changing protocols, companies have understandably played it safe, hesitating to announce new dates, for fear of having to postpone or cancel, yet again. The result: a gulf.

When the rapidly increasing spread of the Omicron variant and the new lockdown closed down our performance spaces once again in January, all kinds of theatre-going plans for the early new year had to be tossed out. Luckily, resilient companies and artists didn’t stop creating; their new and growing ease with filming and streaming, is still providing us with many ways to enjoy good music theatre in spite of the pandemic, and to cheer our souls during  the coldest time of the year.

Silver linings

Among these bright spots is the opportunity to catch filmed versions of live shows we might otherwise not have seen. One of these is prolific Canadian composer Dean Burry’s Sweetheart, a one-woman musical about Canadian-born Hollywood star and brilliant business woman, Mary Pickford. Burry is probably best known for his operas, whether written for children like The Brothers Grimm, or telling Canadian stories such as the recent Dora Award-winning Shanawdithit, but he has also been a creator of musicals from the beginning of his career. 

I have known Burry since directing his opera for and about teenagers, Pandora’s Locker, at the Glenn Gould School back in 2008, so I reached out to him to find out more about this show.