Category Archives: Reviews

SeaMAN: absurdism at sea, swimming for shore. A Fringe review

Posted on August 16, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

SeaMAN (Stage 1, ATB Westbury Theatre) By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca In this relentlessly nutty and scrambling show by 2 Sleepy Ratguys (Amica Hunter and Bruce Ryan Costella) we meet a salt-crusted, windburned, garrulous old sea captain — in two bodies. … Continue reading →

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How did it all go wrong? Civil Blood: A Treaty Story, a review

Posted on July 28, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz NIcholls, 12thnight.ca On a sunny afternoon in the Edmonton river valley, the old Fort looks positively benign. And when we gather in the courtyard for a performance of Civil Blood: A Treaty Story, happy endings, love stories, alliances, … Continue reading →

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A visceral reverb that stays with you: Brick Shithouse at Found Fest

Posted on July 16, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca It’s stayed with me, the way dangerous theatre does. So I wanted to tell you about Brick Shithouse. I was lucky to catch the last performance of the fenceless theatre production that sold out its whole run … Continue reading →

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The breezy and the sharp in a comedy of (bad) manners: Private Lives at Teatro Live! A review

Posted on July 15, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “I think that very few people are completely normal really, deep down in their private lives….” argues Amanda in Noel Coward’s 1930 comedy of (bad) manners, the season finale at Teatro Live!. It’s a declaration on … Continue reading →

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So … what could possibly go wrong? The Play That Goes Wrong at the Citadel, a review

Posted on July 13, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Live theatre is a risky business. And there’s a show onstage in town designed expressly, with single-minded high-precision calculation, to mine the comic gold in that. The Play That Goes Wrong, currently making people laugh en … Continue reading →

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Nostalgia at the lake: On Golden Pond at the Mayfield, a review

Posted on July 1, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “How does it feel to turn eighty?” a 15-year-old kid demands of Norman Thayer, the curmudgeonly retired English prof/ octogenarian wiseacre in On Golden Pond. “Twice as bad as turning 40,” he says without missing a … Continue reading →

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The gods have their eye on you: Zulu creation mythology erupts in dance at Theatre Prospero. A review

Posted on June 23, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “In the time before time….” The gods were busy creating and discussing and arguing, and generally keeping an eye on cosmology. Because that’s what Zulu gods do. They’re busy. Actually, their all-seeing eyes are upon us, … Continue reading →

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‘Rough magic’ for the great outdoors: Freewill Shakespeare’s The Tempest, a review

Posted on June 21, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca On a perfectly calm summer evening under an azure sky, a tiny ship, The Lady Capulet, careens among us, capsizing its way toward the stage, flinging drunken party people here and there, topsy turvy. It’s a … Continue reading →

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A comedy of adjusted vision: The Oculist’s Holiday at Teatro Live, a review

Posted on June 1, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The title will make you smile. In its way The Oculist’s Holiday, the 2009 Stewart Lemoine comedy with the whimsically archaic handle, is all about optics — vision, perspective, focus, correction. And in the play, set … Continue reading →

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The hunger for omens gets … ominous for an obsessive sleuth. Dead Letter at Workshop West, a review

Posted on May 18, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The woman we meet in Dead Letter, Conni Massing’s dark and funny, mysterious and moving, new play — premiering at Workshop West Playwrights Theatre with an all-star cast in Heather Inglis’s production — is on a … Continue reading →

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