Category Archives: Reviews

Creating ‘the impossible, mysterious sound’: The Hunchback Variations, a Fringe review

Posted on August 12, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

The Hunchback Variations (Stage 3, Studio Theatre) By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca A curious pair arrives onstage at the start of this smart, touching, genuinely odd, sometimes trying two-hander comedy. “Good evening and welcome …” says the brisk, professionally genial guy … Continue reading →

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Weird and wonderful, a human vaudeville under the skin: Epidermis Circus, a Fringe review

Posted on August 12, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

Epidermis Circus (Stage 18, The Luther Centre) By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca There’s a nutty and ingenious self-reliance built into this “spicy puppet cabaret” from Victoria’s SNAFU Society of Unexpected Spectacles (Little Orange Man, The Merkin Sisters). Let’s just say that … Continue reading →

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Was it Professor Plum, in the library, with the …? The lead-pipe cinch fun of Clue at the Citadel, a review

Posted on July 29, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “Let the game begin.” What fun. A high-style midsummer comedy whodunnit with all the trimmings, and a larky air of high camp about it.  That’s Clue, currently dropping clues, suspicions, weapons, suspects, and dead bodies through … Continue reading →

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Sexy Laundry at the Mayfield, a review

Posted on July 28, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca In Sexy Laundry, the hit 2005 sitcom by Vancouver playwright Michele Riml currently onstage at the Mayfield, we meet Henry and Alice, a middle-aged couple whose 25-year-old marriage has gone stale.   At the instigation of … Continue reading →

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The Cirque du Soleil is back and the joint is bugged: OVO, a review

Posted on July 14, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca At the outset, a giant egg sits onstage, full of mystery, ready for the hatching.  With OVO (Portuguese for egg), the Cirque du Soleil, a storied Canadian company fallen on hard times and dormant for two … Continue reading →

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The dismantling of decorum: A Grand Time in the Rapids, an ingenious Teatro farce

Posted on July 9, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca A newcomer — a properly composed English lady, in high heels and a frock — explains at the outset of A Grand Time in the Rapids that she’s crossed the Atlantic and come to Grand Rapids, … Continue reading →

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Sexual assault, scorched earth, and the fire that burns: Smoke, a review

Posted on June 25, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Smoke is both of the air and the earth. And so is Elena Belyea’s challenging and elusive play, getting its Edmonton premiere at Co*Lab in a Tiny Bear Jaws production with two casts.   Smoke is … Continue reading →

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‘Immigrants get the job done’: Hamilton’s finally here, in a first-rate touring production

Posted on June 23, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Hamilton: it’s epic. It’s crazy rich in its language, music, and theatricality. And it explodes onto the stage with an offer, no, a demand, to focus both history and musical theatre from the outsider perspective. It’s … Continue reading →

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Sex in the city, hypocrite puritans, corrupt politicians … who’s ever heard of that? Measure For Measure in the park

Posted on June 16, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The opening image of Nancy McAlear’s production of Measure For Measure, the Freewill Shakespeare Festival’s companion piece to A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Hawrelak Park this summer, is a male pole dancer in a cage. It’s … Continue reading →

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More about folly than love: A Midsummer Night’s Dream brings Freewill Shakespeare back to the park. A review

Posted on June 15, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “Blow blow thou winter wind…”  oops, wrong play.  After two years of wandering the town in small-cast entertainments, the Freewill Shakespeare Festival is back on the big stage in Hawrelak Park. And on Tuesday’s blustery, unremittingly … Continue reading →

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