This week it appears three local theatres are opening their doors to new productions.
Theatre Prospero, with a decade’s worth of experience as a touring Shakespearean troupe, has a two-day run of King Lear, a tragedy that not only looks at misshaped family dynamics, but the corruption of absolute authority and power.
Lear is a vain ruler who relinquishes his responsibilities to his daughters while trying to keep power and authority. But in doing so, the stable, hierarchal order falls apart and the kingdom is awash in chaos.
Directed by Mark Henderson, this brutal play full of human cruelty finds the characters battered by physical and mental storms — blindness, betrayal and madness.
And in a true Shakespearean fashion, the six-member cast, including Legal’s Jöelle PrĂ©fontaine, will play double roles. PrĂ©fontaine takes a crack at Oswald, a steward, and Edmund, the illegitimate son of nobleman who resents his bastard status and plots to usurp his father and older half-brother.
King Lear runs Friday, April 23 and Saturday, April 24 at 7:30 p.m. at Avenue Theatre, 9030 – 118 Ave. Tickets are $12.60. Call 780-420-1757 or purchase online at www.tixonthesquare.ca.
The avant-garde theatre junkies at Serial Collective are partnering with Azimuth Theatre for a doomsday lunch with a menu of gossip, backstabbing and heaping plate of self-indulgence.
Director Garrett Spelliscy presents the world premiere of Jason Chinn’s Ladies Who Lynch, a scathing and mocking attack on North America and the monsters that live in suburbs.
Judith and her cronies Maureen and Francine can’t wait to meet for lovely lunches at their favourite bistro. This time around the bubble-brained Judith is eager to share her latest scheme. She’s sworn off the news, papers, magazines and news programs. Why waste time watching the news when you can go Internet shopping?
But a waitress that ignores them spoils their frivolous lunch. Judith is not used to waiting for anyone and she snaps right around the same time civilization around them collapses.
Ladies Who Lynch runs April 22 to 25, April 3 to May 2 and May 7 to 9 at 8 p.m. at The Living Room Playhouse, 11315 – 106 Ave. Tickets are pay-what-you-will.
Unlike schlocky retirement commercials, seniors’ lives can be laced with pain when encountering their mortality as witnessed in Workshop West’s new production Dry the Rain running April 23 to May 2.
Agnes (Patricia Casey) and Clayton (John Wright), a pair of life-long rebels, are forced into a retirement home after he breaks his hip. While Agnes accepts the new situation, Clayton refuses to take things lying down.
Unwilling to give up without a fight, the cantankerous Clayton takes on everyone, even as his memory and body grow weaker.
Award-winning playwright Mark Stubbings uses his irreverent brand of humour to explore the things that give us identity — memory, independence, mates and home.
Dry the Rain is performed at La CitĂ© Francophone, 8627 – 91 St. Tickets are adults $25, students/seniors $20. Tuesdays is pay-what-you-can and Sundays is two-for-one. Call 780-477-5955 or purchase online at www.workshopwest.org.
