PEI Community Theatre Festival

Review by Sean McQuaid

Moving back to his PEI birthplace has often made this writer feel old. Ancient, even. As if his daughter’s occasional talk of “Daddy crumbling into dust” (inspired by a movie mummy’s fate she once witnessed) were more factual than fanciful.

That feeling is often keenest in theatrical settings. Mature figures have always loomed large in PEI
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Relatively Speaking
ACT production

Review by Sean McQuaid

A funny thing happened on the way to a theatre classic. When British playwright Alan Ayckbourn wrote his romantic comedy Meet My Father in 1965, he had no great expectations for its success. On the verge of giving up writing altogether at the time, he finished the script in a little over a week, later describing it as “easy and glib”
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The Taming of the Shrew

Review by Sean McQuaid

Your rickety reviewer has loved Shakespeare's plays for decades, and finds something to enjoy in just about all of them -- but The Taming of the Shrew, recently staged by UPEI's Vagabond Productions, just might be the guiltiest pleasure of the bunch.

Penned by theatrical icon William Shakespeare circa 1590-1591, this romantic comedy is much admired
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The Taming of the Shrew

Review by Sean McQuaid

Your rickety reviewer has loved Shakespeare's plays for decades, and finds something to enjoy in just about all of them -- but The Taming of the Shrew, recently staged by UPEI's Vagabond Productions, just might be the guiltiest pleasure of the bunch.

Penned by theatrical icon William Shakespeare circa 1590-1591, this romantic comedy is much admired
read more…

The Attic, The Pearls & Three Fine Girls

Review by Sean McQuaid

Good or bad or somewhere in between, nobody pushes your buttons more effectively than a sibling—and in exploring the love-hate relationships of three grown sisters, The Attic, The Pearls & Three Fine Girls pushes more buttons than George Jetson.

A bitingly funny, sometimes dark, often silly and surprisingly touching
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Buddy—The Buddy Holly Story

Review by Sean McQuaid

Buddy—The Buddy Holly Story was a big hit for the Charlottetown Festival last year, so its return to the Confederation Centre of the Arts this year was a pleasant non-surprise.

Written by Alan Janes with Rob Bettinson in 1989, “the world’s most popular rock & roll musical” chronicles the life and songs of pioneering rock music star
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A Doll’s House

Review by Sean McQuaid

The Montgomery Theatre’s 2011 season ends much as it began, with another innovative new production of a grand old stage classic.

Written by Norway’s Henrik Ibsen in 1879, A Doll’s House has been adapted into many languages since then, the latest being a new adaptation done especially for this production by Montgomery’s artistic director, Duncan McIntosh.

The
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The Full Monty

Review by Sean McQuaid

Your rickety reviewer being quasi-prudish, he somewhat hesitantly sampled the Charlottetown Festival’s production of The Full Monty, a risqué musical about unemployed factory workers turned male strippers.

As expected, the show bares enough bums to awkwardly redefine the old Top Hat song about dancing cheek to cheek, though strategically employed
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Popalopalots

Review by Sean McQuaid

Who or what are the Popalopalots? They're a new comedy troupe full of faces both familiar and fresh, and perhaps the future of Island improv.

In the thrilling days of yesteryear when your overdramatic observer was markedly less ancient, PEI was awash in improv troupes, notably the fantastic 4Play: Rob MacDonald, Rob MacLean, Matt Rainnie and Ed Rashed.

Alas,
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An Inspector Calls

Review by Sean McQuaid

The Montgomery Theatre’s fourth season has started splendidly. It’s partly packaging—recent renovations have made the company’s Rustico venue a far prettier picture than before, both inside and out. But the real treat is the package’s contents, quality drama, starting with a superbly spooky mystery: An Inspector Calls, written by English author
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Proof
ACT production

Review by Sean McQuaid

Watching ACT mount Proof at the Guild, your antediluvian observer recalled an early 1990s Barbie doll controversy. The talking doll in question spouted various prerecorded phrases, notably lamenting the difficulty of math class.

“Amen sister,” says the math-phobic theatre critic. But as an unimpressed 1990s public protested, Barbie’s math anxiety
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The Magdalene Variations
Vagabond Productions

Review by Sean McQuaid

Will the real Mary Magdalene please stand up? The Magdalene Variations asks that question by dramatizing tales of the titular saint’s life in a thoughtful and unexpectedly entertaining way.

Staged by UPEI’s Vagabond Productions, written by Drs. Greg Doran and Catherine Innes-Parker and directed by Doran, the play is an
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