Wellington Oracle

Review by Gilda Furgiuele; photo credit Paul Toogood

In Zadie’s Shoes playwright Adam Pettle presents us with the spiritual journey of Benjamin, a compulsive gambler who risks everything to satisfy his addiction. Pettle centers Benjamin’s journey around faith – faith in himself, his loved ones, and his religious tradition. It’s a large theme, and a daunting task for any playwright.

Pettle sets about the job by having his story revolve around a group of Torontonians in their thirties; three sisters and the men in their lives. The protagonist gets into trouble as he gambles away the money for an “alternative” cancer clinic in Mexico that one of the sisters, his girlfriend, had been saving for. With only a few days to get it back and his options dwindling by the hour, Ben – capably played by Aaron Willis – turns to any path that might lead him out of his predicament. Meanwhile, Ben’s girlfriend, Ruth, is facing challenges as she tries to come to grips with her illness and her family’s reaction to it. With something as serious as cancer it is not strange to find that family may not react in the way expected, and Ruth’s sisters express their emotional responses in vastly different ways. (more…)

So says Liza Zanyk, co-artistic director of Chamber Theatre, and she’s talking about that company’s ongoing project to produce live theatre in both of Hintonburg’s authentic historic taverns, the Carleton and the Elmdale House.

She tells us more about how it all works in the audio below, recorded when the Oracle caught up with Chamber in rehearsal at the Elmdale House recently. The rehearsal itself made for a view that just may have never been seen before in an Ottawa tavern; picture a man and woman wrestling and arguing on double bed plunked square in the middle of a barroom floor while the regulars drink and talk and occasionally shoot a glance over at the actor’s antics. From time to time action stops as a thespian calls “line” or the director gives notes. It is no small tribute to the establishment’s confident management, after a few minutes this remarkable scene just seemed like business as usual at the Elmdale. (more…)

 

 Lisa Zanyk and Donnie Laflamme: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Review by Kel Parsons, photo credit Richard Ellis

A play that stands as a cultural artefact of its era can be a double-edged sword. It may present a lively portrait of its time that resonates with later audiences, or it may simply become a dated curiosity. In some cases, it may float between these two points, drawing directors, actors and audiences to it cyclically. John Osborne’s 1956 play Look Back in Anger is such a work. Osborne, one of the so-called Angry Young Men of mid-century British literature (the English media also applied the term to his contemporaries Kingsley Amis and Alan Sillitoe, among others), presented British audiences with something they truly hadn’t seen before—scenes of domestic rebellion again the dreary, hemmed-in life lived by thousands of Britons in the post-war period, but never previously examined in art. The play’s frank mentions of sex, its casual misogyny, its vicious critique of class—all these were novelties to audiences used to mannered melodrama, measured morality tales, and farce. (more…)

Despite the fact that cosmetic use of pesticides will be banned across Ontario in 2009 and that residents of Kitchissippi ward voted for a city councilor who supported a municipal ban on pesticides, the property management company in charge of the landscape maintenance at 1277 Wellington recently arranged for an application of a powerful 2-4-D containing pesticide to be sprayed a few feet away from a outdoor patio popular with families with small children and dog-walkers.

A resident alerted the Oracle about the smell of pesticides the day after the spraying and the management firm was contacted by us to determine if pesticide spraying was the ongoing policy of the company. A spokesperson for Apollo Property Management agreed to provide the Oracle with the company’s policy on pesticide use but as of posting time no further information has been forthcoming.

Back in June we published a story on the “guerrilla gardening” project that brightened up the dreary vacant lot on the site of the old Caisse Populaire on Wellington Street across from Church of St. Francis.

This time the attack took the form of bright fall knitwear bedecking poles and various other nooks and crannies for several blocks along the Hintonburg stretch of the main street. (photos by Evana Smith )

And this time we caught the subversives — if not red-handed, at least in broad daylight — shamelessly recounting their exploits. Click on the audio below to hear the leader of the group broadcast the group’s manifesto.

 

 Guerrilla Knitters: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Prime Minister Harper has been asked to take his campaign for re-election to Hintonburg’s gallery row courtesy of an invitation from impresario Don Monet of the Cube Gallery.

The invitation arrived in Harper’s inbox a few days after his disparaging remarks about the Canadian arts community made front-page news across the country.

In response to the Prime Minister’s remarks –and the $45 million in federal cuts to arts funding– Monet has announced plans for the “Un-Subsidized Arts Gala” to be held at the Cube this upcoming Monday (October 6.)

In the clip below Monet makes a passionate defense of spending on arts and in the process reveals how much the Cube itself has received from cultural funding since its inception three years ago.

 

 Unsubsidized Gals: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The “new” Elmdale House Tavern is still surprising first-time visitors almost a year after being taken over by the energetic duo of Bruce and Nathalie Myles.

For years a depressing “no-go” zone under the previous management, the Elmdale had long been the kind of place people would pop their heads into, take one sniff, and scurry away from. (more…)

 

 Elmdale House: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download