Silly Little Country

Win Some, Lose Some - Subscription Series

We subscribe to a pretty full Canadian Stage Theatre season each year - part of the point of subscription is to forcibly be exposed to shows one would not otherwise choose to watch.

This can have wonderful effects. One of the best shows we have seen in this context was Leslie Arden's "House of Martin Guerre". It is inconceivable that we would have bought tickets individually for that show.

Much the same is true perhaps of "Cookin' at the Cookery", the first Jackie Richarson show we saw as part of a series there. It was wonderful, not just for Jackie Richarson, but largely because of her.

I regard her as a Toronto theatre spectacular resource.

Her show last year, based on the music of Fats Waller, "Ain't Misbehavin'", was also delightful.

But this year's show made me think Canadian Stage just offers her a show, whatever show. This show had a concept, "Crowns" - where the crowns are the hats - so crowns - worn by black women in the US South - and the concept had promise. But there are many shows whose concept outdid the implementation. And so I thought last weekend watching it was the case here. Wow, many of those people could sing, especially Jackie Richardson. But someone needed a real concept and a coherent script, and I saw no hint of that.

Overall it seemed a mess to me.

The superb highlight - - WOW!! Could he sing and do everything. Sterling Jarvis! That boy deserves a career on the stage.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 7:23 PM