Toronto theatre

[Shelley Scott]

Hi all:
 
Adding to Kathy Chung's extensive listing of upcoming productions in
Toronto, here's another:
 
Nightwood Theatre presents "Mango Chutney" by Dilara Ally at The Music
Gallery, March 8-30, 1996.
And, their 11th Annual Groundswell Festival of new works by women will
be held May 8-12 at the Factory Studio Cafe.
 
Nightwood, as many of you know, is a feminist theatre company thats
been around since 1979. (its also the subject of my thesis!)
Dilara Ally did her MA at the Graduate Drama Centre at the U of T a
couple of years ago, and her play was done at Groundswell last year
and is now getting a full production.
 
And now for my mini-review: I saw "The Indian Medicine Shows" at
Theatre Passe Muraille last weekend and had mixed feelings about it. I
liked the plays themselves, the set and most of the acting, but I
found Colin Taylor's direction a little heavy-handed. It seems to me
that, with work that is already so highly emotionally charged, one
really doesn't need an emotionally-loaded sound design  on top of it.
Taylor co-designed the sound with Dominic Giovinazzo, and while I
think his use of a recurring soundscape has worked well in previous
shows (last year's "The America Play" was great), here it seemed
....well, overkill.
Anybody else see it and violently disagree?
 
- Shelley Scott
University of Toronto