2013-2014
AFTER SHAKESPEARE
Written by: Harry Standjofski
Directed by: Stéphane Zarov
Performance Dates
September 19 – 21, 2013
After Shakespeare is a conglomeration of contemporary miniatures by Montreal playwright Harry Standjofski. Imagine a makeshift world in which many of the Bard’s greatest plays appear with the plastic freedom and “sense of play” inherent to the Elizabethan stage: Glimpses of “Measure for Measure”, “Hamlet”, and “Romeo and Juliet” suddenly appear beside Othello and Macbeth. Swiftly, this is mixed with the cross-dressing gender-bending farces of “Two Gentlemen of Verona” and “Twelfth Night”. With these sparsely trimmed and modernized impressions, Standjofski recreates a journey not unlike Shakespeare’s own as he traversed the raw internecine conflict of his history plays to the forgiveness and reconciliation of his later romances. Begun as a pedagogical exercise meant for Standjofski’s acting students at Concordia University, After Shakespeare developed into an extraordinary homage to our most beloved playwright.
THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE
Written by: Bertolt Brecht
Directed by: Gary Plaxton
Performance Dates
September 26 – 28, 2013
The “Caucasian Chalk Circle” is a parable about a peasant girl who rescues a baby and becomes a better mother than its natural parents. One of German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht’s most important plays, this work is quintessentially “epic theatre” – an example of the non-realistic “dialectical theatre” for which Brecht was so well-known. Derived from a 14th Century Chinese work by Li Xingdao, the play explores social justice and rightful ownership through music and story-telling in true Brechtian fashion.
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
Written by: William Shakespeare
Directed by: Winston Sutton
Performance Dates
November 11 – 23, 2013
The “Merry Wives of Windsor” is a lively comical romp featuring one of Shakespeare’s greatest characters: Sir John Falstaff. When Falstaff decides he will court two married women, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, to help him out of a tight financial spot, he becomes the laughing stock of the town as he is playfully duped by all those he tries to deceive. Set amongst the middle classes in Elizabethan England in Castle Windsor and the surrounding Windsor Forest, this delightful comedy looks at love and marriage, jealousy and revenge, and the prejudices of social classes. Lots of amusement is had by all through the course of plots and counter-plots, mistaken identities, dumps in the river and pinching fairies, until at last we see young lovers unite and the world set right again. Winston Sutton directs Dawson’s First Major Production of the Season.
LION IN THE STREETS
Written by: Judith Thompson
Directed by: Barbara Kelly
Performance Dates
January 29 – February 8, 2014
“Lion in the Streets” is a hauntingly beautiful play by one of Canada’s greatest and most prolific playwrights, Judith Thompson. Set in various neighbourhoods in Toronto in the early 90s, the central character is the ghost of a nine-year-old Portuguese girl named Isobel, who had been brutally murdered seventeen years earlier. Isobel wanders the streets trying to make sense of the past, the imponderables of evil, and the hearts and souls of the humanity she witnesses. With brutal honesty, Thompson carves out a nightmare world of rage and pain mixed with the promise of grace and redemption. Barbara Kelly directs Thompson’s Canadian classic with great sensitivity and tender compassion, in the Dawson Professional Theatre Department’s second Major Production of the season.
SURPRISE!
Written by: Fred Carmichael
Directed by: Winston Sutton
Performance Dates
March 13 – 15, 2014
Ella Wimsley is an ancient, retired actress who never forgets her featured role in a silent film called “The Red Bonnet”. Nevertheless, she dares to abandon her former glory and launch a new career as the owner and manager of a Vermont Inn. Complications arise on the Opening Weekend: Ella is mistaken for a chiropractor’s mistress, a writer friend concocts a plan to save a good marriage, the chiropractor develops amnesia, Ella’s granddaughter stops by with her hippie boyfriend, and a missing patient from a local looney bin tries to discover who he is. “Surprise!” is a farcical romp replete with gag lines and slamming doors, misunderstandings and close calls.
MIDDLETOWN
Written by: Will Eno
Directed by: Jude Beny
Performance Dates
March 6 – 8, 2014
Will Eno’s new play “Middletown” is an unforgettable and insightful meditation on the human condition in a small town. Buoyed by comic moments, it fully captures the bittersweet feeling of being alive. Cop and mechanic, plumber, doctor and librarian, all dispense piercing observations about life, death and existence as if sharing an ordinary bit of gossip about the town drunk. With delicate and moving language, they articulate the fear and anxiety in their souls with casual acknowledgement, as if the cosmic silence and the nibbling despair is just another part of everyday life. This is a profoundly beautiful play about detachment and isolation, lingering loss and joy as ordinary people engage in the struggle to make a connection.
THE HISTORY BOYS
Written by: Alan Bennett
Directed by: W. Steven Lecky
Performance Dates
Thursday, April 24 -26, 2014
“The History Boys” is Alan Bennett’s award-winning drama revolving around a group of eighteen-year-old boys studying at a grammar school in the north of England. Set in the early 80s, these spirited students are working their way towards a place at Oxford or Cambridge, as they pursue knowledge, fun, sport and sex. They are guided by three professors: The maverick English teacher is at odds with the young and shrewd supply teacher, while the ambitious headmaster obsesses over results and the brilliant and eccentric history teacher stirs up more trouble. Adapted into a film in 2006, this sharp-witted and gut-wrenching drama promises to be smart, funny, touching and true.
LES BELLES SOEURS
Written by: Michel Tremblay
Directed by: Carolyn Guillet
Performance Dates
Thursday, May 1 – 3, 2014
Michel Tremblay transformed Québec theatre when “Les Belles Soeurs” hit the stage in 1968, by daring to portray working class women doing working class things, speaking in the joyous, raucous language of the people. Germaine, a Montreal housewife, wins a million Gold Star stamps entitling her to an entire catalogue full of free merchandise. But first, she needs to get all those stamps pasted into little booklets! All the women in the extended family, including in-laws, and neighbours, are invited over to help. As they stick, they argue about the men in their lives, the church, what’s right, what’s wrong, who’s got it good, who’s got it bad, and how they all love bingo.
