At loose ends (this weekend)

One of the down sides of being just a bit manic in going out and doing arts and theatre almost every weekend is that when you suddenly have a "down" weekend, it feels strange.  What is even stranger, however, is when you plan on setting aside some time for an event, and then it doesn't come to pass.  I had expected to be driving to Peterborough on Sunday to catch Les Belles Soeurs, and it turns out they are only doing it next weekend, and I will have to go on Sat.  First off, I am a bit concerned that the weather may turn on me (this weekend is chilly but no meaningful snow).  If the forecast is correct, next Saturday will probably still be clear, but it is going to be very, very cold (-13 C), so I am definitely holding off for a bit to be sure I want to go under those conditions.

Anyway, that means that while I have plenty to do this weekend -- work, cooking, getting back to sewing the curtains, it doesn't look like there is any theatre that I want to see.  The Cherry Orchard is just not enough of a draw (and they seem determined not to offer any discounted tickets).  It really does seem that the main theatre critic at The Toronto Star has indeed retired, and I was sort of counting on him to indicate if there was any merit in this production, but I've pretty much decided to skip it.

Salt-Water Moon hasn't opened at Factory Theatre, and I have to say that the way they have decided to rework the play "through an intercultural lens" does not appeal to me.  I have complicated feelings about race-blind casting.  Many (but not all) of the characters in my plays really are written for a performer of a specific race or ethnicity.  That's a bit different from what they are up to here at Factory, where I think of this as somewhere between stunt casting and revising the play (without French's express permission, as he is dead).  If they just change the costumes and leave the lines alone, then how is this meaningful?  These Asian characters would never have been living in Newfoundland right after WWI.  So I just don't find this appealing at all.  I'll check the reviews, but at this point I plan to pass.

I briefly considered Chelsea Hotel over at Theatre Passe Muraille, but I just wasn't blown away by the singing in the video clip, and the tickets are not cheap.  So that's out.

I was hoping to check out the Two-Character Play over at Tarragon or Richard III also at Tarragon this weekend, but neither has opened.

It is odd knowing just how much is coming down the road, but just having to wait.  (I found that the Royal Conservatory has sort of put their season up though it is so vague that you basically just have to trust them that the concerts will be interesting.  I could only tell for certain that they were doing Mendelssohn's Octet and Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.  Both chestnuts, but I'll probably go anyway.)

So I think this will be an event-less weekend for once, though as I said, I do have plenty to get done.  If I do have some time left over, I should work on my short story for the contest.