Theatre almost back to normal

I would say theatre in Toronto is pretty close to its pre-pandemic levels, though a few companies folded (East Side Players) and a few have gone pretty dormant (Nightwood, Shakespeare Bash'd).  Tarragon was one of the slower to return to live performance but it looks like the next season will be back to normal.  Canadian Stage is only doing one (rather than two) Shakespeare play in High Park (As You Like It), which I'll probably skip.  Fringe was definitely a bit scaled back (and they did a terrible job of notifying people about the Audience Pick shows on Sunday), but it's definitely moving in the right direction.  Summerworks is definitely moving hard into non-traditional programming, and I am not too interested in where they are going, but I might see a show or two perhaps.  That's pretty much the same story with Theatre Centre, where I really struggle to find anything that appeals to me.  But on the whole, I've managed to see a lot of good to great theatre, and I'm glad it's back.

One thing that has been a bit harder to find is random Shakespeare comedies and tragedies.  Often smaller companies throw these things up in the summer as there are no rights to worry about, and it's almost guaranteed to find an audience.  I was really hoping to take my son to Macbeth or Romeo & Juliet, but no dice this summer.  I see that a small company is staging The Merchant of Venice at Red Sandcastle.  I don't like this play much at all and haven't decided whether I will go in the end. Interestingly, it turns out that Bard on the Beach (in Vancouver) is being ultra conservative this summer.  For all of June and July, they were only programming Midsummer's Night's Dream and then in August, they added Romeo and Juliet in repertory.  That's a bit too conservative for me.

Then I took a look to see what is going on up in Ottawa, where my son is heading shortly.  I have to say the scene is pretty dire.  GCTC is the main professional theatre, and it only puts on plays by Canadians.  On top of that, it is dedicated to showcasing non-traditional artists, which can go too far to the point it is pretty alienating to mainstream audiences, which is certainly where I find myself.  I was not at all surprised to see they are featuring Cliff Cardinal's radical rethinking of As You Like It.  Well, surprise it isn't any hot take of As You Like It but rather a 90 minute discussion about land acknowledgements.  For some perverse reason Mirvish is also putting this on but has at least been slightly more honest with its audience, but I think they are going to get a ton of complaints and will decide this was a bad idea.  (On a side note, Sky Gilbert is doing a pretty radical revision of Titus Andronicus, stripping it down to one hour, but this actually sounds pretty interesting.)  I'd say the only company that really catches my eye is Ottawa Little Theatre, and I'd probably see this new Norm Foster comedy if I happened to be in town, but I certainly wouldn't go up to Ottawa just to check it out...

So all in all, it's definitely better to be in Toronto than Vancouver or Ottawa if one is looking for theatre.  That said, I don't even want to see what is going on in New York or especially Chicago, as I don't want to bring myself down.