This Week in Theatre: Divisadero, In the Heights, Zero Hour, Hughie, Visiting Mr. Green
This week in theatre rounds up the most noteworthy live theatre playing right now in Toronto. It includes just-opened shows as well as productions that are about to close.
Divisadero: A Performance / Theatre Passe Muraille / 8:00pm/2:00pm / $25-$35
A remount of the 2011 run, Divisadero: A Performance is a collaboration between Michael Ondaatje and Daniel Brooks — a pairing that's hard to beat. Ondaatje has adapted his novel Divisadero, a story that considers the influence of the past on the present, into a performance that's part musical, part poetry, part drama. It's not a play, in the traditional sense of the word, but it's bound to be thought-provoking.
In the Heights / Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts / 7:30pm/2:00pm / $50+
Dancap brings yet another Tony Award winning musical to Toronto with In The Heights. Set in a Latino neighbourhood in the Washington Heights district of New York City, the musical plays on familiar Broadway tropes as it blends together the dreams and aspirations of the characters that inhabit the heights with upbeat hip hop and Latin music. The 2008 Tony Award winner is in the city for a two week engagement.
Zero Hour / Bathurst Street Theatre / 8:00pm/3:00pm / $60+
You might not be familiar with the name Zero Mostel, the inspiration for the solo-show now back in Toronto, but you're bound to have come in contact with his work. He played Pseudolus on screen in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Max Bialystock in the original film version of The Producers, and Tevye on stage in Fiddler on the Roof. Playwright Jim Brochu, who garnered rave reviews for his portrayal the first time around, stars in the play.
Hughie / Theatre Centre / 8:00pm/2:00pm / $20-$25
The Alley Theatre Workshop brings us one of Eugene O'Neill's finest one-act plays, Hughie. In the two-hander, small-time hustler Erie and Charlie, a hotel night clerk, lament the death of Charlie's predecessor, the character for which the play is named. Hughie was the only surviving manuscript from a series of eight one-act plays that O'Neill planned in 1940. Set in the lobby of a seedy New York hotel, the play features Michael Kash and Dean Ifill with direction by David Ferry.
Visiting Mr. Green / Jane Mallett Theatre / 8:00pm/2:00pm / $40-$70
In Visiting Mr. Green, a young corporate executive found guilty of reckless driving is ordered to spend six months visiting the senior citizen he almost ran over. I'm not sure in which court room these decisions are handed down, but I'm sure it makes for decent drama. The Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company presents the play — billed as a comedy about friendship, family, and forgiveness — until February 18.
The Rhubarb Festival also kicks off this week at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Look for a full festival preview to follow.
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