Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Toronto, ON – This June, Luminato Festival celebrates the enduring power of the singular storyteller with some of today’s best artists in 7 Monologues, a festival within the Festival showcasing voices from around the world. On stage June 20 and 21 at the Harbourfront Centre Theatre (235 Queen’s Quay W.) and Fleck Dance Theatre (207 Queen’s Quay W.), the curated series offers a kaleidoscope of seven individual narratives told through movement, music, imagery and figures of speech.
“From the wordlessness of the hottest Brazilian choreographic star Eduardo Fukushima, to the otherworldliness of Sylvia Plath’s poetry in the voice of Charlotte Rampling against the music of Benjamin Britten, we’ve put together a dynamic collection of stories told in many different ways,” said Jorn Weisbrodt, Artistic Director, Luminato Festival. “7 Monologues is a journey, and you can make one stop or two – but we hope you’ll travel around the globe with two days of intimate experiences made up of some of the most exciting artists in contemporary performance.”
Award-winning stage and screen actress Charlotte Rampling and renowned French cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton perform the works of Benjamin Britten and Sylvia Plath in The Night Dances. With Who Killed Spalding Gray? acclaimed Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor brings a new solo work to Toronto. Musician Christine Fellows and visual artist Shary Boyle collaborate once more in Spell to Bring Lost Creatures Home. In Dolor Exquisito (Exquisite Pain) artist Emilio Garcia Wehbi and Biutiful actress Maricel Álvarez reinterpret the words of French artist Sophie Calle. The Referendum, a retelling of El Plebiscito - Chile’s campaign of hope and the foundation for Pablo Larrain’s 2012 Oscar-nominated film No - is read by its multi-award winning author Antonio Skármeta. Between Contentions and How to Overcome the Great Tiredness is a mesmerizing solo dance performance by rising Brazilian star and dancer-choreographer Eduardo Fukushima, and SPAM, dubbed a ‘spoken opera,’ is a multimedia performance by renowned Buenos Aires director, playwright and actor Rafael Spregelburd.
7 Monologues can be seen individually but are best consumed en masse over the weekend in a two-day theatrical pilgrimage – the seven shows in the program will be performed twice each over two days, and have been programmed to allow ambitious audience members to see all seven. Tickets can be purchased individually (from $29), or in a package – patrons who purchase tickets to four or five performances will receive a 15% discount, patrons who purchase six or more will receive a 25% discount.
Special, outdoor food service provided by Harbourfront Centre's World Café gives you the perfect opportunity to play and dine all day. Food can be pre-ordered at luminatofestival.com or purchased in-person, on site. Audience members can convene between shows at the Luminato Festival Tent at the Waterfront located beside Canada Square to relax and enjoy a snack and a drink with a side of free music. The Harbourfront Centre Theatre, and Fleck Dance Theatre are right across from each other on the Harbourfront Centre grounds.
Synopses, schedule and show details for 7 Monologues are outlined below.
The 10 day Luminato Festival (June 19 to 28) features a number of free and ticketed events. Tickets can be purchased 24/7 at luminatofestival.com or by calling the Luminato Festival Box Office at 416-368-4849 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday, or in person The Festival Hub Box Office at David Pecaut Square (55 John St.) from June 19 to 28, from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Ticket savings are available for youth (18 and under), students, arts workers and groups (10+), or by bundling four or more events in a ticket package. For full ticketing details, dates, times and prices, please visit luminatofestival.com.
Luminato Festival programming details can be found at: http://www.luminatofestival.com
Luminato Festival presents
7 Monologues
June 20 and 21
Harbourfront Centre Theatre & Fleck Dance Theatre
$19 to $39; plus taxes and service charges
Patrons who purchase 4-5 7 Monologues shows save 15%
Patrons who purchase 6+ 7 Monologues shows save 25%
Tickets can be purchased online at luminatofestival.com or by calling 416-368-4849
For more information visit luminatofestival.com
Twitter: @Luminato
Facebook: Luminato Festival
Instagram: @LuminatoFestival
Hashtag: #Luminato; #7Monologues
Synopses + Schedule
7 Monologues: The Night Dances
Saturday, June 20 8:00pm-9:30pm; Sunday, June 21 4:00pm-5:30pm
Fleck Dance Theatre
Created and performed by actress Charlotte Rampling and musician Sonia Wieder-Atherton
Featuring the music of Benjamin Britten and the poetry of Sylvia Plath, award-winning stage and screen actress Charlotte Rampling and renowned French cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton join forces to bring the words of American poet Sylvia Plath and the music of composer Benjamin Britten to life. Originally written for Russian cellist Rostropovitch, Wieder-Atherton plays selections from Britten’s Cello Suites as Rampling shares a new interpretation of Plath’s iconic, darkly humorous poetry.
“Music and poetry mingle with equal force in The Night Dances ... Charlotte Rampling gives transfixing recitations of poems by Sylvia Plath” — The New York Times
7 Monologues: Who Killed Spalding Gray?
Saturday, June 20 5:45pm; Sunday, June 21 6:00pm
Harbourfront Centre Theatre
Written and performed by Daniel MacIvor and directed by Daniel Brooks
On the weekend of January 11, 2004, celebrated American monologist Spalding Gray ended his life by jumping off the Staten Island Ferry in New York. That same weekend, on the other side of the country, acclaimed Canadian playwright and Governor General Award-winner Daniel MacIvor was spending three days in California in a series of sessions with a man who had offered to save his life. Linking these two real stories is a fiction derived from the obsessions of Gray and the inventions of MacIvor about a man named How who had forgotten how to live. A solo performance about truth and lies and the four most important things in life, from one of our country’s most noteworthy playwrights.
“MacIvor channels, transcends Gray.” — The Chronicle Herald (Halifax)
Saturday, June 20 12:15pm-2:15pm; Sunday, June 21 8:30pm-10:30pm
Fleck Dance Theatre – In Spanish and English with English surtitles
Written and performed by Rafael Spregelburd
Dubbed a “spoken opera” by the Buenos Aires Herald, SPAM tells the story of a Neapolitan professor and linguist who loses his memory. Performed by Rafael Spregelburd, a Buenos Aires-based playwright, director, actor and translator, and one of the most important figures in contemporary Argentinean theatre, with live music by long-time collaborator Zypce, this multimedia performance explores the many uses of the World Wide Web as Spregelburd (as the professor) attempts to reassemble his memory using the Internet. While the form and content of his memories fluctuate as they get lost in the inter-media translations, SPAM reveals that the closer technology brings us together, the more it threatens to pull us apart. Later this summer, Spregelburd will also present some of his writing at the prestigious Festival D’Avignon.
“This delirious and stimulating play showcases the power of theatre in small formats.” — Buenos Aires Herald
Saturday, June 20 4:30-5:30pm; Sunday, June 21 1:00pm-2:00pm
Fleck Dance Theatre – In English
Written and performed by Antonio Skármeta
A reading of El Plebiscito: the campaign of hope that ended Augusto Pinochet's Chilean regime in 1988 and the foundation for Pablo Larrain’s 2012 Oscar-nominated film “No” starring Gael García Bernal.
After 15 years in power, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet asked his people to vote in a national referendum to decide if he should remain in power for the next eight years. What followed were two heavily motivated political campaigns trying to win the hearts and minds of the Chilean people. The “no” side launched one of the most ambitious campaigns ever seen in political history, focusing on hope. They used a rainbow to represent the diversity of Chile, creating unity in a nation that was being divided by the vote. Award-winning writer (recipient of Chile’s National Literature Prize in 2014, and of the Premio Iberoamericano Planeta-Casa de América de Narrativa in 2011) Antonio Skármeta wrote a play about this campaign of hope called El Plebiscito, later used as the basis for Pablo Larrain’s 2012 Oscar-nominated film No. In this monologue, Skármeta will present a reading of the play accompanied by a local Chilean band and dancer as he tells the story of the political revolution that changed the course of a nation.
7 Monologues: Spell to Bring Lost Creatures Home
Saturday, June 20 11:00am-12:00pm; Sunday, June 21 2:30pm-3:30pm
Harbourfront Centre Theatre
Created and performed by musician Christine Fellows and visual artist Shary Boyle
Canadian musician Christine Fellows and visual artist Shary Boyle merge their mediums to create a unique performance that pairs Fellows’ stirring folk sensibilities with Boyle’s lo-fi style using handmade cut-outs and an overhead projector. Their new piece, Spell to Bring Lost Creatures Home, is a handcrafted spectacle, presented as a series of vignettes as seen through a window. While Fellows performs solo, Boyle works in tandem animating cut-outs with movement to create an interdisciplinary duet between the two performers.
Part ritual and part myth, Boyle and Fellows, collaborators since 2005, use sound, lyric, image and light to tell stories that reconnect us with a sense of shared history and common humanity.
“You emerge from this show as if waking from a dream.” — The Globe and Mail, on Fellows’ and Boyle’s collaboration Everything Under the Moon
7 Monologues: Dolor Exquisito (Exquisite Pain)
Saturday, June 20 10:00pm-11:35pm; Sunday, June 21 11:30am-12:35pm
Harbourfront Centre Theatre – In Spanish with English surtitles
Created and performed by Maricel Álvarez and Emilio García Wehbi
Written by Sophie Calle
French artist Sophie Calle was stood up. Planning to meet her lover in New Delhi, she arrived to a telegram informing her that he was not coming. Calle continued on her trip, but it was coloured by the pain of heartbreak. Upon her return to Paris, she asked people she knew about their own experiences with pain and suffering. By mirroring her heartbreak with the grief of others, her pain began to dissipate.
“The worse the break-up, the better the art.” — The Guardian
Interdisciplinary artist Emilio García Wehbi and actress Maricel Álvarez (who appeared in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Oscar-nominated drama Biutiful starring Javier Bardem, winning a feature in Indiewire’s Breakthrough Female Performances of 2010, and Woody Allen’s 2012 film To Rome with Love) reinterpret Calle’s work by combining theatre, photographs and film in a multimedia piece capturing the enigmatic loneliness of pain and how it connects us.
7 Monologues: Between Contentions and How to Overcome the Great Tiredness?
Saturday, June 20 2:30pm-3:30pm; Sunday, June 21 9:30pm-10:30pm
Harbourfront Centre Theatre
Choreographed and performed by Eduoardo Fukushima
Between exhaustion and sleep lies our deepest point of honesty: the moments when we lose the veneer of civility. Award-winning Brazilian choreographer and dancer Eduardo Fukushima, a protégé in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, performs two solo dances that explore this idea, inviting audiences into his process of investigation.
“Fukushima’s mesmerizingly odd solo dance performance ... will not be forgotten in a hurry.” — Financial Times
With Between Contentions, movements are laid bare and emotional elements develop a new vocabulary. In How to Overcome the Great Tiredness?, Fukushima performs to the point of full body fatigue, investigating the way the body handles emotion and expression, bringing us physically and emotionally to our knees.
Photo: JDaniel MacIvor. ©Guntar Kravis.
2015-05-21
Toronto: Luminato Festival presents "7 Monologues" June 20 and 21