✭✭✭✭✩

by the Ensemble, directed by Michele Smith-Gilmour

Theatre Smith-Gilmour with Crow’s Theatre, Streetcar Crowsnest, 345 Carlaw Avenue, Toronto

January 16-February 8, 2026

Mr. Liu: “Respect all living beings”

Fans of Theatre Smith-Gilmour will rejoice to see the renowned performance company return in such fine form. TSG, which has staged several previous based on multiple short stories, now turns in Pu Songling: Strange Tales to a master of Qing Dynasty China for its source. TSG’s use of mime and movement bring these exciting stories to vivid life and transport us to a fantastic world where the supernatural is part of everyday life. The show is an example of theatre in its purest form and one no theatre-lover should miss.

Between the early 1670s and the early 1700s, Pu Songling 蒲松齡 (1640-1715) assembled over five hundred tales of various lengths which were published in 1766 as Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio 聊斋志异. If most people have never heard of Pu before, it’s not due to lack of translations. The complete Strange Tales have been translated into English twice, in 2014 and 2024, and translated collections of the Strange Tales have been published six times between 1880 and 2006, including a volume from Penguin Books.

Of Pu’s 500 tales, TSG has selected eleven which have been adapted by director Michele Smith and the acting ensemble of Dean Gilmour, Steven Hao 郝邦宇, Madelaine Hodges 賀美倫, John Ng 伍健琪 and Diana Tso 曹楓 along with the help of Michael Man, Lindsay Wu, Jeff Yung and Rosie Simon, who are not in the production. One wonders whether Smith and Gilmour’s having recently taught and directed at the Yunnan Provincial Theatre in Kunming and at the Shanghai Drama Academy influenced the choice of Pu’s Strange Tales as a subject.

Even with only eleven tales, TSG demonstrates the wide range of Pu’s art. Tales vary from comic to tragic to ironic and takes on all sorts of forms from the anecdotal to the epic. The tales of Pu Songling: Strange Tales generally move from the light-hearted and absurd to serious and tragic. Compared to TSG’s last work, Metamorphoses 2023, Strange Tales depicts a very different relationship between the natural and supernatural worlds. Ovid’s stories focus on punishments mortals receive from the gods for going beyond certain boundaries of behaviour. Pu’s stories do include such punishments from supernatural beings, but they also portray supernatural beings that go beyond certain boundaries. Even more surprising, Pu has a tale in which a mortal and a supernatural being become friends and work together for the mortal’s benefit, something that never even arises in Ovid.

As usual the five actors under Smith-Gilmour’s direction work as a tight ensemble with the actions of all contributing to the storytelling. In the wordless scene of “An Earthquake” the ensemble plays a family eating together when the earth begins to rumble and finally unleash its destruction. The variety of reactions the troupe display within the unity of communal action is a pinnacle of group miming. In another example, Wan the demon-slayer battles three evil Wu-tong spirits in a fight scene staged like a Chinese action film. The swords, daggers and arrows are so well mimed that you think you see them. Throughout the show the movements of the performers are choreographed in such detail yet acted with such natural flair that they put other movement-based works to shame.

While Strange Tales is an ensemble piece, each of the five actors is given moments to shine. Dean Gilmour stands out in three tales. In “Past Lives of Mr. Liu”, he plays the title character who deliberately does not drink the tea of forgetfulness when entering Hell. As a result, he experiences what life is like in each reincarnation – from horse to dog to snake. This gives Gilmour the chance to depict Liu’s surprise in becoming each new being as he hilariously takes on each one’s characteristics. In “Judge Lu” Gilmour plays the statue of an Infernal Judge that a student has stolen from the local temple. The statue comes alive and discourses in a learned manner when alone with the student but acts as if possessed by a demon when others appear. Gilmour’s depiction of Judge Lu cleaning the student’s bowels and giving him a heart transplant is a pinnacle of mime.

John Ng works so perfectly with the ensemble you would never know this was his debut with TSM. His greatest role is that of the farmer Li in “King of the Nine Mountains”. Through tone of voice and gesture Ng masterfully portrays how Li moves from arrogance towards an old man and his family to fear when he realizes they are fox spirits to disbelief and hauteur when he learns he is the new Emperor to utter horror when he sees he faces total destruction.

Madelaine Hodges, also making her debut with TSM, well conveys the mounting terror of a young wife harassed by Wu-tong spirits who will give her 100 taels of silver if she sleeps with him. In another story Hodges plays a prisoner who, hearing that the executioner possesses an exceptionally sharp sword, begged to be beheaded by him. What follows is the cleverest, non-gross depiction of a beheading I’ve ever seen, all due to perfect command of mime.

Diana Tso, known from other TSG productions, plays wildly different characters. In one story she plays a female demon who tries to seduce a young scholar. Tso fully mines the comedy of a hideously ugly demon with grotesque manners who thinks she is being alluring, all the while unaware of how repulsive she is. In total contrast, Tso also plays a nándán 男旦, a male Chinese opera performer specializing in female roles, displaying the graceful, fluid movement and the songlike speech cadences of such figures.

Steven Hao also plays a number of contrasting characters. He plays the title character in “Wild Dog” with such ferocity it is frightening. He also plays the title character in “Wei Gongzi”, one of the longer stories and certainly the most emotionally engaging. It is no exaggeration to say that role of Wei Gongzi requires the same emotional depth as that of Oedipus in Greek drama. Wei begins as a dissolute student and frequenter of brothels. He manages to keep his lust under control enough to pass important examinations and to rise in the civil service, but once he feels secure in his status he lapses into his youthful ways. During the course of the tale, Hao shows us Wei comically cavorting in orgies. But, when Wei realizes the evil his lust has engendered, Hao has Wei’s face register the profoundest shock that transforms wordlessly into an expression the utmost horror. This masterpiece of storytelling demonstrates how deeply human Pu’s tales can be.

As usual Theatre Smith-Gilmour achieve maximal effects with minimal means. The set consists of only a long table and five chairs (with a small sixth one to the side) and the simplest of props. The moods created by Noah Feaver’s subtle lighting is the only scnerey. Costumes by Ting-Huan 挺歡 Christine Urquhart do appear in the final story, but even there they are not really necessary since the troupe so well mimes whatever they need.

TSG reminds us why plays are called plays since they celebrate so triumphantly the power of the imagination. A table can be a table or be a bed, a mountain, a wall or whatever the actors say it is. Similarly, the actors change from role to role simply through altering voice and behaviour. Because of this, seeing a show by Theatre Smith-Gilmour is always like drinking spring water after having downed too many cocktails of shows with high production values and no content. Theatre Smith-Gilmour is one of  very few companies to produce shows that are so consistently refreshing and enlightening.

I knew nothing about Pu Songling before I saw this show. Now that TSG has so fully drawn me into his fantastic world, I want to know as much as I can.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: John Ng, Diana Tso, Madelaine Hodges, Dean Gilmour and Steven Hao; Diana Tso, John Ng and Madelaine Hodges; Dean Gilmour as Judge Lu and John Ng as the student Hsiao-ming. © 2026 Johnny Hockin.

For tickets visit: www.crowstheatre.com.