November has been an exceptionally busy month in our Tri-City, with many events besides the usual theatrical fare, and a mix of various venues.

First, of theatrical nature:

University of Waterloo staged The Importance of Being Earnest, the well-known and charming comedy by Oscar Wilde. The actors were young, performing with enthusiasm and spirit, and the stage design was a very apt collection of period pieces. This was an opportunity for the young actors still in training to test their skills and perform in front of an audience. The special performance for the University Donors was well attended and the guests appreciated the show. Good for them, good for the University, thank you all for the support!

Poor Tom Productions, a small assembly of local actors and theatre aficionados, staged two one-act plays in The Registry Theatre under the title of The Kindness of Strangers.

I Can’t Imagine Tomorrow, by Tennessee Williams was a moving but calm story of two individuals: an obviously disabled woman isolated in her apartment and struggling with pain, and her visitor, a shy and psychologically scarred young man. They both try to be independent and maintain some distance, although at the same time they belong together supporting each other in their pain and solitude. You could taste Tennessee Williams and the humid southern night in it. The acting was good; the credit goes to Katherine Mills and Nicholas Cumming.

The second play by Kenneth Emberly The Vist was more provocative, the situation somehow borrowed from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf? : An older couple receives a surprising visit by a younger couple, and the visit turns out not to be a pleasant one. It was fast-paced and ending in quite a violent manner obviously intended to shock. Some of the audience was hesitant as to how to react.
 

Now some other events worth mentioning:

University of Waterloo Art Gallery held an interesting exhibition of two painters and one filmmaker, each one of them individually very unusual and memorable. The exhibition was called By Appearances, the artists were Frances Ferdinands and Robert Waldeck. Ferdinands’ pictures were in the format of diptychs, two pictures joined together with some comment or statement written across. One picture, for example, showed a very elegant young lady in a long gown stepping down a curved staircase, in the adjoining second picture three bare-chested labourers stripping and sanding the floor. The notation run "and I find it inconvenient to be poor". Another picture showing two different couples sitting in the balcony of the theatre obviously not focusing on their companions run the notation "the most beautiful of all lies". Pictures of Waldeck, although different in style and technique, fitted the theme of the exhibition. These were portraits, somewhat surrealistic images in the style of science fiction mixing the images of cosmonauts, mobsters and other popular figures from the media. The three short movies by Rob Ring were running on a circular tape somehow fitted the exhibition as well. Altogether: a disturbing exhibition, one not easy to forget. I believe that was the intention of the artists anyway.

Princess Cinema in downtown Waterloo, an independent movie-theatre specializing in showing controversial films, was full at the screenings of Death of the President, a movie apparently not being shown in the US.

It is the story of a successful assassination of George W. Bush in October 2007, a fantastic mix of real life clips, fragments of actual newscasts and fiction, the cuts and editing of speeches by Cheney, who consequently becomes the President, the events as they unfold after the death of Bush. Quite a movie, very much worth seeing, if only because it is banned in the States.

Another movie running along the theme from Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth is currently being shown: Manufactured Landscapes – a unique result of collaboration between director Jennifer Baichwal and photographer Edward Burtynsky. It is a Canadian movie presenting the consequences of the industrialization in China and Bangladesh in the twenty first century. Among them are pictures from the construction of the famous Three Gorges Dam in China. The commentary is devoid of blame or judgement, just the pictures, absolutely bewildering in their artistic beauty, of landscapes created by modern industrialization or destroyed environment. While I found Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth like a lecture-presentation with warnings, Manufactured Landscapes does not lecture or forewarn, there are just pictures with no evaluation, the viewer is left to draw conclusions. And it is not the issue of where are we going and what will happen if, the results are already there for all to see. Very disturbing. Very much worth seeing.
 

K-W Symphony – has been saved and is still playing.

Musically Speaking series on Sunday afternoons with Tom Allen as a host and commentator held another concert with Uri Meyer conducting at the end of November, this time devoted to legends. A combination of musical pieces ranging from Mozart Overture to The Magic Flute to Debussy Afternoon of the Faun and Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain was played to an almost full concert hall, along with some compositions more easily recognizable like Grieg’s Peer Gynt, some, like Sibelius, less frequently played. Peer Gynt was wonderful, the famous march of trolls so clear and their anger at Peer so overwhelming. It was a surprise piece not announced in the program ahead of time.

For Night on Bald Mountain K-W Symphony was joined by K-W Symphony Youth Orchestra and the stage was crowded. Young musicians must have had long rehearsals; the result was great and received a deserved long-standing ovation.

Well, the Symphony has been saved, so far so good. The community is happy, the orchestra is happy and we hope it will keep playing for many years to come. In Holiday Season there will be several concerts in The Centre in the Square, among them Pops Celebrate Christmas on December 8 and 9 with Brian Jackson of course, and traditional Messiah on December 15 and 16 (Grand Philharmonic Choir) conducted by Howard Dyck.

K-W Chamber Orchestra will present the concert A Bach Family Christmas with University of Waterloo Chamber Choir conducted by Graham Coles on December 10 at Maureen Forrester Recital Hall at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Theatre Athena is offering Mother Goose from December 14 to 30 – the location is downtown Waterloo, old Waterloo Theatre premises.

Theatre & Company is also presenting a play aimed at families with children The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge running December 7 to December 31.

Black Hole Bistro has a Holiday Jazz concert December 15 at 8.

As I cannot fit any more Christmas season entertainment announcements – here you are, there is a lot going on, a lot to choose from and a lot to enjoy.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!