Fringe Review: Sing a song and share a laugh with Dead in the Water
Stage 8, Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre, 8426 Gateway Blvd.
Article content
A Tierce de Picardie is a major chord at the end of a musical piece written in a minor key. It's an uplifting end to generally sombre music.
Article content
Ruth Alexander tells her life's story through music in Dead in the Water, a darkly comedic piece about life, love and making a living through music.
Article content
Article content
Alexander is British, which it's important to note because her show has a very British outlook on life, very British references and a very British sense of humour and language. There are a few well-placed curse words — used sparingly and to make a point — but be aware for those with sensitive ears.
Article content
For everyone else, it's an absolutely uproarious romp through the life of a middle-aged British woman, telling some of the funniest stories through the medium of song. She launches into a brilliant rendition of 'How many frogs must I (fornicate with)' to lament the state of her love life, and nothing makes a tale about a bag of poop funnier than setting it to a brilliant, uptempo tune.
Article content
It is a dark comedy, and things don't always turn out brilliantly for Alexander, but you would do well to remember what we mentioned off the top. Sometimes it's darkest before the dawn, made easier to take with a great song.
Article content
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Vancouver Sun
19 minutes ago
- Vancouver Sun
Restaurant review: House of Dawn Steakhouse chef drills deep into the details of beef
Where: 8171 Ackroyd Rd., Richmond When: Dinner, Wednesday to Sunday Info: 604-284-5038 | Opening a 10,000-square-foot restaurant, dressed in marble and glittering with chandeliers exploding with crystal ginkgo leaves, takes confidence. House of Dawn opened with an Asian fusion food concept but struck out after a few months. Confidence intact, it rebranded as a steakhouse, and chef James Yang plans a pull-out-the-stops Michelin-luring tasting menu next year in an exclusive Dawn Tasting Room, which will be added to the current main dining room and two private rooms. Over-confident? We'll see. But Yang is obsessive. He spent an unpaid year at Noma in Copenhagen (which topped the World's 50 Best list five times) and worked at the late two-Michelin L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Shanghai to learn from the best. But then he pivoted to not-so-haute Wolfgang's Steakhouse and Peter Luger Steak House in New York. Discover the best of B.C.'s recipes, restaurants and wine. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of West Coast Table will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Why such a pivot? Cooking at Noma and Robuchon's restaurant, he faced reality. 'I'm not talented enough to be that kind of chef,' he said, referring to the agonizingly precise, next-level cooking and mindsets in those kitchens. He was encouraged by iconic British chef Marco Pierre White's words: 'He said, 'Go deeper into yourself and discover what you like and serve what you like.'' Deep down, Yang's a steak guy. 'I could eat steak every day,' he says. 'Steaks will never lie to you. It's a simple ingredient that you don't have to explain. That's the magic of it. When you spend $100 or $200, you taste the difference. You just have to serve the best.' During his time at Wolfgang's, the pandemic struck. His boss, noting Yang had spent his days off in the restaurant's butcher shop, eager to learn, referred him to the award-winning Australian ranch that supplied the restaurant's beef. There, Yang learned how they raised great beef cattle, as well as butchering skills. 'I want to go deeper on everything,' says Yang. The storied New York Peter Luger Steakhouse, founded in 1887, is no longer the beacon of great steakhood it once was, but there, Yang learned dry aging skills and restaurant operation. Combined with culinary science take-aways from Noma, he's equipped to run a well-rounded, elevated steakhouse. Is steak a big draw for the Chinese community in Richmond? 'They never say no to a good steakhouse,' Yang says. And prices at House of Dawn Steakhouse are a little lower than its Richmond competitor, Gordon Ramsay Steak . The wagyu tartare ($29.50) is perfect, with truffle chipotle emulsion, sous vide egg yolk, pickles, potato crisp, a cloud of Parmigiano Reggiano and a topper of black truffles. The seafood tower includes fresh P.E.I. lobster tails, Alaskan king crab, oysters, prawns, kampachi crudo and condiments ($278 for full, $148 for half portion). A Caesar salad ($18) is crisp, fresh and yummy, with hits of lardon and Parmigiano Reggiano. Truffle bison carpaccio ($29.50) is strewn with compressed cranberry (I love those pops of sour), Parmigiano Reggiano, garlic crisp, puffed amaranth, and black truffle, served with burnt garlic aioli. And for the main attraction, the 14 steaks on the menu are from producers in Alberta, P.E.I., the U.S., Australia and Japan. And for Yang, it's not just about the highest grade. He needs the story behind what the cattle ate, for how long, and the age when slaughtered. He looks for cattle that were grain-fed for 150 to 200 days for maximum marbling — any more and you lose some tenderness (although wagyu can be grain fed longer). 'The most flavour is from marbling. You get a cheesy, nutty, buttery flavour. That's how you get super umami.' Yang uses different producers for different parts of the animal. For example, he buys Prince Edward Island beef for striploins because of the potatoes in their diet. 'Normally after grassfeeding, they're grain-fed but in P.E.I., they're fed potatoes. There's more fat, more flavour and it melts in your mouth. Rib-eyes, however, already have good fat, and you don't want over-marbling.' He dry-ages the meat for 28, 35, 45 or 60 days for tenderness and concentrated flavour, losing 10 to 15 per cent of the meat's weight in the process. On the menu, you'll notice the chocolate and the butter-aged striploins — sounds gimmicky but after dry aging for 28 days, the steaks are encased in cocoa butter or butter to mimic a wet aging environment for 14 days, further tenderizing and adding complexity, he says. I'd need a side-by-side tasting to detect the difference but all steaks I tried were super tender and flavourful enough, in my opinion. They're initially grilled over binchotan charcoal, infusing a light smokiness, and then finished under a blazing hot broiler for a crusty finish. It takes skill, he says. 'That's why I'm cooking all the steaks myself.' Many of the 14 steaks on the menu are 16 ounces or more. Do steak lovers have enormous appetites? Not necessarily. There's a gastronomic reason. 'We do offer small cuts, too, but for the steak experience, it's best to share the larger cuts with friends because the bigger the cut, the more moisture and tenderness. There's no bleeding of juices at all. Smaller cuts lose more moisture.' As well, he says, some people love the crispy thinner part and others love the tender. The larger cuts have both.' Six sauces are offered to smother the steak with extra loving — Madeira demi-glace, bone marrow Bordelaise, cognac green peppercorn, brown butter Béarnaise, cowboy butter and blue cheese crust (each $6). Should you make it to dessert, it's Leo Liu's first gig as a pastry chef and I'm impressed. A stylized tiramisu in a stemmed glass shows precision, as does the tumbleweed of chocolate curls crowning it. The approachable wine list has, somewhat surprisingly, as many whites as the big reds you'd expect at a steakhouse. It's nice that there are some reasonably priced offerings as well as the splurge-worthy Napas and Bordeaux. There's a decent selection of Japanese whiskeys, and a variety of martinis on offer, but otherwise, cocktails lean to the tropical and fruity, often made with Asian ingredients. The steak theme continues into some of their elevated, classic cocktails, which use wagyu-washed cognac or whiskey. Just want a beer? There are interesting choices of local craft brews. miastainsby@
Edmonton Journal
2 hours ago
- Edmonton Journal
Fringe Review: RIOT! is a delightfully kinetic masterpiece
Article content Stage 15, Campus Saint-Jean Theatre (8406 91 St.) Article content Taking the theatrical form of one of the best history podcasts you've ever heard, brothers Jeff and Ryan Gladstone play rival Shakespearean stage actors at the centre of an 1948 Manhattan riot in a show that goes delightfully meta. Article content Certainly the most accomplished piece of Fringe theatre I've seen inside this remarkably stellar year, the brothers Gladstone open the play squabbling slightly about which one of them discovered this wild bit of international chest-pounding first. Article content Article content Each character full of the sort of ego that makes Shakespeare's doomed leads so juicy, elder Jeff plays the pompous, traditional English actor William Charles Macready, while brother Ryan looses braying bull (if more fun) American Edwin Forrest, who touring England looks up to Macready in the first of five quick acts. Article content Article content Amid British-style hissing back and forth, a true rivalry is born, exacerbated by the eager media amplifying and distorting their grievances. Article content Cleverly, when Ryan is out offstage, Jeff also conspires against his brother in some truly terrific audience participation, Macready's big soliloquy interrupted by our booing, hissing and even hurled objects. So fun! Article content Article content It turns out the brothers had disagreements from the get go creating this show, which tightens tensely (and hilariously) around the long-dead thespians amid a whirl of conflicting New York Nativists a la Gangs of New York, tinder-box class differences and the idiot deployment of troops by an inept politician, déjà vu. Article content
Winnipeg Free Press
a day ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Trouble brewing
This Kind of Trouble is the debut novel by Tochi Eze, a writer and lawyer from Nigeria who recently obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from Florida Atlantic University, and is studying for her Ph.D. in English at the University of Virginia. The book contains echoes of Chinua Achebe's 1958 classic Things Fall Apart, which documented life in a pre-colonial Igbo village and the devastation caused by the arrival of the British, first as missionaries and then with the colonial legal system. This Kind of Trouble takes the reader through the postcolonial landscape, with three timelines: one in 1905 soon after the missionaries have set up shop, one in the 1960s in the early days of independence and one in 2005. Capps Juliano photo Tochi Eze's debut novel contains echoes of Chinua Achebe's 1958 classic Things Fall Apart, albeit tackling similar themes in a quieter fashion. In 1905, the residents of the village of Umomilo are shocked to learn that three young women, believed to be virgins, are pregnant, and look to their tribal leaders for answers. Two of the virgins follow traditional Igbo spirituality while one of them, Phyllis, is a Christian and takes refuge in the church. In 1962 and 2005, we are introduced to two descendants from Umomilo, Margaret and Benjamin, who engage in a star-crossed love affair. Margaret's ancestor, who struggled with mental illness, played a gruesome role in the affair of the three virgins, while Benjamin is the descendant of Phyllis. Benjamin's other three grandparents are white and British, and when he arrives in Nigeria on a work assignment, seeking his roots, he appears white to the Nigerians he meets. In the 2005 timeline, Benjamin and Margaret have become estranged, and we meet their daughter and grandson, who Margaret believes to be cursed by events in Umimilo a century ago. Margaret becomes very focused on ending the curse that traditional spiritualists had warned would befall her if she married Benjamin, and this leads to the couple reconnecting. The novel isn't about Benjamin's questions of identity, nor is it about his quest to learn the secrets of the past. In fact both he and Margaret abandon their searches into their histories fairly quickly, and the reader only learns of the truth through the omniscient narrator. Mental illness is a constant theme in every generation of the novel, and is depicted as a terrifying condition that causes extreme violence in its sufferers, who have little insight into the damage they are doing. The conflict between traditional beliefs and Christianity is also explored, though not with the incisiveness of Achebe's novel or his broad perspective. This Kind of Trouble is a quieter book that focuses intently on one family, rarely zooming out to the wider society. When Eze does do so, the writing is strong and sure, like the traditions it honours. Eze describes women around the office water cooler with keen observation: 'They all laughed, their talk moving between Igbo and English and Yoruba and pidgin, their language so braided that it became its own separate thing.' She writes about traditional village life: 'The people of Umomilo were taught to hold one another's problems the same way the pots collected the first rainwater — each man seeking to help his neighbour… The matter was simple. If it rains, you do not leave your neighbour's pots attended. When trouble comes, you do not throw your face the other way.' And, in a moment of introspection: 'Margaret considered herself a Christian in every sense, but she was also, like her matriarch, Oriaku, born into a line of priestesses. She had seen what the psalms could do to her anxious heart. But she also knew the sturdy touch of her ancestral rituals.' This Kind of Trouble An omniscient narrator can sometimes create distance between the reader and the characters, which ends up being the case in This Kind of Trouble — we are not given much insight into their thinking. Benjamin especially makes some very troubling and life-changing decisions without much explanation as to why. This might be forgivable if characterization was being sacrificed for the bigger picture. But while the themes in This Kind of Trouble are intriguing, it's unclear what the writer is saying about contemporary Nigeria. How does the shadow of the past loom over present life? The ending leaves this question unanswered, and it's difficult to tell what actually happens to each character and what is the status of the curse. Perhaps Eze wanted to leave things open-ended and allow readers to draw their own conclusions, but it may be a little too ambiguous for some. Nevertheless, This Kind of Trouble is an interesting and engaging book that allows readers a view into a vibrant and complex society, and Tochi Eze is a very promising writer. Zilla Jones is a Winnipeg-based writer of short and long fiction. Her debut novel The World So Wide was published in April.
