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Globe and Mail
20 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Globe and Mail
Red Like Fruit is a devastating portrayal of how sexism warps women's stories and identities
Title: Red Like Fruit Written by: Hannah Moscovitch Performed by: Michelle Monteith, David Patrick Fleming Directed by: Christian Barry Company: Soulpepper and the Luminato Festival Venue: The Michael Young Theatre, 50 Tank House Lane City: Toronto Year: Until June 15 In 2017, Martin R. Schneider and Nicole Lee Hallberg, coworkers at a resume-editing company, experimented with trading e-mail signatures and found their working experiences suddenly and radically changed. While Nicole as 'Martin' had the easiest week of her career, Martin as 'Nicole' was thoroughly frustrated. Respectful clients became rude, demanding and patronizing when they thought they were dealing with a woman. One male client even propositioned 'Nicole' after brief, e-mail-only contact. Both participants posted individually about their findings; Hallberg wrote an article for Medium, but it was Schneider's tweets that went viral and made headlines. It seemed that a story about sexism in the workplace made a far bigger impact when it was confirmed by a man's voice. That story came to mind as I watched Red Like Fruit, by Governor General's Award-winning playwright Hannah Moscovitch. Under Christian Barry's direction, the production from Halifax's 2B Theatre Company now at Soulpepper as part of the Luminato Festival is a simply delivered and devastating tale of the background radiation of sexism and sexual assault that becomes inextricably baked into women's identities. Canadian playwrights Hannah Moscovitch and Jordan Tannahill stay true to their roots despite U.S. success Red Like Fruit is arranged around a unique conceit: While the face screaming on the poster and story springing from the stage belong to Lauren (Michelle Monteith), the audience rarely hears her actual voice. Instead, she's asked Luke (David Patrick Flemming) to speak for her, telling her story in the third person as she listens attentively, analyzing its impact on her and the audience and trying to figure out what it all means. Why is she so angry, despite her successful career as a journalist, stable marriage and two healthy children? Why does her chest constrict as she conducts interviews about a high-profile case of domestic violence, where the perpetrator was welcomed back to the Liberal Party after some community service, and the victim's contract was not renewed? What is the difference between 'trauma' and 'experiences' if they both shape us – doesn't every teenager face strange incidents, shrug and move on? And, ultimately, is it worthwhile to put the complex struggle into words, if no one wants to hear them? It's easy to see why Moscovitch's work was a finalist for the 2024 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 'the oldest and largest international playwriting prize honoring women+ writing for the English-speaking theatre.' Lauren's crisis, as delivered by Luke, is personal rather than intersectional, but is full of detailed, sharp observations about what it means to live and work in a world where you ultimately feel dismissed and disposable. The political scandal Lauren investigates, not directly ripped from the headlines but inspired by recent incidents, becomes increasingly chilling as she discovers the extent of the victim's injuries and the concerted attempt to discredit her voice. Worse, Lauren finds it so easy to become complicit in this judgment. She scoffs at the victim's pop-star name, as though it makes a difference. She finds the men involved morally repugnant, yet secretly hopes they like her and her work. Monteith delivers a performance that's haunting in its restrained economy, and which matches the economy of the production, which strips down all ornamentation in an attempt to appear as objective as possible. Kaitlin Hickey's set design is limited to a raised black platform with a single chair for Lauren. She's on display, while Luke stands to the side with a music stand. Hickey's costumes are workplace casual attire, Lauren in a fitted white button-down shirt contrasting Luke's shapeless grey sweater, and her lighting slowly darkens and narrows to a spot that alternately pins Lauren further in place and recedes her into the shadows. It's occasionally even possible to forget Monteith is on stage, which is kind of the point. Lauren's not miming her story while Luke tells it; she's listening to it like we are, reacting to her words coming from an out-of-body location. Sometimes she seems miles away, hard and distant; sometimes, she trembles, her eyes shining bright with tears that threaten to fall but never completely emerge. When she speaks to question the proceedings, her voice, a little high, a little thin, clashes with the more assured script Luke delivers. And when she stretches her face into that one silent scream, it's arresting and almost genre-bending, matching the script's turn from a realistic description of lunch with a colleague to a stylized vision of a bathtub brimming with blood – before it blinks back, as though nothing really happened. But what did actually happen? And who are we to judge the things that have happened to us, without outside input? Flemming's Luke, as Lauren's mouthpiece, has a warm, compassionate but slightly detached delivery that lets us occasionally find the humour in the societal contradictions and horrors that Lauren faces. At the same time, the house goes silent when he narrates brutally clinical descriptions of domestic violence and Lauren's experiences with sexual assault – or was it assault? The character is designed to be sympathetic, acknowledging the difficulty of speaking for a woman and checking in with Lauren to see if she wants him to continue. It's simultaneously intriguing and frustrating that we never find out the connection between Luke and Lauren, or whether he has any stake in this, but again, that's the goal. Presented with a largely anonymous narrator, why would we trust him more with a story than the person who experienced it? Is it that he's an unbiased, outside eye? Or is it because he's tall, and male, and reassuring?
Winnipeg Free Press
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Moscovitch's drama ‘Red Like Fruit' explores power and memory in post-#MeToo era
TORONTO – A seasoned storyteller whose work often probes the complexities of consent and shades of truth, Hannah Moscovitch seems compelled to search for deeper meanings in both her plays and real life. There's rich significance, she suggests, in bringing her latest meditation on gender and power to a renowned Toronto theatre company once inextricably linked to allegations of sexual misconduct. The celebrated playwright points out that 'Red Like Fruit' hits Soulpepper several years after its co-founder and artistic director Albert Schultz resigned amid allegations of impropriety dating back years. 'They're trying to combat their own legacy,' Moscovitch says of being presented by Soulpepper, in collaboration with the Luminato Festival. Moscovitch's two-hander centres on a journalist whose investigation into a case of domestic violence leads her to reconsider the significance of her own past experiences. Michelle Monteith plays the journalist Lauren, whose doubts about her own memory have her turning to a male character, Luke, played by David Patrick Flemming, to recount her own story back to her. The audience plays witness to Lauren's reaction to hearing someone else present details of her life, a twist on the unreliable narrator trope that raises questions about whose stories get told and whose voice gets heard. Moscovitch, who visited similar themes in her Governor General's Award-winning play 'Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes,' notes her first-ever show at Soulpepper comes after a #MeToo reckoning that included pressure to address long-standing inequities in the theatre world. She credits current artistic director Weyni Mengesha with leading that charge. 'She's entirely changed that institution. I'm so admiring of her programming and her art and I think that she has already completely obliterated any legacy from Albert Schultz,' says Moscovitch. Four actresses sued Schultz in January 2018, claiming he groped them, exposed himself, pressed against them or otherwise behaved inappropriately. Schultz resigned and denied the allegations, saying he would defend himself. The lawsuits were settled that summer with undisclosed terms. Mengesha is equally effusive in describing Halifax-based Moscovitch as a 'brave' artist willing to tackle difficult topics. Mengesha says she flew to Halifax last year to preview 'Red Like Fruit' as it prepared for its world premiere at Bus Stop Theatre, quickly deciding it was important to bring it to Soulpepper. 'She explores things that are tough to talk about, like shame and definitely our own accountability as far as how we believe women or don't believe women,' Mengesha says. 'It's so personal and it's so honest. And what I love about her work is that it's a slow burn in some ways. It's always entertaining and really enjoyable to watch, but the effects of it – you'll be considering it days after.' 'Red Like Fruit' is directed by Moscovitch's husband, Christian Barry, who traces 'a direct line' from its themes to those of 'Sexual Misconduct,' which told of an affair between a married, middle-aged professor and his 19-year-old student. It's currently playing off-Broadway with Hugh Jackman and Ella Beatty. Barry suspects an advantage in being married to the playwright of such charged fare, and he confesses they each have a hard time putting their creative projects aside at the end of the day – work talk will invade conversations at the dinner table or pop up during school drop-off for their son. Such familiarity is especially handy in directing 'Red Like Fruit,' he says, recalling multiple conversations with Moscovitch about her own eureka moments over past encounters. 'There's a lot of unspoken understanding between us about the subtext of what she's writing about. And I think ultimately, when you're sharing things that are this intimately connected with lived experiences, you just want to trust that they're going to be handled with care,' says Barry, artistic director of Halifax's 2b theatre, which marks its 25th anniversary this June. 'And so she has trust in our relationship and in my ability to be able to see not just the text, but the subtext. Not just what's going on, but what it means to her personally and what it means to things that she's lived through that might be similar to what the characters are experiencing.' Moscovitch says 'Red Like Fruit' is not autobiographical but is partly informed by unsettling experiences she's had in a male-dominated creative sphere. 'Having been in the theatre community in Toronto in the 2000s, I would say that a certain amount of sexual misconduct was the price of admission,' says Moscovitch. She says it's taken years to acknowledge and unpack problematic encounters in her own past, which she'd previously laughed off as a joke when recounting to others. 'Culture was informing how we were thinking about our own experiences, and we were both diminishing them and being silenced about them. And I think it creates real confusion, or it did for me,' she says. 'Your first thought is, I'm so lucky nothing ever happened to me. And then you're like, 'Wait a second…. Every experience I've had actually, like, directly contradicts that,'' she says. 'And then you start to go into it – You're like, was that bad or wasn't it bad? Is that just part of growing up? Is that trauma or is that experience?' 'Red Like Fruit' begins with a preview Wednesday and opens Thursday. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2025.
Hamilton Spectator
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Moscovitch's drama ‘Red Like Fruit' explores power and memory in post-#MeToo era
TORONTO - A seasoned storyteller whose work often probes the complexities of consent and shades of truth, Hannah Moscovitch seems compelled to search for deeper meanings in both her plays and real life. There's rich significance, she suggests, in bringing her latest meditation on gender and power to a renowned Toronto theatre company once inextricably linked to allegations of sexual misconduct. The celebrated playwright points out that 'Red Like Fruit' hits Soulpepper several years after its co-founder and artistic director Albert Schultz resigned amid allegations of impropriety dating back years. 'They're trying to combat their own legacy,' Moscovitch says of being presented by Soulpepper, in collaboration with the Luminato Festival. Moscovitch's two-hander centres on a journalist whose investigation into a case of domestic violence leads her to reconsider the significance of her own past experiences. Michelle Monteith plays the journalist Lauren, whose doubts about her own memory have her turning to a male character, Luke, played by David Patrick Flemming, to recount her own story back to her. The audience plays witness to Lauren's reaction to hearing someone else present details of her life, a twist on the unreliable narrator trope that raises questions about whose stories get told and whose voice gets heard. Moscovitch, who visited similar themes in her Governor General's Award-winning play 'Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes,' notes her first-ever show at Soulpepper comes after a #MeToo reckoning that included pressure to address long-standing inequities in the theatre world. She credits current artistic director Weyni Mengesha with leading that charge. 'She's entirely changed that institution. I'm so admiring of her programming and her art and I think that she has already completely obliterated any legacy from Albert Schultz,' says Moscovitch. Four actresses sued Schultz in January 2018, claiming he groped them, exposed himself, pressed against them or otherwise behaved inappropriately. Schultz resigned and denied the allegations, saying he would defend himself. The lawsuits were settled that summer with undisclosed terms. Mengesha is equally effusive in describing Halifax-based Moscovitch as a 'brave' artist willing to tackle difficult topics. Mengesha says she flew to Halifax last year to preview 'Red Like Fruit' as it prepared for its world premiere at Bus Stop Theatre, quickly deciding it was important to bring it to Soulpepper. 'She explores things that are tough to talk about, like shame and definitely our own accountability as far as how we believe women or don't believe women,' Mengesha says. 'It's so personal and it's so honest. And what I love about her work is that it's a slow burn in some ways. It's always entertaining and really enjoyable to watch, but the effects of it – you'll be considering it days after.' 'Red Like Fruit' is directed by Moscovitch's husband, Christian Barry, who traces 'a direct line' from its themes to those of 'Sexual Misconduct,' which told of an affair between a married, middle-aged professor and his 19-year-old student. It's currently playing off-Broadway with Hugh Jackman and Ella Beatty. Barry suspects an advantage in being married to the playwright of such charged fare, and he confesses they each have a hard time putting their creative projects aside at the end of the day – work talk will invade conversations at the dinner table or pop up during school drop-off for their son. Such familiarity is especially handy in directing 'Red Like Fruit,' he says, recalling multiple conversations with Moscovitch about her own eureka moments over past encounters. 'There's a lot of unspoken understanding between us about the subtext of what she's writing about. And I think ultimately, when you're sharing things that are this intimately connected with lived experiences, you just want to trust that they're going to be handled with care,' says Barry, artistic director of Halifax's 2b theatre, which marks its 25th anniversary this June. 'And so she has trust in our relationship and in my ability to be able to see not just the text, but the subtext. Not just what's going on, but what it means to her personally and what it means to things that she's lived through that might be similar to what the characters are experiencing.' Moscovitch says 'Red Like Fruit' is not autobiographical but is partly informed by unsettling experiences she's had in a male-dominated creative sphere. 'Having been in the theatre community in Toronto in the 2000s, I would say that a certain amount of sexual misconduct was the price of admission,' says Moscovitch. She says it's taken years to acknowledge and unpack problematic encounters in her own past, which she'd previously laughed off as a joke when recounting to others. 'Culture was informing how we were thinking about our own experiences, and we were both diminishing them and being silenced about them. And I think it creates real confusion, or it did for me,' she says. 'Your first thought is, I'm so lucky nothing ever happened to me. And then you're like, 'Wait a second.... Every experience I've had actually, like, directly contradicts that,'' she says. 'And then you start to go into it – You're like, was that bad or wasn't it bad? Is that just part of growing up? Is that trauma or is that experience?' 'Red Like Fruit' begins with a preview Wednesday and opens Thursday. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2025.
Winnipeg Free Press
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Weyni Mengesha, d'bi.young anitafrika among Metcalf performing arts prize winners
TORONTO – Soulpepper artistic director Weyni Mengesha and dub poet d' anitafrika are among the winners of the Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prizes. The Metcalf Foundation announced five recipients of the $25,000 awards, which celebrate mid-career artists in Ontario who work in dance, theatre and music/opera. Winners get to bestow a $10,000 prize on a protégé early in their career, and Mengesha chose Soulpepper's associate artistic director Luke Reece, a poet, playwright and director. Jamaican-Canadian theatre artist anitafrika chose writer and storyteller Sashoya Simpson, while fellow Metcalf winner, playwright and director Sarah Gartshore of Sudbury, Ont., named theatre creator and puppeteer Adam Francis Proulx. The prize also went to two Ottawa artists – francophone playwright and actor Alain Doom, who named director Dillon Orr as protégé; and composer Kevin Lau, whose protégé is composer Michelle Lorimer. Nominees were selected through project competitions in dance, music/opera and theatre. Ten remaining finalists each get $2,000: Penny Couchie, Christine Friday, Donna Grantis, Haviah Mighty, Lua Shayenne, Louis Simão, Vanese Smith, Adrian Sutherland, Marni Walsh, and Naishi Wang. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 5, 2025.
Globe and Mail
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Globe and Mail
Kim's Convenience is a love letter to Soulpepper Theatre
Critic's Pick Could there be a better time for a play that celebrates Canada in all its messy, nostalgic glory? When Soulpepper artistic director Weyni Mengesha programmed Kim's Convenience into the 2024-25 season, she couldn't have anticipated the present rise of Canadian nationalism, spurred by the threat of tariffs from south of the border. But she likely knew the production would be among her last at Soulpepper. Mengesha announced last week that she will be leaving the company she helped revitalize in 2018, when she was hired to replace disgraced founding company member Albert Schultz. The intervening years have been colourful – Mengesha has steered Soulpepper through a pandemic, a deficit and the aftershocks of the company's #MeToo scandal – but through it all, Kim's Convenience has sat in the metaphorical trophy case, a reminder of Soulpepper's gargantuan legacy within the Canadian theatrical landscape. All Mengesha ever had to do, if her theatre needed a surefire hit, was to pull out the play, dust it off and give it a loving remount. And here we are. The slice-of-life dramedy about a convenience store in Toronto's Regent Park neighbourhood, now playing at Soulpepper (and set to tour to San Francisco later this year), is everything theatre should be: well written, well designed, well acted. But it's Mengesha's direction that cloaks Kim's Convenience in a velvety, sentimental haze. Mengesha makes every artistic choice with sharp attention to detail, from the cat in the window of Joanna Yu's exquisite set to the varying temperatures of Wen-Ling Liao's lighting design to the untranslated swathes of Korean dialogue that glide alongside playwright Ins Choi's English banter. Of course, the production signals a homecoming for Choi, as well. After playing estranged adult son Jung in his runaway 2011 Fringe hit and subsequent runs at Soulpepper in 2012 and off-Broadway in 2017, Choi is now old enough to step into the shoes of patriarch Appa. When Mr. Kim shuffles onstage, humming to himself as he opens the shop for another day of business, it's hard not to feel like we're spying on the store through a peephole – the actions feel completely lived-in, and in harmony with the weathered edges of Yu's set. Choi's performance only improves when it's in concert with the rest of the cast, from Kelly Seo's blistering take on grown daughter Janet to the tender layers of Esther Chung's Umma. Prepare to shed a tear or two when Appa and Umma appear onstage in colliding flashbacks about the importance of a given name – it's one of the most affecting sequences of the production. The vastest schisms between Choi's play and its fluffier CBC sitcom adaptation appear in Jung, played with depth and grit by Ryan Jinn, and a series of Black men played by Brandon McKnight. Some of Choi's jokes about race might feel a tad dated in a worse production – Appa's propensity for racial profiling is a recurring gag in the play, and a quip about police brutality teeters the line between being funny and glib – but McKnight makes each figure, particularly a Black cop named Alex, feel like a living, breathing person, with stories all their own to uncover. Where Kim's Convenience falters for me, if at all, is in Choi's script, which I've long felt resolves Appa's various turmoils just a little too neatly. The TV show sort of fixed that problem – by definition, the five-season sitcom had longer to tease out storylines about Appa and Umma's retirement, Janet's dating life and Jung's reconciliation with his father. Onstage, Appa's 90-minute day-in-the-life feels a bit cramped, but then again, that's a reasonably accurate snapshot of how it feels to work in customer service, bombarded by stories that interweave with the wire shelves and clackety cash registers. Since the company's infancy, Soulpepper has wrestled with its mandate to bring 'classic' stories to the stage, a notion loaded with Eurocentric ideas of what dramatic work deserves to survive in the Western tradition. Time and again, Mengesha has redefined what 'classic' means to her, and to Soulpepper – over the years, the company has made clear that any story, even that of a dilapidated corner store, can become a classic if it's told with enough care. Thanks to Mengesha's years of thoughtful interrogation into what it means for a play to mature into canonization, Choi's opus has stood the test of time, a vibrant portrait of what it means to be Canadian. Right on time. In the interest of consistency across all critics' reviews, The Globe has eliminated its star-rating system in film and theatre to align with coverage of music, books, visual arts and dance. Instead, works of excellence will be noted with a critic's pick designation across all coverage. (Television reviews, typically based on an incomplete season, are exempt.)
