Stephen Bulger Photograhy - American Girl in Italy / George Zimbel's Children Photos

Intrigued by articles in the newspapers marking the 60th anniversary of Ruth Orkin's famous photo "An American Girl In Italy", we set off to the Stephen Bulger Gallery to catch the final day of a retrospective of the photos that she took for this shoot.

Now married and living in Toronto, the subject for this iconic photo, Ninalee "Jinx" Allen Craig was just a fellow artist who Ruth happened to meet and decided to collaborate with in a series of impromptu photos.  Interviews given by Ninalee Craig clarified misconceptions that this photo must have been pre-planned and staged, given the number of delicious points of interest contained in it.  Craig indicated that Ruth had turned and snapped a first photo as she walked down this street. She asked Ninalee to repeat the walk a second time so she could get another shot at a better angle.  This statement is validated by the contact sheet from the shoot, which was also on display at Stephen Bulger Gallery.  The contact sheet clearly shows the two shots and it was very interesting to compare them.

While it was fascinating to see this famous photo up close, it was even more intriguing to see the other lesser known photos taken on the same roll of film.

Ruth and Ninalee seemed to have a great time roaming all through Florence, documenting what it was like to be a young single woman traveling alone in Italy.  This exhibit gave great insight into what an amazing time these two women must have had together.  I wonder if they realized at the time that they would make history with their endeavours.

As the Ruth Orkin exhibit was closing, the next featured exhibit of George Zimbel's collection of "Photographs of Children" was just opening.  Zimbel seems to have a way of interacting with children that makes them feel natural and at ease.

His photos show them unselfconsciously at play, capturing all their sweetness, mischeviousness and "joie de vivre", without making them seem posed or precocious.

Two photos with a similar theme caught my attention. Each one shows little boys playing with guns.  The first one taken in Montreal shows two giggling boys, probably playing cops and robbers with a toy plastic gun.  The photo exudes innocence boisterous fun.  In contrast the second photo, taken in Bronx New York, the boy is holding a very big authentic looking sawed-off shotgun in a sketchy looking neighbourhood.  The menacing dangerous vibe of this picture is accentuated when compared to the other one.

George Zimbel is most known for taking the photos of Marilyn Monroe, who was standing on top of a subway grate in the white dress while filming the movie "The Seven Year Itch".  There is a great article on his website where he describes his memories of that shoot.

Viewing all these beautiful black and white photos has inspired us to learn how to take some of our own. Contrast, lighting, shadows, texture, shapes and patterns all seem important in spotting a good composition for a black and white photo.  Should be fun to try.

Stephen Bulger Gallery
1026 Queen St West

Theatre: Jesus Christ Superstar at Stratford

Given how much theatre we already watch in Toronto, the cost of shows at the Stratford Festival, and the time expended driving there and back, it needs to be a stellar show for us to make the trip.  Based on the unanimously glowing reviews of Jesus Christ Superstar, we decided that this was the show of the season to make the effort for.

An early collaboration of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, Jesus Christ Superstar was written as a rock opera where all the dialogue is sung.  From the very first chords of the overture, you know that you are in for something special and different from anything that has come before.

The ambitious plot follows the rise and fall of Jesus, culminating in his crucifixion, as seen through the eyes of Judas Iscariot. Despite the subject matter and title of the musical, it is Judas who is the central character for much of the play, with the greatest emotional arc up to the point of his demise.  He is written as a complex, even sympathetic character with conflicting feelings of love and admiration towards Jesus battling against those of foreboding and injustice regarding how he perceives Jesus is using his growing power.  This depiction led to outrage from religious groups when the play first came out.

Josh Young who plays Judas does the part justice with his powerfully raw and passionate portrayal.  From exasperation, annoyance and self-righteousness when he sings "Heaven on Their Minds" morphing to doubt and uncertainty in "Damned for All Times", to fake bravado and defiance in the "Last Supper" argument with Jesus, and finally guilt and anguish in "Judas' Death", every emotion is evident in his voice and his face.  This production added an extra dimension to his story by implying a love triangle for him with Mary Magdalene and Jesus.  

Through the help of lighting but also a particularly angelic face, Paul Nolan positively glows as Jesus in the earlier scenes.  He nails his big number, "Gethsemane" where he debates with God over the merits of this plan that will lead his death and martyrdom.  This is my favourite song of the musical.  Where Judas had half a play to traverse his emotional arc, Jesus accomplishes it all in this one song.

Two cameo roles stand out in this musical.  First is the ever effervescent Bruce Dow in the role of Herod, the King of Galilee.  The initial seemingly congenial mockery in his tone as he suggests how Jesus can prove himself, soon turns into a chillingly menacing one that reveals his true nature.  Bruce Dow does not dance the Charleston like in my memories of the original Jesus Christ Superstar movie, but his ambling choreography includes a turn at the piano where he gleefully simulates playing the tune.

The second standout cameo performance is that of Brent Carver playing Pontius Pilate.  His quiet, sorrowful rendition of "Pilot's Dream" where he laments his premonition of his role in Jesus' demise is "haunting"  to quote a term from the song.

I was dreading the climatic crucifixion scene at the end of the show.  Owning an early soundtrack of the show since I was young, I always found the last track to be too disturbing to listen to.   In that rendition, the crucifixion was depicted with eery background music and an extremely creepy hammering as Jesus was being nailed to the cross.  This interpretation was missing from the Stratford show.  Instead the staging of the crucifixion scene was stunning, both in the design of the lit-up cross and the way Jesus is propelled into the air.

I am so impressed by the extraordinary lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber who wrote this musical in their early 20s.   A phrase which Jesus sings in the song "Poor Jerusalem"  has always resonated with me as being extremely profound and comforting:  "To conquer death you only have to die".

It may sound frivolous, but not having a religious upbringing, I learned much about Bible stories through my love of musicals.  This medium made it more accessible to me.

There are rumours that this show and its cast are Broadway bound.  I hope this is true so as it deserves a wider audience and continued success. 

Click here to listen to a CBC interview with the director and performances by the leads.

Theatre: Lysistrata

For the first time earlier this summer, we watched a play at U of T's outdoor Philosopher's Stage (located in the middle of Philosopher's Walk) next to the Faculty of Music building.  The theatre area consisted of a small stage on a grass field where the audience sat on their blankets and lawn chairs. 

The play we watched was an ancient Greek comedy called  Lysistrata written by Aristophanes in 411 B.C. It about the attempts of the titled character to convince the women of Greece to try to stop the Peloponnesian War.  Her plot was to impose a sex boycott on the warring soldiers from both sides  of the battle until they agreed to make peace.  The bawdy premise was played to the hilt as the women strutting around seductively and the randy, but sexually spurned returning warriors pacing around in frustration with literally foot-long erections.

The play was entertaining and the acting was solid, especially by the main players.  It was interesting to see that the subject matter of using sex as a bargaining chip was common even in such an old play.  Perhaps this was the inspiration for the slogan used by the U.S. Temperance movement of the late 1800s to rally against drinking - "Lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine".  It seems that using the "Battle of the Sexes" as a comedic plot device has very antiquated roots. 

I had two main complaints with the staging.  I did not like how the band punctuated every joke with a "ba-da-dum" drumroll or a sound effect as if prompting me that it was time to laugh.  They should have let the script and delivery of the performances stand for themselves.


Secondly we found it really difficult to hear in this outdoor venue where the actors were not miked.  Although they tried valiantly to project their voices, it was difficult to compete with the nearby street and other ambient noises.  Small wireless mikes would have solved this issue but perhaps the budget is not big enough for these small productions.

Cameron House Art Exhibit at MOCCA

A recent exhibition at Museum of Canadian Contemporary Art (MOCCA) was called "This Is Paradise".  It was a retrospective of the Canadian artists from the 1980s that congregated in the emerging Queen St West art district.  Many of the collection of paintings, videos and multimedia installations focuses on art that was featured at The Cameron House, a bar, hotel and small theatre that was a favoured meeting place for Toronto's avant-garde artists, musicians,  actors and writers.  Also on display as part of this show were works from the National Gallery of Canada from the same 1980s era.

"This is Paradise" refers to a phrase that artist Tom Dean painted on one of the walls of The Cameron House where he roomed after being evicted from his studio.  It has been written that Dean meant this ironically given the grungy, seedy conditions on Queen St in the tumultuous 80s when AIDs, drug use and threat of nuclear warfare were the topics of the day.  But within the context of  Cameron House, perhaps he meant it sincerely, since this was a haven where he and fellow artists found a sanctuary that fostered their creativity.

One of the most striking set of paintings of this collection was Susan Meig's Purgatorio series, depicting bar drinkers in their own (metaphorical?) state of hell. 

Rich like this cubism-influenced rendering of the band  Dogsound who played at Cameron House and other local bars.  I thought they looked like space aliens playing instruments.

One curious installation in the middle of the room was this huge tent covered with oxymoronically creepy looking bunnies.  Inside there was a vanity table, mirror, stool and lamp all covered with the same bunnies.  Across the top of the tent were the words "Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas" which Wikipedia informs you is the Latin translation of a bible quote referring to "meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of vanity".   How the bunnies fit in, I'm not quite sure!

Other interesting images included one of Lenin holding "The Joy of Cooking",  a cowboy hat made of rice crispies, and a photographic spoof on Andy Warhol's pop art, depicting a man naked except for a large can of campbell's soup covering his nether-regions.

A section of the exhibition was devoted to "General Idea", a trio of artists who specialized in conceptual and media-based art.  Some of their most famous themes were represented, including an AIDS painting that was a homage to Robert Indiana's LOVE, and one of poodles "interacting" with each other.  A larger exhibition of their work is currently on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) which will hopefully give me more insight into what this group was all about.

MOCCA - 952 Queen St West
The Cameron House - 408 Queen St West

Theatre: Railway Children; Wishful Thinking; Next to Normal

So many shows, so little time!  There is so much opportunity for live theatre in Toronto that it is hard to choose what to see.  Including the 8 shows we watched at the Fringe Festival, we're attending 13 different live theatre events in 5 weeks.  Just these past two weekends, we saw "The Railway Children" and "Wishful Drinking" from our Royal Alex subscription and "Next to Normal", part of the Dancap season. 

The Railway Children is playing at the Roundhouse Theatre, which was built specifically for this production.  It is based on a British children's story published in 1906 about three siblings who have to move from their affluent London home to a small cottage in the country when their father is unjustly jailed for espionage.  They fill their days playing at the railway station, waving at the commuters on the trains, making friends with the station porter, getting into scrapes and adventures along the way.

While entertaining, the plot was typical for the children's literature genre and acting was  average.  The main reason to see this show is for the staging which includes the star of the show, a functional vintage 1900s steam engine nicknamed "Vicky" which comes rolling into the theatre at various climatic moments in the story.

The theatre is designed to represent the train station with the seating on either side looking down on the north and south platforms and the real train tracks that run through the centre.  When the action occurs at the train station, the entire length of the long theatre is used as the actors run up and down the platforms and scramble in and out of the tracks.

Scenes away from the station are staged by having "railway men" push out rolling wooden platforms that deftly transformed the middle of the tracks into various locations, including rooms within the London home, the cottage, and the porter's home.

Roundhouse Theatre is built on Roundhouse Park, across from the CN Tower, which is also the home of the Toronto Rail Heritage Centre.  This train museum features an old railway turntable, a historic railway station, a collection of antique but working steam and diesel locomotives run by CP and CNR.  A miniature steam train runs around a track carrying delighted children and their less comfortable looking parents for a ride.

I did not like Carrie Fisher's one woman autobiographical retrospective cleverly called Wishful Drinking.  Unfortunately the title of the show, plus the playful pre-show announcements (Meryl Streep was unavailable for this show so sadly, the role of Carrie Fisher will be played today by... Carrie Fisher) turned out to be the most amusing parts of the show.  This was especially disappointing since Carrie Fisher is known to be a good writer and has a colourful past.

I expected sharp, witty, sarcastic anecdotes that provided good juicy details about her life and acting career.  While we got some of that, I found the narrative and delivery to be weak. Sitting at the back of the theatre, we couldn't hear her whenever she turned away, looked down or otherwise mumbled her words, many times while delivering the punch line.  She used the audience too much as a crutch, repeatedly picking on a few members in the front row to get a laugh, rather than letting her material speak for itself.  We actually left after the first half so maybe the second act improved significantly - we didn't want to stick around to find out in case it didn't.

On the other hand, I loved the Tony nominated musical Next to Normal about a family dealing with the mother's mental illness.  Tony Award winner Alice Ripley gives a searing performance as she plays Diana, who goes through drug regiments, counseling and even electric shock therapy in an effort to find a cure and become "normal".   Her long suffering husband Dan and daughter Natalie struggle to cope, while her "son" Gabriel serves as a mysterious presence through most of the show.

As the side effects of her treatment become more and more severe, Diana starts to wonder whether the cure is worse than the disease.  At one point when she is so drugged up,  she sings an extremely lyrical song about preferring to stay manic depressive than to feel nothing at all - "I miss the mountains .. the climbing and the falling".

Diana and Dan sing dueling songs where she claims that no one knows how she feels, while he sings that he's been there to support her all along.  The frustration, sadness and pain in their voices is heart-breaking.

"Do you wake up in the morning and need help to lift your head?
Do you read obituaries and feel jealous of the dead?
It's like living on a cliff side, not knowing when you'll dive.
Do you know, do you know what it's like to die alive?"

"I am the one who knows you
I am the one who cares ...
And if you think that I just don't give a damn
Then you just don't know who I am"

The daughter Natalie dulls her own pain by taking drugs and pushing away Henry, the boy who loves her.  At one point there is a very powerful song where Diana asks Dan why he stays with her, while Natalie is asking Henry the same question.  The parallel situations are accentuated by the staging with one couple on the first floor and one on the second floor, mirroring each others words and motions.

"Why stay?
Why not simply end it
We'd all comprehend it
And most of the world
would say he's better off that way
To be free and maybe so is she

Next to Normal portrays the issues of mental illness in a raw, realistic manner that shows the devastation that it can bring to all involved.  I was crying unabashedly by the end of the show.

Next up for us will be Lysistrata (a Greek Comedy)  by the U of T Hart House Theatre, and Jesus Christ Superstar at Stratford.  So many shows, so little time...Sadly we ran out of time to watch 9-5 The Musical, Hugh Jackman in Concert and more.  I guess there are worse problems to have!

Toronto Fringe Festival 2011 - Second Week

In my writeup of our first week at the Fringe, I described how difficult it was to determine which shows we would enjoy. For our second week's picks, in order to improve our odds, we went with external reviews from Now Magazine as well as recommendations from other Fringe goers.  We did not get the results we were hoping for. 

Now Magazine gave 4 stars and a rave review to Bursting in Flames which we did not like at all, while it gave 3 stars and a luke warm review to Love Virtually, which ended up being our second favourite show.

We switched our last show to go to a "Patrons' Pick" called Breaking News (another 4 star Now Magazine rating) and ended up hating that one too.  The Patron's Pick is determined by the show that sold the most tickets per venue.  Either all the shows of this venue were really bad, or everyone kept their opinions quiet so that more people could be bamboozled as well!

We were told to buy our tickets early for Patron's Picks, so the first clue that we were in trouble should have been showing up and finding there was no lineup. 

Breaking News again had an excellent premise - How do residents in a fictional small town in Illionois react when they think that Orson Welles' War of the World radio broadcast about an alien attack is real? 

The staging of the show was also intriguing.  Actors on stage played town mayor, his wife and staff, holding a townhall meeting. The audience was actually scattered with actors that were part of the show.  It was surprising when people all around us started to jump up and shout at each other and alot of the action happened in the aisles as opposed to on stage (which made the number of paying patrons even smaller).  Other than a lot of yelling and histrionics, there was not much plot and the ultimate insult (or blessing) was that the show was over in about 25 minutes.  

The worse part of seeing a bad show is not the waste of time and money, but the lost opportunities of watching better shows.  However the joy of stumbling unexpectedly on a great show so outweigh the disappointments of the bad ones that it makes it all worthwhile.

This is what happened when after getting out of one show, we decided to rejoin the lineup for "Love, Virtually", without knowing anything about it, other than the offer of free ice coffees from Big Smoke Coffee for all ticket holders.  "Love, Virtually" deals with internet dating and most of the action and dates happen within a coffee shop (serving Big Smoke Coffee - the cross promotion was brilliant!).


The dialogue was hilarious, especially when the main character, Lauren, reads out the profiles for her potential dates.  As she does this, the men parade out to the front of the stage and complete the descriptions of their goals and hobbies, representing all the typical stereotypes - the nerd, the nature loving sports enthusiast, the pretentious cultural sophisticate, the hockey fanatic and so on.

There is a deeper plot also about getting over a lost past love that plays out as a bit of a mystery, with a flashback scene repeating several times throughout the show, each time revealing a bit more about the situation.  The play also makes so good observations about the impact of the online social networking phenomenon on personal interactions.  And on top of all that, there are some good songs that are blended naturally into the plot, as the cafe has open mike nights and Lauren is a singer by profession.

Our pick of "Tiki Bikini Beach Paradise Party A-Go-Go" was a good safe pick.  This was a musical spoof of the Frankie Avalon/Annette Funicello beach movies, and was every bit the frothy light, entertaining show that it aims to be.  The talented, intentionally over the top actors sang and danced their way through the traditionally paper thin plot of a gang of kids wanting to hold one last beach party before heading back home to school and reality.

There was a mix of old summer beach songs such as "I Think You Think" from Beach Blanket Bingo, as well as a few specifically written for the play including the title song, which was catchy and fun.  There were some original uses of props and staging including a raunchy sight gag with a surf board, a dance with hula hoops, and the simulation of palm trees.

Another pick which was right up my alley was "Mickey and Judy", a one man show where a very talented Michael Hughes sings Broadway tunes as he tells amusing anecdotes about his childhood about growing up with a love for musicals and Judy Garland.  He weaves in songs like "Dressing them Up" from Kiss of the Spider Woman to describe his predilection for cross-dressing, which landed him in the psych ward, and "Make 'Em Laugh" from Singing in the Rain, where he talks about trying to use humour to avoid getting beaten up because he was different.

Michael Hughes has a beautiful singing voice and an engaging, endearing manner of speaking that made you want to run up and hug him as he talks so earnestly and humorously about persevering and following his dreams of reaching Broadway, and how his admiration of Judy Garland helped him through it all.  He sings a medley of Judy Garland songs as a tribute and ends appropriately with her most famous song, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".

Now that the Fringe Festival is over, the shows voted to be "Best of Fringe" will be playing encore performances at the Toronto Centre for the Arts (formerly the Ford Centre in in North York), so if you missed it, there's another opportunity.  Given that all 5 of the shows that we really enjoyed (Kim's Convenience, Love Virtually, Living with Henry, Mickey and Judy, Tiki Beach Bikini..) all made the cut.   Our final tally was 5 out of 8.  In baseball terms, we'd be all stars, so I think we did OK in our picks this year.. looking forward to next year.

Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Summerlicious at Luma

Showing movies outdoors is becoming more popular in Toronto with regular summer showings at Yonge Dundas Square, Harbourfront Centre, Downsview, Riverdale Park, Amsterdam Brewry and David Pecaut Square (aka Metro Square), etc.  Large portable film screens show movie classics while the audience sit on lawn and folding chairs, or bring blankets to camp out on the grass.

This year, TIFF is showing classic movie musicals, such as Singing in the Rain, Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins,  every Wednesday night at the David Pecaut Square.  

We went to watch a 1964 French musical called Umbrellas of Cherbourg.  A very young Catherine Deneuve plays  seventeen year old Geneviève who is in love with Guy.  When he leaves for military service and she finds out she is pregnant, she must decide whether to wait for him or accept the offer of marriage from another man.  The phrase "a bird in hand ..." comes to mind.

This musical was unique for its times in that all the dialogue was sung.  This did not come into vogue in English speaking musicals until later, with Andrew Lloyd Webber leading the charge (Joseph & Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar).  The soaring music was written by Michel Legrand, who also wrote one of my favourite songs, "Windmills of your Mind".  The song I will wait for you from the movie was nominated for an Oscar and sounded very familiar, since the English version has been covered by many artists.

Prior to the movie, we had a Summerlicious dinner at Luma, the restaurant in the TIFF Bell Lightbox.  My first two courses were a Saigon salad and steak with mash potato, which were really good but not extremely original.  My dessert though was quite different - called a chocolate jelly roll, it was like dark chocolate jello covered with sour cherries, crunchy caramel bits, flower petals and a caramel toffee tuile.  As always, I like having different tastes and textures in my food.  I found the mixture of sweet and sour, chewy and crunchy, as well as the presentation to be very appealing. 

Toronto Fringe Festival 2011 - First Week

The Toronto Fringe Festival presents over 100 offerings of live theatre, performed at small venues, featuring plays that are avant garde, non-mainstream, innovative and sometimes just plain weird. With such a large number of eclectic shows to choose from, its always a crap shoot what you end up watching.  We've seen some amazing, extremely entertaining  plays, and some that leave us scratching our heads, wondering what that was all about.

This year, I've picked 7 plays, and after watching the first 4 this weekend, I am currently 50% in my selections.  I've seen two excellent plays, one that had a great premise, but came across as amateurish and not well scripted, and one that I wish I could go back in time and reclaim the lost hour of my life.

Austen for the Attention Impaired is a comedy that compresses all of Jane Austen's novels into one hour.  We thought it would be like "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" which was hilarious.  Instead the acting was stilted and many of the jokes fell flat.   It started out promising with a funny rap but went downhill from there. 

Bursting into Flames was an even worse experience for us.  Reviewed as a high energy "blisteringly funny" comedy by a master story teller, and winner of the best of Fringe in  other festivals, this sounded like a slam dunk.  Unfortunately, the manic style of this comic did not appeal to us.  We found he just rambled on and on and was not funny at all.  Luckily it was just a 60 minute show and only $10 so the investment was not huge.

These are the chances you take with the Fringe, but when you pick a gem of a show, it makes it all worthwhile.

My first great pick was a musical drama called "Living With Henry" about a gay man named Michael who deals with contracting HIV/AIDS.   In the past, AIDS was an automatic death sentence as depicted by movies like Streets of Philadelphia and musicals like Rent.  This play deals with the issues of having to live out your life with the fears, complications and stigma of this disease that is now controllable with medicine.

What makes this show unique is the early reveal that Henry is actually "Henry Ignactius Virus", the personification of HIV.  Henry is played to perfection by an actor dressed all in black who gives off just the right mix of creepy dread and menace.  Henry clings to Michael and acts both physically and emotionally as roadblock in some of his interactions as he reveals his illness to his lesbian best friend, his mother and his lover.  Eventually when Michael finally comes to terms with his life with the disease, Henry softens and becomes more like a companion than an enemy.

Being a musical about such a serious topic, there were the expected and dramatic songs about fear and pain and acceptance.  But there were also humorous numbers including a dance by the two main ingredients of AIDS medication, and a hilarious bathhouse ballet that featured the gawkiest "Swan Lake"-like lifts ever choreographed.

The dialogue is raw and poignant and has an air of authenticity since the author of the play is also HIV positive.  Some of the action is a bit risqué, but this powerful play is a perfect example of what you can see at Fringe that is less accessible in mainstream theatre.

Kim's Convenience has been heavily hyped and is likely this year's version of "The Drowsy Chaperone" which is now famous for being picked up by David Mirvish for a professional run in Toronto and then went on to Broadway.

50% of tickets to each show are sold in advance and the rest reserved for sale 1 hour before the show.  We knew we were in for something special when the advanced tickets to our show sold out days in advance and when we arrived at the theatre over 1.5 hours early, there was already a lineup for tickets.  We got ours just in time as all tickets sold out shortly after.

Kim's Convenience is about a Korean family that runs a convenience store in Regent Park, Toronto. The familiar story of a father trying to leave his legacy to children with  dreams of their own, is brought to life with a stellar script and excellent acting.  A huge decision needs to be made when the patriarch is given a substantial offer to sell the store.

This play won the 2011 Toronto Fringe New Play Contest and is extremely funny for the most part but has some touching moments.  The immigrant Korean father with the heavy accent, stern demeanour, wearing white socks and open toed rubber sandals, is played to perfection by actor Paul Lee.

His witty repartee with various customers and his feisty daughter made the audience roar with laughter.  We still discuss in amusement the conversation where the father tries to teach his daughter how to detect shoplifters by describing different demographics and genders as "Steal or No Steal or Cancel Combo".  And when the father rebuts every word the daughter says by throwing it back at her ("Stop" - "You Stop";  "Please" - "You Please"), the daughter tricks him into saying things like ("Calyptus" - "Eucalyptus").

Brief dialogue with his wife, spoken totally in Korean, gave the play a feel of authenticity.  Although you had no idea what words were spoken between them, it was obvious exactly what they were talking about.  Scenes with the wayward son, played by the playwright Ins Choi, tear at the heart strings and made more than a few eyes moist including mine.

This play deserves a professional run in mainstream theatre so let's hope David Mirvish or his people have gone to see it.

Four shows down and three to go.  Keeping my fingers crossed that my last few selections will be as good.