Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

  Virgin play for the virgin playwright  By Stephen Weir  The Caribbean Camera Inc.  on  April 20, 2023 Rarer than a church handing out money on Sunday to its congregation, the new play Vierge (virgin) is breaking ground with its black all-female cast and its Black female playwright. oh yes, its director is a Zambia-born Black woman. The city has a long history of White male dominated theatre, Vierge is making a huge racial and gender statement that, judging by the rousing Thursday night premier, rocked the standing-room-only Toronto audience. Etobicoke’s Shauna Thompson stars in Vierge, the new play recently unveiled at the factory theatre. The play features Thompson as Divine, a sixteen-year-old who feels like she doesn’t belong anywhere and whose only comfort is her rarely read Bible. However, when her family joins a Montreal Congolese church and she befriends three African Canadian girls in her newly formed youth group, Divine discovers that the world around...

Moodie and Stephanie MacDonald New Magic Valley Fun Town Play Is Very Dark And Very Moodie By Stephen Weir If there was such a thing as magic, a troubled dad could wave his wand and Presto the sexual trauma of childhood and the sins of the adults who did it will be gone in a cloud of smoke.  Canadian playwright and actor Daniel MacIvor knows in his heart of hearts that pixie dust is just funny coloured dirt and that sometimes the only cure for a troubled past is death. MacIvor newest play, New Magic Valley Fun Town just opened at the Tarragon Theatre in downtown Toronto is initially a million laughs. But, over the course of 90 minutes the actors on stage, and the people sitting in the sold-out theatre, must confront the darkest memories of childhood sexual assault. This is a play set completely inside a Nova Scotia mobile trailer. It is the home of Dougie, a bumbling Cape Bretoner who can’t walk and talk at the same time without spilling his Timmy’s, Cheesies an...

There is a Rose in this Canadian Harlem Review by Stephen Weir   Harlem Duet, currently on stage at the Tarragon Theatre is attracting much attention. It is selling out most nights of its Toronto six-week run. There is nothing new about this 21-year old drama. Certainly not with the script which was written by Guyanese/Ja maican/Canadian Djanet Sears back in 1998. Nor  is there a new message found in the plot line  of the North American Black experience. It is a story of loyalty, revenge, love, madness and, of course, racism depress ingly repeated over three  generations in Harlem and the Deep South .  Virgilia Griffith So why is Harlem Duets packing the mid-town Tarragon Theatre these days?  It is the acting – the passion that some of Toronto’s best known Caribbean Canadian actors bring to the stage in a telling of age-old social problems that still impact the community today.   The standout star is  Virgilia Griffith ...

Alana Bridgewater Is Singing The Blues with the Soulpepper Theatre  Review By Stephen Weir - Caribbean Camera Way back in time, Singing the Blues was a cultural statement for embattled Black Americans. The sad truth, at least, according to a 36-year old award winning play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom that just opened in Toronto, living the Blues doesn’t usually end well.  The play which tells a story of  race, and exploitation of Black recording artists in Chicago in the twenties   is getting a much deserved revival at Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre this month. The award winning American classic by August Wilson is a fictional account of the day the “Mother of the Blues” Ma Rainey (aka Gertrude Pridgett) recorded her 1927 hit record, Black Bottom, at a white owned studio in the Windy City. Ma Rainey is on a roll – and today she is going to cut a song she has written about dancing the Black Bottom  (a popular African American dance in the 20s. It is a ...