Give the old funny bone a workout

Byron Toben

October 2011

“The play’s the thing,” opined noted critic P. Hamlet centuries ago in Denmark. He was trying to capture the conscience of the king.

But British funnyman P.G. Wodehouse’s adaptation of Hungarian Ferenc Molnar’s The Play at the Castle seems guaranteed to capture your funny bone. This is a lighthearted antidote to the Segal’s last show, the gripping but intense Equus. Set in an Italian castle overlooking the Mediterranean, Molnar weaves a plot wherein a successful playwright intervenes to keep his key young composer on board when the star actress, the composer’s love, seems to be smitten by an actor in the cast.

The Segal Centre has assembled a superior cast including veteran Chip Chuipka, fast-rising star Jessica B. Hill and versatile Paul Hopkins.

October 30 to November 20, Segal Centre, 514-739-7944.

Far From The Madding Crowd is Gabrielle Soskin’s Persephone Productions latest working of British-based ensemble renderings. Adapted from Thomas Hardy’s classic novel, it follows feisty Bathsheba coping in a man’s world after inheriting a farm. Christopher Moore stars and co-directs, as he did in the group’s Henry V last year.

October 20-26, Rialto Theatre, 514-770-7773; October 28-30, Victoria Hall, 514-486-7423.

Hyena Supoena: In the 1950s, everybody loved Lucy. In Montreal, for the last 20 years, every high-art aficionado loves Cat Kidd.

This unique and superb performance poet has travelled the world with her wit and distinctive voice. In her latest, a world premiere multimedia creation directed by Alison Darcy, she is Mona Morse, who has fled civilization for the African bushveld. October 13-29, Les Ateliers Jean-Brillant, 661 Rose de Lima. 438-884-2200.