Reviews

Michael Gougis’s The Syllabus is an acerbic, awesome one-man show that skewers our modern media culture through the lens of modern academia with razor-sharp wit. Gougis is astute in his observations, effortlessly blending the absurdity of academia - and the broader culture - with his biting social commentary. It’s fast, funny, and packed with surprising observations —exactly the kind of humor that sticks with you long after the curtain falls. An A+ performance

I was not able to write a review of this show in a timely fashion. There were many details I took issue with, but too much time has gone by, and I didn’t write them down. Probably the biggest mistake the author made was to try and make a modern opera using directly quoted Elizabethan English. This was a musicalized Macbeth: if ever a work deserved to be adapted into an opera, it’s this one, and all credit to the composer for daring to follow in Verdi’s footsteps. But if it’s ever going to be more than a personal challenge, though, and you want it to become an artistic success, let alone a commercial one, you need to update it for modern audiences. Shakespeare is hard enough all by itself for modern readers to understand. It gets a little better when his works are viewed on stage, but the language is so archaic that comprehension relies heavily on the stagecraft of the actors, the choices made by the director, and the quality of the performance, which can vary wildly from day to day.

To then present such a work in a concert setting, without costumes, drops, scene changes, staging, etc. is dead boring. I couldn’t understand what was going on. I tried sitting there and just enjoying the musical composition, and the excellent musicianship of New Era Group, but it just wasn’t enough to arrest my attention, and overcome our modern short attention span. I left early.

The composer should analyze Shakespeare’s play, have a living writer create a new script that tells the story of Macbeth in 21st Century English, and proceed from there, if he’s really intent on creating a new Macbeth opera.

With a vulnerable, nuanced script, accompanied by visceral lighting and sound design, Tough Guy is brought to life by a brilliant cast that straddles the line between love and grief so present in the queer community. From losing a loved one in a senseless hate crime, to forgoing a family that cannot accept you, this tender play shows us that each tragedy is a worthy battle to find joy and community in a world that too often chooses hate and isolation.

One of the central tensions in theatre, particularly theatre that grapples with difficult subject matter, is finding the right balance between realism and effective storytelling. Tough Guy, a new play by Hayley Moorhouse following a queer friend group coping with the aftermath of a nightclub shooting, is a sincere examination of queer grief, joy, and resilience, but sometimes struggles to land with full force.

At its core, Tough Guy explores how people grieve both as individuals and as a community, and the way these processes are sometimes in conflict. When filmmaker Emerson returns to her hometown after a year away wanting to make a film about a tragic event she wasn’t present for, it throws her friend group into disarray as they debate a host of necessary questions: What does it mean to make art about queer pain? Who has the right to tell those stories? Where is the line between art and exploitation? Autumn Strom is a delight in the role, striking the perfect note of earnest self-involvement with slightly cringy monologues that were painfully reminiscent of my own early 20s as a queer person.

One of Tough Guy’s strengths is that while the precipitating event is obviously the central trauma impacting the characters, each also deals with their own struggles in a way that makes the characters feel true to life. Queer people often juggle multiple sources of heartbreak: parental rejection, political prejudice, not to mention the thousand small disappointments every young person experiences, from friends growing apart to career uncertainties. While this is realistic, there is at times so much going on with the characters on top of the central trauma that the story risks losing focus.

Tough Guy also sometimes makes the opposite mistake, choosing practicality over realism in distracting ways. Quinn, an amateur boxer attempts to work through their grief via their sport. However, actor Jasmine Hopfe never strikes the on-set punching bag with more than a token amount of force. While it’s understandable to take safety precautions, there’s something profoundly jarring about watching a character metaphorically fight through trauma while the actor literally pulls their punches.

Despite these challenges, Tough Guy succeeds where it matters most. As Sutton, Marguerite Lawler provides some much-needed levity, simultaneously demonstrating how humour helps us cope with unimaginable pain while also occasionally causing friction with those who grieve differently. While the script could benefit from revisions and some staging choices could use refinement, Tough Guy deserves to be seen. It’s important, powerful theatre that finds the intersection of queer grief, joy and resilience.

What a creative and engaging show! It took what seems like a pretty simple concept -- starting a university class during a political contentious and socially conscious time -- and built something very original and thought provoking. Kudos!

I really enjoyed Mark's ability to combine the narrative of his experience with comedy and music. He developed a show thats able to take the audience on his personal journey through both the good and the bad while reminding them that it's important to laugh no matter the circumstances.

The syllabus was a hilarious reminder of all of the quirky ways a teacher can be distracted or frustrated by his students. Micheal’s performance was a one man, fun filled walk down memory lane. His anecdotes about students’ misconduct and how he perceived them had us laughing and gave my partner and I new inside jokes. It was a well rounded play, it didn’t drag on. If anything, by the end I was looking forward to what his actual lesson about media! The play had jokes they kept giving when he brought them back around again (I feel this is a key to the best comedy). The show ended with an enlightening and thought provoking monologue. Go see it for yourself.

Thank you for the fun and hilarious gift of comedy before the dark days of fall are here!

Michael broke down the role media plays in our lives in ways we rarely notice. The meta concept was illuminating and worth exploring. Highly recommend to everyone who cares about the way the world learns and reacts to knowledge.

I cannot comprehend everyone was able to create such a funny, clever, and well-rounded story off of one person's family story on the spot. The jabs (both verbal and physical) were insanely clever. There were multiple moments where I thought they were spitting witticisms I could actually find in a Shakespeare play. I am still thinking about "I shall cut thee down into a half-brother".

"One night I sleep, one night I dream."

Watching these two inspired women pore over legal books to learn what laws they had and have was incredible to see. The conversations were indeed uncomfortable since they dealt with such heavy topics, but they were important ones. They wrestled with what to do with all this new information and realizations, but ultimately they stood together and made their own choice.