Every Thursday, we publish live music and performance events at pubs and clubs in Peterborough and The Kawarthas based on information that venues provide to us directly or post on their website or social media channels. Here are the listings for the week of Thursday, September 21 to Wednesday, September 27.

If you’re a pub or club owner and want to be included in our weekly listings, please email our Nightlife Editor at nightlife@kawarthanow.com.

On Thursday, September 21st, The Theatre on King (TTOK) in downtown Peterborough not only launches its fall season, but produces the first show of the 2017-2018 theatrical season with a celebration of the wit and wisdom of American novelist and short story writer F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Director Ryan Kerr presents Two Short One Acts by F. Scott Fitzgerald featuring “Porcelain and Pink” and “Mr. Icky”.

Published together in his 1922 anthology Tales From the Jazz Age, “Porcelain and Pink” and “Mr. Icky” were both written during the peak creative period of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s career when he was living in New York and primarily submitting short stories to be published in magazines as a way to pay for his and his wife Zelda’s extravagant lifestyle.

Tales From the Jazz Age, published the same year as his novel The Beautiful and Damned but three years prior to The Great Gatsby, consisted of 11 stories and plays which, for the exception of a few notable pieces, had been previously published.

First appearing in a literary magazine called The Small Set in 1920, “Porcelain and Pink” caused a minor stir in New York’s publishing industry upon its publication for, what at that time, was considered too risqué for readers.

A farcical comedy of family dynamics, flirtation, and mistaken identity, “Porcelain and Pink” is hardly a play as much as a well-written burlesque sketch. By today’s standards, the material in the sketch is so tame I can say I’ve seen old Benny Hill sketches that are far more salacious.

Still, “Porcelain and Pink” holds its charm as presented by Samantha Mansfied as the playful bather Julie, Robyn Smith as her proper (to the point of being prudish) sister Lois, and Chris Jardin as the male suitor who comes calling. There is little drama to be told, with the exception of playful banter between the two sisters as they vie for time in the bathroom.

However, at a time when the bathroom was not spoken of in polite company, a play featuring one as the backdrop — let alone one that includes a woman in the bathtub conversing about nudity and her body — was shocking to readers.

Samantha Mansfield owns this piece as Julie, who strips down for an on-stage bubble bath as she sings, taunts, and flirts her way through this light sketch. It’s a quick and breezy opening to a show which shifts moods with the second piece, “Mr. Icky”.

The stronger piece of the night, “Mr. Icky” is hard to decipher as a narrative, but the themes and emotions within the piece carry the audience through. Fitzgerald’s attempt at absurdist theatre, many of the best jokes are actually in the stage directions themselves — as director Ryan Kerr explained to me after the performance — which the audience never see but become their own kind of joke on the director and the actors.

“Mr. Icky” revolves around the title character, played by Ken Bolton, who at the end of his life finds himself filled with wisdom, but unable to connect intellectually with his children or the modern age. “Mr. Icky” is also filled with themes Fitzgerald would revisit later in The Great Gatsby, including the shallowness of the wealthy, the ignorance of youth, and the fragility of loyalty.

New to the Peterborough stage, Ken Bolton could be one of the most exciting new additions to local theatre. As Mr. Icky, he gives a masterful performance filled with both whimsy and pathos as he putters with his pots and fails at communicating with his two daughters.

In the role of his oldest daughter, Ulsa, is the charming Angela Sorenson who has left the humble lifestyle of her father in an attempt to climb the social ladder. Meanwhile his younger daughter Charles, played by Samuelle Weatherdon, seeks to create her own adventures and, despite her youth, shows open hostility to her father. Despite his years of wisdom and sensibility, Mr. Icky is losing his children to the exciting seduction to the modern age.

Also appearing in “Mr. Icky” is Simon Turner who finally finds the perfect role for his intellectual over-the-top performance style. In the role of Ulsa’s fiancé Rodney Devine, Simon has a huge presence in the piece, and the juxtaposition created between Rodney and Mr. Icky is the source for much of the comedic tension.

Fourteen-year-old actor George Knechtel also gives a strong performance as Mr. Icky’s companion Peter. Although there is no explanation of the relationship between Mr. Icky and Peter, George gives a soulful performance that matches that of Ken’s portrayal of the wise Mr. Icky.

However, the final scenes between Mr. Icky and Peter are up for interpretation.

What is interesting about “Mr. Icky” is that the story is basically an age-old look at the disconnection created by the generation gap between parents and children. It’s a story that repeats itself era after era, and is as true today as when Fitzgerald wrote it in 1922.

The production also has some surreal final moments made possible by the imaginative costuming and props created by Kate Story, and some dramatic lighting design by Ryan Kerr.

“Mr. Icky” is an interesting piece that is both whimsical and extremely somber. The final moments of the show are haunting and powerful.

TTOK’s night of F. Scott Fitzgerald is a nice way to start your evening with a little bit of culture and creative theatre. A little on the short side, the evening is definitely compact, but is consistent to the type of theatre that patrons of TTOK have come to expect, and what keeps them coming back again and again.

It’s a nice showcase for some familiar performers and a few new ones I hope to see more of as the theatre season continues.

Two Short One Acts by F. Scott Fitzgerald opens on Thursday, September 21st and runs until Saturday, September 23rd at The Theatre on King (159 King St., Suite 120, Peterborough). Admission is $10 (or pay what you can) and performances begin at 8 p.m.

Public Energy is kicking off its 24th season on Thursday, September 21st at 7 p.m. with a double bill of cutting-edge multimedia dance from Vancouver-based company Hong Kong Exile at the Market Hall Performing Arts Centre.

Hong Kong Exile is made up of three contemporary artists: Milton Lim (theatre), Remy Siu (new music), and Natalie Tin Yin Gan (dance). The three met as students at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts and have been consistently creating and producing work since 2011 when the company was formed.

Through dance, music, and multimedia, Hong Kong Exile investigates cultural politics in an era of globalization, and focuses on underrepresented experiences and identities in their work.

Since its inception, the company has developed a reputation as an engaged, rigorous, and prolific emerging arts company, and has created 14 original works since 2011.

They were honoured for their work by being named 2017 Artists-in-Residence at Vancouver’s PuSh Festival, one of Canada’s most prestigious international performing arts festivals.

VIDEO: Hong Kong Exile

Hong Kong Exile will be bringing its two signature works to the Market Hall: NINEEIGHT and Room 2048.

NINEEIGHT explores the feeling of anxiety in Hong Kong surrounding the British handover of the country to China in 1998. This began a 50-year transition period of “one country, two systems” that will end in 2047.

Room 2048, the sequel to NINEEIGHT and the company’s latest work, explores the uncertainty of a future beyond Hong Kong’s transition to China. Sourcing seminal films by Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong Exile’s performers are animated by live manipulated top-down projection. In digital light, bodies sway, shake, and run — oscillating between gestures of the mundane and the sacred. Room 2048 is audacious, avant-garde, and experimental.

“A clever, fascinating, and absorbing dance piece that lingers in the memory long after the show,” says Lawrence Kelson of Plank Magazine. “This is a company that is full of confidence, and trusts in its ability to engage and challenge its audience.”

Natalie Tin Yin Gan, the lead artist for NINEEIGHT and Room 2048, is a contemporary dance artist specializing in improvisation and interdisciplinary collaboration. She lives and works on the un-ceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples. Natalie has a double degree in Contemporary Dance and International Studies from Simon Fraser University.

Following the Market Hall performance, refreshments will be served as the company engages in a post-show talkback session with the audience.

Tickets are $20 ($15 students/underwaged) and available at the Market Hall Box Office, by phone at 705-749-1146, or online at markethall.org.

The day after the performance (September 22), digital media designer and member of the company, Remy Siu, will give a special workshop called “Integrating Digital Media in Performance” from 2 to 4:40 p.m. at Artspace (378 Aylmer St. N., Peterborough). To sign up for the workshop, email admin@publicenergy.ca.

On Sunday, September 24th, New Stages Theatre opens their 2017-2018 season with the first reading in their popular The Page on Stage series with a presentation of Unholy by Diane Flacks — who will also be participating in the reading.

Unholy is a show about the role women play in different religions and if they should abandon it due to the misogyny inbred into the various doctrines.

First presented last winter at Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Unholy was written by Canadian playwright, actress, and comedian Diane Flacks. While studying at Hebrew school, Diane became interested in the role that women play in religion when she discovered a prayer that stated “Thank you God for not making me a woman.”

Eventually, Diane rejected religion completely, but the process turned into the script for Unholy. The show opened to positive reviews and is set to be restaged later this year at Buddies in Bad Times from November 23rd to December 10th.

For the Market Hall reading of Unholy, producer and New Stages artistic director Randy Read is bringing members of the original cast — including Flacks — along with another interesting actress who originally helped workshop the play.

Unholy is a staged debate featuring four very different women from different faiths. Gathered together for a YouTube channel called Unique Ideas, the question being discussed is “Should women abandon religion?”

On the pro-religion side are Maryam Hashemi (Tommi-Amber Pirie), a young Muslim feminist lawyer, and Yehudit Kalb (Niki Landau), an Orthodox Jewish “female” rabbi.

On the opposing side are Liz Feldman-Grant (Diane Flacks), a Jewish-born lesbian atheist, and Margaret Donahue (Patricia Hamilton), an excommunicated nun who still considers herself to be Catholic.

Actor/director Blair Williams also appears as the debate’s moderator Richard, who attempts to keep order in the debate as the women get more passionate about their personal stances on religion.

The story also features character-building moments where the women are removed from the debate in flashback vignettes which further explain their past experiences, shedding light on their stances and attitudes towards religion.

“The core of the play is something we all grapple with in term of all religions,” says Randy. “Do we abandon them, or do we try to work from within to change them? I’ve never understand why the Catholic Church won’t let women become priests, when they are so desperate for priests.

“I find as I get older I find myself thinking about faith. Do I not ignore it? It’s so bred in us. So I think the audience will enjoy the play because it’s such a healthy and funny exchange of the ideas.”

Always looking for plays that challenge the audience by looking at often controversial subjects from different viewpoints, Randy admits that while he knew of the play, it took a New Stages subscriber to put it on his radar for the current season.

“Unholy was sort of in my mind because it has that strong dialectic,” Randy sayys. “But when I was selecting plays for this season, I got an email from one of our subscribers who suggested that it might be a good one for our reading series. It really meant a lot that someone would take the time to write to me, so I took it seriously. I got a copy of the play and took a look at it more closely.”

Randy first became aware of Unholy when he was working with longtime friend Patricia Hamilton, who is best known to audiences for playing the role of Rachel Lynde in CBC’s classic Anne of Green Gables series, as well as its follow up Road to Avonlea.

“Patricia was involved in workshopping Unholy last year,” Randy says. “Diane really wanted Pat to play the role of the excommunicated nun, but when it came time to do the final production she was unavailable to do it.”

New Stages reading of Unholy will see Patricia Hamilton in the role she was intended to have for the first time in front of an audience.

“I’m glad we can get Pat to explore the play with an audience,” Randy says. “She got to workshop and help develop the play, but never got to do it.”

Randy is also excited to have Diane reprising her role of Liz, a role that seems to be the closest to her own personal beliefs.

“Diane will be doing the role again for us, which is great because we’ll have the playwright with us for the talk back discussion at the end of the night,” Randy says, referring to the question and answer discussion held following all of New Stages’ The Page on Stage readings.

Popular with New Stages subscribers, The Page on Stage reading series has always drawn a large audience and is continuously a memorable and impactful night of theatre.

This year, New Stages will be focusing the majority of their season on the reading series, with a presentation of Beverly Cooper’s If Truth Be Told in February, and a two-part presentation of Tony Kushner’s modern classic Angels in America in April and May.

Watching a play reading is a different sort of theatrical experience then watching a full performance, but it is just as compelling — in many instances, it becomes a celebration of the prose rather than the spectacle on the stage. Randy also manages to bring together big talent for these performances, and it is often the closest that our community gets to seeing Toronto theatre in Peterborough.

For more information on New Stages’ current season, visit www.newstages.ca.

Unholy will be presented on Sunday, September 24th at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre (140 Charlotte St., Peterborough). The performance starts at 7:30 p.m., and tickets are $20 or $15 for students or art workers, available at the Market Hall box office, by phone at 705-749-1146, or online at markethall.org.