CTV News Barrie covers First Métis Man of Odesa by Matthew MacKenzie & Mariya Khomutova playing at Talk Is Free Theatre in Barrie, Ontario Feb 22 - March 2, 2024.
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Source: The Bridge Community News
Author of the Article: Winnie Czulinski
Hearts and flowers are a part of it. But this love story also draws on the deaths and devastated landscapes of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, plus the pandemic that gripped the world with illness and isolation.
Closed doors, cultural differences, desperate measures. A romance, a pregnancy, a wedding. Even the bride’s mother living and touring with the young husband and wife. And much laughter.
The play reflecting this story, through the real-life couple of Métis-Canadian playwright Matthew MacKenzie and Ukrainian actor Mariya Khomutova, has captivated Canada. In 2023, First Métis Man of Odesa, a triple Dora Mavor Moore award-winner, played to appreciative audiences in 96 performances and six cities, with rave reviews.
The married duo, who now live in Cabbagetown, met while MacKenzie was engaged in workshops and theatre research in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2018. English-speaking hired actor Khomutova noted that this accomplished theatre person was “my size and height, often silent, observed a lot, and not out to make an impression.”
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Source: BarrieToday.com
Author of the Article: BarrieToday Staff
First Metis Man of Odesa will be performed at Five Points Theatre with seven-show run from Feb. 22 until March 2.
It’s been nearly two years since Russian troops invaded Ukraine and two local groups are doing what they can to continue to keep a spotlight on the war.
On Saturday, Feb. 24, Punctuate! Theatre Production is hosting a special tribute performance of First Metis Man of Odesa — written by Matthew MacKenzie and Mariya Khomutova — at the Five Points Theatre in downtown Barrie.
Described as a captivating real-life love story, First Metis Man of Odesa has played to rave reviews across the country, and is based on actual events.
Set against the backdrop of the COVID pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the curtain is set to go up on its seven-show run on Thursday, Feb. 22 and will run until March 2.
The Feb. 24 performance, which is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m., is to commemorate the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a war which has seen thousands of civilians killed since troops invaded the Eastern European country on Feb. 24, 2022.
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Source: Toronto Star
Author of the Article: Glenn Sumi Special to the Star
Whether recent theatre school grads, mid-career artists or ensemble members finally offered a lead, their names will elicit joy and recognition in future programs.
Every year, a handful of lesser known theatre artists are so impressive that they break through to a new level of recognition.
They might be recent theatre school grads, mid-career artists with established reputations elsewhere or ensemble members finally offered a shot at a lead. Whatever the case, going forward, their names in programs will elicit joy and recognition.
Here, in alphabetical order, are some theatre artists who got me and other theatregoers googling their names at intermission.
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Source: Toronto Star
Author of the Article: Karen Fricker Theatre Critic, Joshua Chong Staff Reporter
With inspiring performances that elicited emotions from joy to anger to disgust and everything in between, Toronto's theatre scene has delivered a packed and powerful year of theatrical shows
When we met to talk through our favourite theatre shows of the year, a strong theme emerged: truth-telling. Be they new plays based on real-life stories, imagined stories that resonate with past and current socio-politics, or classics retold in ways that reflect contemporary experience, it’s clear we were hungry for veracity and topicality.
In that vein, there’s no production that better sums up the theatrical spirit of 2023 than our first pick here, in which a brilliant Indigenous storyteller spins a big theatrical lie to lay down some profound truths about Indigenous/settler relations on this land.
Here, in no particular order following our number one pick, is a list of the top 10 productions of 2023 which we selected together through debate and consensus — plus two bonus picks of shows that stuck with us individually for different reasons.
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Source: Winnipeg Free Press
Author of the article: Ben Waldman
Method meets the madness and emotion of war in battle-hardened romcom
One of the key facets of Method acting, as set out by the Russian dramatist Konstantin Stanislavski’s “system” of training, is perezhivanie, which encourages actors to embody their roles as though they were lived realities, erasing the border between imagination and experience to establish a oneness between character and performer.
Matthew MacKenzie and Mariya Khomutova do precisely that in the triumphant, hilarious and moving First Métis Man of Odesa, a star-crossed, windswept, war-torn romcom that waltzes back and forth across the threshold that separates dreams from nightmares.
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Source: Winnipeg Free Press
Author of the article: Ben Waldman
Playwright and actress explore wartime romance
Matthew MacKenzie and Mariya Khomutova met onstage in a soon-to-be combat zone, which might explain why the timeline of their love story reads like the table of contents in an epic wartime novel.
In October 2018, MacKenzie, a Métis playwright, travelled to Kyiv to serve as dramaturge on Barvinok, a production inspired by personal accounts from Ukrainian citizens during the Second World War, amid the earliest rumblings of a full-on Russian invasion. Khomutova, an Odesan actor, was in the cast.
“My impression was that Matthew wasn’t like a typical theatre-maker,” Khomutova says. “Because, usually, people who do theatre are very self-involved, speaking about what they’ve achieved, what they’ve worked on.”
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Source: Edify Edmonton
Why she’s Top 40
She makes art inspired by real-world events to influence real-world change
Age: 34
Job Title: Theatre Artist, Pyretic Productions
Lianna Makuch has been drawn to the stage since she was a child, and her mentors in high school encouraged her to pursue a career in the arts. But it wasn’t until 2017 that she focused her playwriting on stories about Ukraine, and travelling to Ukraine to develop her work.
“For a long time, I never really considered how my Ukrainian identity could inform my work,” Makuch says. “When I started exploring that, I really started finding my voice as an artist.”
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The play shares a couple's journey through pandemic, parenthood, war and finding meaning as an artist in a time of crisis.
Source: Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Author of the article: Julia Peterson
Published Oct 13, 2023
In Mariya Khomutova and Matthew MacKenzie’s household, at least three languages are spoken on any given day — Khomutova’s Ukrainian, MacKenzie’s English, and the lingua franca of theatre.
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Soulpepper is also bringing back two of the most acclaimed shows in recent memory: its own production of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire (June/July), directed by Mengesha, which I called a "revelation" back in 2019 (seems like longer ago), and this season's multiple-Dora Award-winning First Métis Man of Odesa, written and performed by Matthew MacKenzie and Mariya Khomutova, directed by Lianna Makuch and produced by Punctuate! Theatre. My rave review of that show, which runs May 8 to 19, is here.
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It's that time of year again...
Please join us for our 2023 Annual General Meeting
Punctuate! Theatre would like to invite you to our
Annual General Meeting (AGM):
Sunday, October 1
5-7 pm
Location: Arcadia Brewing Co. (10712 120 St NW, Edmonton, AB)