THE GLASS EYE by Louis Negin and Marie Brassard, directed by Brassard (Negin/Harbourfront/Luminato). At Enwave Theatre (231 Queens Quay West). To June 13. $35. 416-872-1111. Rating: NNN

Louis Negin is one of those rare actors who's a true raconteur, a performer who turns personal anecdotes into a magnet, drawing an audience irresistibly into his world.

In The Glass Eye, created by Negin and director Marie Brassard, bits of fictionalized biography, film and a love of Hollywood glamour -- along with such props as a red-carpet runway, an awards-style microphone and a martini glass -- conjure up the story of a young gay man whose life around the globe is funny, sad and ultimately a bittersweet blend of the two.

It begins with the boy lost in the darkness of a movie house, dreaming of being a showgirl. He then launches into a series of Hebrew prayers sprinkled with the names of Hollywood legends, and we're off on a tale of self-discovery, from a Toronto hotel room to a gay time in Montreal with a bodybuilder daddy nicknamed Captain Marvel and performances at theatre centres around the world.

Sometimes tentative, sometimes brimming over with pride and surprises, Negin is a charming performer. His live work is complemented by film projections behind him, at times from the films he loves and at times documentary-style episodes featuring Negin; there's the fascinating juxtapostion of watching Negin (in the flesh) watching Negin (on the screen). Some of the most suggestive of the clips are a kind of rolling inventory of objects he mentions in the tales -- part history, part fantasy.

Entertaining, occasionally ironic, adding bits of torch songs to his narrative, Negin offers a loving look at youth and age and the frequent discrepancies between those two contrasted periods of life.

And the glass eye of the title? It's a motif, an object and a metaphor woven through the story. No spoilers here.

THE END OF CINEMATICS by Mikel Rouse (Rouse/Luminato). To June 12, Wednesday-Thursday 7:30 pm. Bluma Appel Theatre (27 Front East). $25-$45. 416-872-1111, www.luminato.com. Rating: NN

The second in Mikel Rouse’s trilogy of multimedia operas is just as dull and repetitive as his first, Dennis Cleveland. More people walked out on this one - which may be explained by the fact that it was easier to exit the Bluma Appel Theatre, where it’s continuing until tomorrow, than it was the CBC building studio where Dennis was performed.

As you enter the Bluma lobby, you’re hit with the smell of popcorn. You can even take it (and some soda!) to your seat. How much? Gee, no thanks. Don’t want to spoil dinner, or be responsible for St. Lawrence Centre Sticky Floor.

The “show” itself begins with four trailers for upcoming movies. These are actual trailers, with no commentary by Rouse. The point? You tell me. Someone next to me didn’t bother finding out – he left midway through the trailer for Mamma Mia.

After a series of opening titles are projected onto a screen, the piece begins, and it’s your basic exploration of what film/video can do and what theatre can do. We “read” different things into film than we do at live performers on a stage. Not exactly original stuff.

There’s some effective layering of imagery. The film sequences are largely set on the streets of Paris (lucky Dennis and company). The live actors, outfitted in your basic noir garb, move around, their images caught on videotape. So much to look at! Plus there’s music, sung to the same kind of syncopated beats that lulled us in Dennis Cleveland. Here the actors – you can’t really call them characters - seem to be lipsynching.

There are separate sections, preceded by titles. One clever sequence riffs on race and ends up referencing a superhero. It gets a laugh.

The End Of Cinematics takes a long time to end. The ovation, even for an opening night crowd, was lacklustre.

In retrospective, the most thrilling part came when someone in the audience tried to capture a sequence on his digital camera and a quick-on-his-feet usher asked him to put it away. I didn’t see what happened. Talk about cliffhanger.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM by William Shakespeare, directed by Tim Supple (Dash Arts/Luminato). At the Canon Theatre (244 Victoria). To June 15. $50-$70. 416-872-1111. Rating: NNN

Jaw-dropping aerial acrobatics, an atmospheric live band and a refreshingly diverse cast make this unique East-West fusion of the Bard’s comedy a fascinating and highly theatrical experience – for the most part.

The show, at hit in India and London, gets off to a rocky start, particularly with the young Athenians. The performers’ English isn’t the easiest to comprehend, and it’s a shame there aren’t surtitles to help clarify the English, the Hindi, Bengali and half-dozen other languages you’ll hear.

But once Tim Supple’s theatrics begin in earnest – in the forest scenes - you realize this production isn’t about the text. It’s about the story and the spectacle. This is a thrillingly physical show with a forest that really does seem enchanted. Performers hang by their feet on ropes, fight with wooden poles as if they’re warriors or cradle themselves in an enormous hammock. At one point characters try to navigate their way out of a web.

The actors range from merely adequate (the Athenians again) to hugely charismatic (the mischievous spark of Ajay Kumar’s mohawk-sporting, handlebar mustachioed Puck will be difficult to forget). The costumes are worth mentioning. One simple scene in which fairies Oberon and Titania (P R Jijoy and Archana Ramaswamy) transform into Theseus and Hippolyta is breathtaking. The way in which Bottom (the energetic Joy Fernandes) becomes an ass is witty and down-to-earth.

When it works it’s amazing, when it doesn’t it feels a bit flat. You’ll never see a Dream like this again. But as I said to my friend, “Too bad you keep waking up throughout it.”

BLINK by the company, directed by Weyni Mengesha (Soulpepper Academy). Young Centre (55 Mill). To June 15. $10. 416-872-1111. Rating: NNN

Can anyone who visits a warzone ever forget its horrors, even when they've returned to the security of home and family?

That's the question posed by Blink, the collective show devised by the nine members of the Soulpepper Academy. In a sense, it's the company's graduation piece, for after a two-year stint with Soulpepper these young theatre artists move off to work on their own projects.

The central figure, Joshua (Mike Ross), is an award-winning war photographer who's been embedded in Iraq with his friend and mentor Jason (Michael Blake). The play's opening moments shows us an enemy attack that leaves Jason dead; the rest of the play leads us to how that death occurred. One of the important narrative lines of the play is Joshua's avoidance of Jason's widow Zaina (Jennifer Villlaverde), in part because he can't bear to tell her what happened and in part because he can't bear to look at the truth himself.

The hour-long piece, dramaturged by playwright Nicolas Billon, has many fascinating elements, not least of which is Weyni Mengesha's clever, fluid, cinematic direction. It's arguable that the entire play takes place in Joshua's mind, so the flashes back and forth in time and place (and the collisions of the two) make dramatic sense. Lorenzo Savoini's design makes fine use of the whole stage area, relying on lighting to define and delineate locale as well as situations; the ever-encroaching desert sand becomes a key factor in the story.

Another vital part of the story is the unnamed Soldier (Kevin MacDonald) who pops up regularly to offer Joshua advice and have philosophical dialogues with him. The Soldier is a kind of alter ego for the photographer, pushing him to look at the truths of his life but never judging him.

As with many collective creations, not every element of the show works equally well. Sometimes moment go by too quickly for us to understand them, and the Soldier's scene-to-scene function isn't always clear.

Yet other episodes stand out for their strength, including a surreal bedroom scene and another when the Soldier talks with Joshua about the importance of digging a latrine. As Joshua's fast-talking agent, Stephen Guy-McGrath brings humour and a few surprising moments of humanity to the show.

The heart of the work, though, is the relationship between Joshua and his pregnant girlfriend Candace (Sarah Wilson). Making us believe in this couple, the two actors create a believable duo, concerned

about the choices that they make as individuals and as a couple. Even with that palpable love, though, we still understand the spoken and unspoken tensions between them.

WHERE THE BLOOD MIXES by Kevin Loring, directed by Glynis Leyshon (Playhouse Theatre/Savage Society). At Factory Theatre (125 Bathurst). To Sunday (June 8). $35. 416-872-1111. Rating: NNN

Several shows arrive at Luminato with lots of bells and whistles. Black Watch and A Midsummer Night's Dream are certainly impressive with stagings that carry dramatic fire power.

But don't forget the smaller, more intimate shows that rely on simplicity to make their emotional point. That's the case with native writer Kevin Loring's Where The Blood Mixes, which has its last performance this afternoon at Factory Theatre.

Set in the Aboriginal village of Kumsheen, the play looks at the devastating effect that the residential schools have had on the adults of the community, who make up most of the characters in the play. Floyd (Billy Merasty), Mooch (Ben Cardinal) and June (Margo Kane) have all grown up with the guilt, shame and self-hatred that the institution bred in them.

The disquiet rises to the surface for Floyd when his daughter Christine (Quelemia Sparrow), given up to a white foster family, returns to meet the father she left years ago.

One of Loring's skills as a playwright is to blend the poetic and the realistic. On the one hand, he (along with visual designer Carl Stromquist, projection designer Jamie Nesbitt and lighting designer Itai Erdal) gives an imagistic feel to his characters, at times turning them into iconic if not downright archetypal figures. But he can as quickly turn around and provide the characters with down-to-earth bar chatter, questioning monologues that examine the tragedy in their lives and minimalist, heartfelt scenes of connection.

There are some wonderful scenes between Floyd and Mooch, the latter a funny, irreverent storyteller given vibrant life by Cardinal. Kane comes into her own later in the show, when June reveals her strength and also the key to healing, which relies on a reunion with the natural world.

The cast understands the core emotions in the figures and presents them with a quiet elegance that touches us deeply; director Glynis Leyshon encourages that simplicity of playing to let the work's humanity shine through.

Above: Ben Cardinal in Where The Blood Mixes.

DENNIS CLEVELAND by Mikel Rouse (Rouse). To June 8 at 8 pm. Toronto Film School Studio (39 John). $35. 416-872-1111. Rating: NN

The set-up to Mikel Rouse’s Dennis Cleveland, a so-called multimedia opera (one in the trilogy he’s brought to Luminato), is terrific; too bad the show itself comes as a letdown.

In the CBC building, we’re taken up an elevator and ushered into what looks and feels like a real TV studio. (In fact, it’s the Toronto Film School studios of the International Academy of Design and Technology.)

Huge, colourful signs for the fake talk show Dennis Cleveland are plastered everywhere, and strategically placed video screens make sure we’ll be able to see what’s going on wherever we’re sitting. Workers clad in black Ts printed with the Dennis Cleveland logo carry videocameras or help show us to our seats.

Soon Cleveland himself (writer/performer Rouse) welcomes us in a pre-show informal chat, and then audience prompters instruct us so we know the difference between “Applause” and “Give It Up!” in showing our enthusiasm.

At one point in the pre-show warm-up, we’re even ordered to chant “We want Dennis!” and the effect is truly eerie. Give it up, indeed.

Once Cleveland, who’s blandly handsome like most male TV talkshow hosts, brings on his guests, the ideas and structure for the show are pretty much set. The guests, four couples who are each unhappy after their own fashion, look like figures you’d see on a daytime tabloid talk show. They bicker, mutter, make surprise Jerry Springer-ish revelations… and they also sing.

Yes, this is an opera, so much of the dialogue is sung, the lyrics often banal confessions like: “If you don’t love me the way I am then you can go,” and “My way or the highway.”

Rouse and his chorus of guests (and one soprano hidden beneath one of the DC signs) occasionally create a lulling, hypnotic effect with the repetition of these phrases, underscored by a soothing, textured electronic score.

That’s essentially the show. A half-dozen planted audience members take Dennis’s mic and prod the guests or make banal confessions of their own about loneliness, alienation and celebrity worship.

But there’s no arc to the piece. During some parts, the houselights dim and the stage takes on a hazy glow. Not sure what Rouse intends here. Are we supposed to be tapping into the collective unconscious?

The songs have a sameness to them, yet I recall thinking I could listen to a couple - the catchy Life In These United States and Soul Train - on my iPod. One song, Beautiful Murders, has the potential to say something intriguing about violence and pop culture, but goes nowhere.

It’s a shame Rouse doesn’t exploit the talkshow format enough for us to stay captivated. Where’s the commercial break? The floor director who’s having a meltdown? The surprise guest?

And despite what the background notes claim, it’s never clear during the show that Dennis’s “guests” are really voicing aspects of the host’s own life. Cleveland remains an enigmatic figure, and Rouse doesn’t let us get beneath the stony surface.

Ironically, about a third of the way through the show, just when the paying audience was getting restless (you can only try to spot yourself on one of the monitors so many times), I felt like switching the channel to see what else was on.

BLACK WATCH by Gregory Burke, directed by John Tiffany (National Theatre of Scotland). At Varsity Arena (275 Bloor West). To June 15. $46. 416-872-1111. Rating: NNNN

We all know that war is hell, but you'll rarely see that truism given a more human face -- or turned into a more exciting piece of theatre -- than in the National Theatre of Scotland's Black Watch.

Based on interviews with soldiers who fought with the Scottish regiment in Iraq, playwright Gregory Burke's fine text-and-movement show will make you laugh, move you and at points blast you out of your seat.

Its central figure is Cammy (Paul Rattray), who tells us about his wanting to be a soldier and the stereotypes he doesn't match given that desire. He and his mates in a Scottish pub are interviewed by a writer (Michael Nardone) who wants to know what it was like over there. Burke uses the interview device to unveil layers in these dedicated enlisted men and a few of their officers; they're people who learn to live and try to survive in a wartime atmosphere where the temperatures reach 120 degrees and levels of anger, boredom and frustration go much higher.

Among the eight hundred members of the Black Watch, they've been called in to replace 4,000 American marines who's not been able to break the enemy down. As if. The newbies all expect to be home by Christmas, an idea laughed at by their more experienced comrades.

We get to know each of the men and their quirks, as well as their tough sergeant (Nardone again, in a totally different role from from the shy writer, who's always sent up by the soldiers) and an officer (Jack Fortune) who reveals in a series of letters home that the military minds and politicians pulling the strings aren't always concerned for the fighting men.

The near-two-hour show never lets up its energy under director John Tiffany, and while plenty of testosterone ís on display, there's some impressive balletic work too, all done with, um, military precision.

The only problem is aural. The men's accents are thick, the miking at opening was hit and miss and the venue (Varsity Arena) gives an echo to much of what's said. I'm sorry to have missed chunks of the 300-year history of the Black Watch, during which Cammy is costumed in various period uniforms by the others; likened to a golden thread that links one generation of soldier to another, that history is one of the production's dramatic highlights.

But even if not all the words are clear, the emotions always are. Black Watch is world-class theatre, filled with muscular performances and human foibles. It's worthy of the hype that's preceded it to Toronto.

SANCTUARY SONG by Marjorie Chan and Abigail Richardson, directed by Lynda Hill, conducted by Wayne Strongman (Tapestry New Opera Works/Theatre Direct Canada). At Berkeley Street Theatre (26 Berkeley). To June 14. $15-$25. 416-872-1111. Rating: NNNN

They say an elephant never forgets, and I'll bet that any child you take to the new family opera Sanctuary Song won't soon forget the strong production.

An opera for kids? Sure, with an easy-to-follow but still suggestive book by Marjorie Chan, an imaginative score by Abigail Richardson and several sharply etched characters. There's even a lesson -- buried in the narrative -- about the importance of trust and friendship.

At its centre is Sydney (soprano Xin Wang), a female elephant being taken by her keeper James (baritone Alvin Crawford) from a Louisiana zoo to an animal sanctuary in Tennessee. Along the way, she recalls the major events in her life, including happy days in the Indonesian jungle with her elephant friend Penny (actor Sharmila Dey), capture by a hunter (actor Frank Cox-O'Connell), stress as a circus performer and the accident that brought her to the zoo.

Why is it sung? Music adds a richness that words alone can't communicate. There's one fine moment near the middle of the piece, when the distrustful Sydney and the stymied James first meet and seem to have nothing to share with each other. They finally make tentative moves toward understanding each other not by speaking but by singing; music becomes their common language.

One thing you won't see are baggy elephant costumes. Kelly Wolf's design evokes the animal qualities of Sydney and Penny, and Viv Moore's impressive movement work neatly conjures up the playful pachyderm pals with a swaying, hip-based walk and a use of the right arm to approximate a trunk. She's even included easily understood gestures that suggest an elephant sign-language.

Luisa Quintavalle's videos, projected on a round disc hanging above the stage and on the floor, tantalize us with close-ups of an elephant's hide and the mysteries of the jungle. Andrea Lundy's lighting sets up mood and helps moves us from one locale to another.

The cast is fine under Lynda Hill's direction, with the expressive Wang communicating Sydney's subtle emotional shifts with quiet power. Wayne Strongman conducts musicians Michael Schulte, Lizzie Lavado and Ryan Scott with the proper light touch.

I wish, though, that Hill had made more use of the lengths of chain that form much of the set. The chain suggests Sydney's various imprisonments and her jungle homeland, but the links aren't as clear as they might be.

MOZART DANCES (Mark Morris Dance Group). At the MacMillan Theatre (80 Queen’s Park). Continues to June 8, Sat 8 pm, Sun 2 pm. $50-$70. Rating: NNNNN

Maybe choreographer Mark Morris was an architect in another life. How else to explain the marvellous construction of Mozart Dances, the towering work which helped kick off Luminato’s opening night and will surely go down as one of the fest’s highlights.

Morris has set individual dances to three pieces by the composer - Piano Concerto 11, K. 413, the Piano Sonata for Two Pianos, K. 448 and the most famous of the group, Piano Concerto 27, K. 595. Each one follows the three-movement classical sonata structure, and of course you can look at the program as a whole in a similar way.

Women dominate the first piece (titled, simply, Eleven); men the second (titled Double); and they come together, in exciting solos, duets and a climactic guys-against-girls face-off, for the third section (titled Twenty-seven).

Howard Hodgkin’s abstract backdrops - which resemble large smears of paint - change with each piece, and Martin Pakledinaz’s costumes, variations on black and white, add to the show’s effect, yet never distract.

As for the choreography, there’s a nod to court and folk dances of Mozart’s era, but always with a clever twist or fillip of modern charm. Some images repeat - linked circles, sudden drops to the floor, confident stompings to exit the stage - but none of the dance seems repetitive.

There’s an exuberance and sunniness throughout - all three Mozart works are in major keys, not surprisingly - but you can also read philosophy and psychology in the careful interweavings and groupings of bodies onstage. The movement is formal but never stiff, elegant but never precious.

And the dancers - among them Lauren Grant and Joe Bowie, who, respectively, set the bar high for the first and second pieces with strutting solos - attack their moves brilliantly. There’s no lingering over lovely moments. They’re moving too quickly for that to happen.

Morris insists on having live musicians perform with the dance, and that energy adds to the show’s excitement. Jane Glover gets a wide range of colour and dynamics from the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, and Ursula Oppens makes an expressive and lyrical soloist, although in the difficult Sonata for Two Pianos there’s some problems of articulation with second pianist Amy Dissanyake.

The program continues today (Saturday June 7) and tomorrow (Sunday June 8). And there are two more Morris programs, All Fours/Violet Cavern (June 10-11) and Liebeslieder Waltzes/Grand Duo (June 14-15).

Some listings to get your Luminato started this weekend:

FRIDAY, JUNE 6

SATURDAY, JUNE 7

SUNDAY, JUNE 8

MONDAY, JUNE 9

More Luminato listings:
- Events and Benefits
- Music Listings
- Art Listings
- Book Listings
- Stage Listings