Venus in Fur at Centaur is Sexy Funny
It is completely understandable how Carly Street won both the Dora Award and the Theatre Critics Award for best actress in the role of Vanda in Venus In Fur, now playing at the Centaur. The repartee in a battle of the sexes with Rick Miller, who plays Thomas, the author of the play-within-the play, is like watching a ping pong match.
Vanda walks in late, disheveled from a thunderstorm raging outside, and she rattles on in a low class New York-ish accent which is so obviously all wrong for the part he was casting. He’s about to lock up and go home to his fiancee; she is hell bent on doing an audition.
The split-second transformational timing between her accents is both electric and believable. Thomas is in a battle bordering gender dominance both in the play he wrote and in his life.
The play delves into masochism, and was written by David Ives based on a Leopold von Sacher-Masoch book. The term masochism derives from his last name. The play was nominated for a Tony when it ran on Broadway.
Location: Centaur Theatre, 453 St-François-Xavier
corner: Notre-Dame
Tel: 514-288-3161
Dates: until Nov 9
www.centaurtheatre.com