The ensemble of take rimbaud | Photo by Wade Muir
take rimbaud hits so fucking good, is so my thing, I don’t even know where to start. A joint presentation by The Howland Company and Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, ted witzel’s whimsical, theatre-punk direction of Susanna Fournier’s cerebral-sensual ode to the art life is so teeming with audio-visual textures and ideas both expansive and specific, it pretty much swallowed me whole.
And do I now have a crush on Rose Tuong? Yes. They play the intensely charismatic, highly androgynous Sapph, a version of the poet Sappho who, like everyone here, exists across time. She’s both ancient and of the now. And she’s confronting, ugh… public discourse.
“It’s so loud out there.”
This remark pops out so casually, it seems like a throwaway line, but it landed with astonishing force. The internet… so many opinions flying around—some informed, many not. So much division, so much righteous rage and virtue signalling, good faith activism lost in a sea of “gotcha” mic drops—it’s a constant struggle to orient yourself, to unpack the cacophony, extricate legitimate critique and censure from reckless slurs and slights.
I’m already going down a rabbit hole, throwing this review off the rails. Two hundred words in and it’s all just vibes. The main photo I’ve chosen for this review isn’t the best, but it does capture the chaotic urgency of this whole affair. Fournier has built a meta-theatrical fantasia on art, obsession, revolution and the hell we’re living in, have always lived in—a hypnotic, scholarly, hyper indulgent declaration of creative intent while trapped in a collapsing network of oppressive systems.
Oh, yeah, baby, it’s a lot—both pretentious and a defiant screed against pretension. Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too? Fuck dichotomies. I mean, know the rules and why they exist, but then, once you have a reason to, fuck them!
And can I just say how thrilled I am that Fournier articulates an aspect of Toronto theatre that frustrates the shit out of me? Sapph and her lover, Sylv (Ruth Goodwin), an across-time version of Sylvia Plath (they meet with her head ridiculously shoved into an electric oven, it’s a whole thing) discuss a play they just saw and say the quiet part out loud—that we’re so quick to applaud intention.
Who else we got here?
Paul (Julian De Zotti), he’s our Verlaine stand-in, an experimental filmmaker in a fraught relationship with R (Thomas Mitchell Barnet), this play’s depiction of Arthur Rimbaud. They’re a hot mess. They fight and fuck while collaborating on an art film that’s as indulgent and unhinged as this review. Like Goodwin and Tuong, both offer deeply compelling, nuanced performances. I was especially drawn to Barnet’s bizarrely persuasive portrait here. He’s somehow both sloppily lackadaisical and an utter zealot, searching desperately for new forms and full of mischief!
Everyone here is acknowledged as a character and an actor, as the meta-theatrical form demands. Our intrepid ensemble—Breton Lalama, Hallie Seline, Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster and Cameron Laurie—are a fun, energetic bunch, who provide narration that give some historical context for this contemporary story and the help the whole thing feel very fluid.
The Franco-Prussion war and the Communards figure into this ambitious scenario. There’s a clever sequence in which the Paris Commune and French government are depicted as lovers splitting up—an ugly, poetically violent episode that’s also weirdly… erotic. Another provocative bit has the members of this arts commune play a drinking game where the one rule is to just keep naming artists who died young, the liquor cascading over their upturned faces. It’s a spectacle of debauch that feels very Florida Spring Break coded.
We also get an arts agent strategy session, some therapy and luxuriate in artistic discussions that are both academic and intimate. All of this occurs in a lyrically industrial environment of scaffolding, strand board and tarps—an ancient, bas-relief head looming over all. Ting – Huan 挺歡 Christine Urquhart’s set and costumes feel simultaneously haphazard and purposeful, a scrappy replication of iconic imagery with found objects. The rest of the design team—Darren Shaen (lighting), Nicole Eun-Ju Bell (projection) and Dasha Plett (composer and sound)—further reinforce the communal, precarious air of urgent, aching creation!
The live-video element is pretty cool too—restrained and well-integrated.
Hilarious, intelligent, melancholic and anarchic, take rimbaud won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, of course, but I absolutely fucking loved it!
take rimbaud
May 6 to May 23, 2026
Buddies in Bad Times Theatre
(12 Alexander Street)
1 hour, 40 minutes (without intermission)
The ensemble of take rimbaud | Photo by Wade Muir
hey man thought u should know that Rose Tuong uses they/them pronouns, as stated in the program. trust you’ll change the moments you refer to them as a performer accordingly.
Gah! Thanks for pointing that out! It’s tricky sometimes, when you are your own editor. Fixed! I believe it’s only that first pronoun affected.. the rest refers to the character of Sapph.