daniel jelani ellis in ‘speaking of sneaking’, Photo by Jeremy Mimnagh

Converging at an upstage corner of the space, huge ribbons of stretched plastic extend out towards the audience. Rachel Forbes’ set is both ominous and tantalizing as it traps us in a massive spider’s web. From this mammoth structure emerges Anansi, a folkloric trickster spider, holding us captive—though his intentions here aren’t predatory; he’s a key figure in and teller of this story we’ve gathered to witness.

speaking of sneaking is created and performed by daniel jelani ellis. Pulling from his own experience of growing up queer in Jamaica and emigrating to Canada, his portrait of Ginnal feels both authentic in its attention to detail and poetic in its execution. Continue Reading