Two holiday-adjacent shows you can’t miss this season

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in Toronto theatre, with dozens of plays and musicals — big and small — opening this month. To make matters more challenging, it’s also been a busy season for film critics, with many studios holding advance screenings and sending out viewing links for year-end-list consideration.

I’ve reviewed some stage-related films on my homepage. And be sure to check out my Toronto theatre listings to see if you’ve missed any plays. I’ve been trying to get to short-run productions before they close.

Here are reviews of some of what I’ve seen recently. I’m beginning with a couple of shows you absolutely should not miss. Obviously, there’s more to come before all the seasonal stuff arrives like a big snow storm.

Show you can’t miss #1: The Christmas Market at Crow’s

As she did in our place and Truth, which both won Dora Awards, Kanika Ambrose shows remarkable empathy for her marginalized characters in The Christmas Market (Rating: ✭✭✭✭), one of two new plays she’s premiering this season. (The other, Midnight Schooner, opens this week at the Berkeley Street Theatre).

Joe (Matthew G. Brown), Roy (Savion Glover) and Lionel (Danté Prince) are seasonal labourers at a farm in Ontario, one that has a Christmas market attached to it. Ryan (Brenda Robins), their supervisor, lives in the area.

The three Black men are temporary foreign workers from the Caribbean (I don’t think it’s specified where), and they have limited rights.

Joe, who’s worked there for eight or nine seasons, has saved enough to improve his dwelling back home. Roy has returned a couple of times, and just recently spotted a woman he once dated pushing a stroller; he believes he’s the father of the child, but has no claim because of his precarious status. This is Lionel’s first winter in Canada, and he’s furious about the working conditions (he’s not given proper protective gear, for instance) and is determined to do something about it.

Besides all this, there’s a lot of information to take in in the play’s first 10 or 15 minutes. Joe and Ryan are planning a Christmas dinner, and Ryan is tasked with sourcing Caribbean ingredients she doesn’t know.

Also, a couple of migrant workers have recently run away, and a woman in town has been assaulted. Because of the latter, the farm’s owner is demanding each of the remaining workers visit the police station to provide them with DNA samples to prove they’re not the perpetrator. Lionel, the most educated of the workers, understands how violating this demand is and refuses to comply.