vigilante
The ensemble quality of this production is superb, with the eight performers portraying the Donnellys also moving confidently and seamlessly into other characterizations, including the most dangerous of their adversaries. But there is one towering performance — from Jan Alexandra Smith. She is the one woman in the cast, and she is implacable and terrifying in the role of Johannah Donnelly — and again mythology takes hold here. She is the ferocious embodiment of matriarchal power, an earth mother to be feared as she stands up to the townsfolk, turns her boys into an avenging army, and rejects any possibility of compromise and decency in her ravaged world. Smith’s Johanna is not an admirable figure — but she is a compelling one, so compelling that it’s easy for us to forget that it was a land grab by the Donnellys that launched them on their path to destruction.
Capitol Critic’s Circle - Ottawa
mamma mia
Smith, who starred earlier in the Grand’s season as the miserable Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, the sombre Mrs. Ross in The Wars and the vengeful Johannah Donnelly in Vigilante, proved again why she’s one of this country’s great stage talents with a playful, sexy turn as Tanya.
Joe Belanger - London Free Press
a christmas carol
In a flawless performance, Smith takes Scrooge to the limits of pathological greed, heartlessness, misery and loneliness, ensuring her transformation to a compassionate, generous, kindly and loving human being would send the audience home with smiles on their faces, tears in their eyes and warmth in their hearts…Smith’s Scrooge is startlingly fresh. Her venomous side is so tightly wound the tension is palpable
Joe Belanger - London Free Press
Lost
It’s a hell of a good yarn all its own, but in the hands of Jan Alexandra Smith, Lost sweeps the whole audience off to Madeira with Cathy.
Smith has a big job here, and manages to stitch together a performance that tracks both the personal details of Cathy’s inner journey while at the same time serving as a kind of travelogue director.
She introduces us an engaging woman who owns a 68 foot yacht and befriends Cathy; to the eloquent, taciturn Scottish family members of her brother’s girlfriend Sarah, who is also missing; to a pair of handsome, young boozy romantic sailors Cathy meets on Madeira, stirring up longings she thought she lost when she parted ways with Simon years ago; and a town full of Irish seaside folks, who know all too well what a heartbreaker the sea can be.
It’s a virtuoso performance that I’m sure resonates all the way to the cheap seats.
Calgary Herald - Stephen Hunt
Shakespeare’s Will
Former Shaw actor and now local icon of Edmonton theatre Jan Alexandra Smith brings this confluence of feelings into a coherent whole in a note-perfect performance. In less than 90 minutes Smith goes through a range of physical and emotional states that are hard to watch let alone recreate on stage daily -- and twice on Sundays.
Globe and Mail - Kamal Al-Solaylee
Present Laughter
Joanna…gets an electric va-voom performance from the superb Jan Alexandra Smith. Every entrance and exit is a show-stopper from a natural upstager. And the seduction scene is a little masterpiece of manipulation…
Liz Nicholls - Edmonton Journal
My Fair Lady
It’s the performance of the evening. She’s a fine actress and blessed with a wonderful soprano turning I Could Have Danced All Night into an exuberant show-stopper.
Edmonton Sun - Colin Maclean
The Hollow
Livening things up is the unmissable Jan Alexandra Smith as the sculptor with the un-Christie-an libido, fresh off her success in this season’s hold-over, “An Ideal Husband”, in which she played another smart woman of suspicious bent.
Lawrence DeVine - Detroit Free Press
Smith, a mix of technique and guts, makes her lines sound like music, and she’s so at ease physically that you adore the realness in her slightest action - the way she crosses her pant leg and loosely dangles her ankle, or the hungry drag on a cigarette that indicates, precisely, “artist”.
Kenneth Jones - The Detroit News
Still Life
Jan Alexandra Smith makes a welcome return to the Shaw. The role requires her constantly to communicate two opposite feelings--one outward, one inward--expressing confidence while feeling doubt, attempting small talk while her life is collapsing around her. Hers is an extraordinary performance in every way.
Christopher Hoile - StageDoor.com
Mrs. Warren’s Profession
Smith’s Vivie is a superb study of a young woman whose intellectual powers and steely determination are a defence against her own emotional puerility.
Maclean’s - John Bemrose
Interview - Alice Through the Looking Glass (Citadel 2016
Christmas Carol Trailer (Grand Theatre 2018)
Vigilante (Grand Theatre 2018)
MAss effect - Councillor Tevos
ACTOR resumÉ
