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MIDDLETOWN: SURPRISING PLEASURES

MIDDLETOWN: SURPRISING PLEASURES

Artistic adventure is rare in Vancouver theatre these days. Want some? I’ve got a show for you. On so many levels, Sticks and Stones Theatre’s production of Middletown is such a surprising pleasure. Like Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, which clearly inspired it,...

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JERSEY BOYS: ENTRANCING

JERSEY BOYS: ENTRANCING

There is a particular kind of pleasure that comes from just giving yourself to a show because it’s so seamlessly assured and stimulating. It’s what folks are talking about when they say they were spellbound by a performance. For almost all its running time, that’s the...

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MUTTNIK (Vancouver Fringe)

MUTTNIK (Vancouver Fringe)

Bruce Ryan Costella, who wrote and is performing Muttnik, is a gifted writer and actor: those things are givens. In Muttnik, he tells a story inspired by Laika, the stray dog who, for the sake of research, was rocketed into space by the Soviet Union in 1957 with just...

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HAPPY GO LUCKY (VANCOUVER FRINGE)

HAPPY GO LUCKY (VANCOUVER FRINGE)

Tokyo puppeteer Yanomi Shoshinz is a charmingly openhearted performer, but I was only engaged by about half of her material. Happy Go Lucky consists of four puppet routines and Shoshinz starts with the weakest. In it, a Janus-faced female puppet engages in a series of...

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HOW TO CATCH A KAREN (VANCOUVER FRINGE)

HOW TO CATCH A KAREN (VANCOUVER FRINGE)

In her solo bouffon show, Sabrina Wenske looks fantastic. Playing Baba Yaga, the witch of Slavic folklore, she wears an enormous straw headdress, and her painted-on moles are ghoulish blue. Her abundant energy is wicked and promises danger. “You are so cute with your...

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BITCHES WITH BAGGAGE (VANCOUVER FRINGE)

BITCHES WITH BAGGAGE (VANCOUVER FRINGE)

The Fringe provides a place for emerging artists to show their work, so good for young actors Samantha Kerr and Hikari Terasawa for writing their own script and performing it at the Fringe. To be blunt, Bitches with Baggage wasn’t rich enough to sustain my interest,...

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40-YEAR-OLD PUBERTY (VANCOUVER FRINGE)

40-YEAR-OLD PUBERTY (VANCOUVER FRINGE)

Ti Malik Coleman’s opening performance at the Vancouver Fringe was a love fest, and I’m one hundred percent certain that’s going to continue for the rest of the run. That’s partly because, from the opening seconds of this stand-up/storytelling routine, you can tell...

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