John Both and Rebecca DeBoer in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Lighting by John Webber. (Photo by Ron Reed)
When you watch an actor transform from one character to another, it’s like watching an excellent magic trick. It’s alchemical: they were one thing and now they’re another. And there are many such transformations in Pacific Theatre’s skilled, innocent production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. [Read more…]
Come on. Don’t try to tell me you don’t want to be at least one of the characters in this scenario. (Michelle Bardach as Belle and Jonathan Winsby as the Beast. Photo by David Cooper)
As I was watching the Arts Club’s production of Beauty and the Beast for approximately the ten thousandth time, I was struck by three things: actors’ jobs are weird; no matter how many times I see this show, it completely undoes me; and this year’s version is particularly charming.
Usually, I attend opening nights, which are such high-strung affairs that you forget the show won’t be quite so charged every night. But, sitting with a mid-week crowd for Beauty and the Beast, I had time to notice just how hard the performers were working at pretending, at manufacturing joy in themselves and others. I used to be an actor, but it’s been a long time and I’d forgotten.
Because I’m familiar with both the story and this production—the Arts Club has been mounting this show on and off since 2005—it took a while for the magic to kick in this year but, when the beastly Beast first tired to convince Belle, the beauty, to dine with him, despite his horns and fangs, I got hooked once again. And, by the time the two of them were falling in love, I was a puddle. After all, who doesn’t feel beastly to some extent—unlovable physically, emotionally or both? [Read more…]
Clarence (Greg Armstrong-Morris) watches Mary (Erin Palm) and George (Nick Fontaine) canoodle. (Photo by David Cooper)
Adapter and director Peter Jorgensen gets a lot of things right in this musical version of It’s a Wonderful Life at the Gateway.
The Arts Club has repeatedly trotted out Philip Grecian’s politically neutered stage adaptation of Frank Capra’s 1946 movie, but Jorgensen’s script is every bit as political as the film.
If you’re not familiar with the story, it’s about a guy named George Bailey who becomes suicidal on Christmas Eve because it looks like his company Bailey Building and Loan will collapse and he’ll go to jail. But people who love George pray for him and an angel named Clarence is assigned to avert his death if possible. When George tells Clarence that the world would have been better off without him, Clarence shows George an alternate reality in which he never existed.
And here’s the thing: George has, in fact, made the world a much better place largely because, through his building and loan company, he has built decent housing for his poor and working-class neighbours—including a new immigrant family named the Martinis. George provided the framework through which the citizens of Bedford Falls could pull together for the common good. And, if that’s not socialist enough for you, the villain of the piece is the über-capitalist—and slumlord—Mr. Potter.
This core dynamic remains crystal clear in Jorgensen’s musical revision.
The problem, to a large extent, is the music—not because it’s badly executed, but because including it really slows things down. [Read more…]
I haven’t been able to find production photos for this year’s iteration of Holiday Baking Time, but this image kind of captures the tone.
Holiday Baking Time is designed for little kids—I’d say three to six is the core audience—and the only evening shows are on Thursdays, which are billed as “pyjama nights”. So the audience is insanely cute. I particularly liked the little girl in the giraffe onesie who worked her way down the aisle to get closer to the action, then happily frog-hopped her way back up the steps. Two stairs at a time. It was impressive.
There’s plenty of room for that kind of looseness in Presentation House Theatre’s generous production and Holiday Baking Time is an excellent fit for littles and their grown-ups.
It’s a show about—you guessed it—baking. And play. [Read more…]
The character Schnitzel embodies the essential innocence of this wacky undertaking.
This is the sixth year running that Ronnie Burkett has done a Christmas show at The Cultch. Sometimes they’ve been blindingly good and sometimes they’ve been a little ragged around the edges—a bit repetitive or sloppy—but one thing never changes: in terms of sheer skill and charisma, Burkett is one of the most extraordinary performers you’ll ever see.
This year’s show, Little Dickens: The Daisy Theatre presents A Christmas Carol, was also last year’s show and, once again, Burkett was flying by the seat of his under-rehearsed pants on opening night—but I didn’t care. He was so upfront and so giddy about getting lost in the sequence sometimes—he was having such a good time and everything was so fresh and electric—that I just sat back and let the whole thing roll over me in waves of pleasure. [Read more…]
Go see this show if only to see Barbara Clayden’s chicken costumes. (Photo by Emily Cooper)
I want to live there. East Van Panto: The Wizard of Oz is my new happy place. I’m going to see if I can just rent out one of the seats in the York Theatre for the duration of the run.
This is the sixth year of Theatre Replacement’s East Van Panto, and this edition is one of the best.
You’ve got to hand it to the folks at Theatre Replacement: they mix things up. For the first time this year, Marcus Youssef wrote the show.
In Youssef’s version of the story, Dorothy, who lives in Port Coquitlam, isn’t knocked out by a tornado; it’s an exploding oil pipeline that does the job. The Wicked Witch of Western Canada, the driving force behind the Raise the Seas Pipeline, is none other than Rachel Notley—described here as being “fake NDP”. And the Good Wiccan of North Vancouver is the CBC’s own Gloria Macarenko—which gives everybody the perfect opportunity to sing “Macarena” with altered lyrics. [Read more…]
