See East Van Panto: West Van Story if you can. Tickets are already in short supply, but The Cultch’s executive director, Heather Redfern, hinted heavily on opening night that more tickets will be available soon. Here’s where to watch for developments.
Theatre Replacement’s East Van Panto has become the most reliable theatrical offering in Vancouver’s cultural calendar. I’m so appreciative of the tradition that, about three minutes into this year’s show, I was choking up with gratitude. It means a lot to come together for this annual community ritual. (If you’re a first-timer, it won’t take you long to understand why.)
And, three minutes in, East Van Panto: West Side Story was already delivering everything I love about panto-land: a flippant take on bighearted politics, screaming audience involvement, and Show Business, my friend, Show-Busy-Ness!
Written by Marcus Youssef with Pedro Chamale, the script is thick with references to West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet (the template for the musical). The writers have put all that into a blender with local politics.
When an “atmospheric tsunami river/dome” strands the idealistic West Van influencer Holly on the unfamiliar side of the Lion’s Gate Bridge, she falls in love with East Van — and with sweet, soft-spoken Joes, whose parents named him after Joe’s Café. (Holly’s West Van twin brother is named Burn.) The lovers’ infatuation is complicated by the fact that Holly and Burn’s motherfather, Boberta Rainy is an uber-capitalist real estate developer intent on building a condo tower on the East Side — a Sim City temple — that will displace local residents who, like Joes, are already housing insecure.
Aware that he’s in an R and J universe, Holly and Joes’ mentor, the East Van sign, warns them against pursuing their love. “People die in this story! People die!” (Fear not: this is a panto.)
All of this is wrapped up in the wildness of panto traditions (“Look behind you!”), the unstoppable energy of Veda Hille’s magpie-like score (which piles up melodies from multiple pop songs, sometimes in a single number), and Amanda Testini’s witty choreography. I love the grace notes in that choreo, including the echoes of Jerome Robbins’s original West Side Story choreography (characters jazz dance their exits) and her own jazzy material, including some very cool hesitations.
Director Chelsea Haberlin has obviously played a huge role in maintaining the pace and creativity. I love the way she has staged the beginning of a chase scene, for instance: actors running around with cut-out cars. That said, later in the chase — maybe ten minutes into Act 2 —the pace slackens into undifferentiated chaos, a problem that is, I suspect, rooted in the script. A little trimming might help.
But it doesn’t take long before West Van Story finds its groove again.
Dawn Petten is a knockout, playing both archvillain Boberta Rainy and Joes’ pal Spartacus Gym (Jim?). (All of Joes’ gang, which is really a curling team, are named after Commercial Drive businesses.)
Petten delivers a lot of tongue acting: sticking her tongue out, gagging on it when Boberta tries to tell her unloved son Burn she loves him. Petten is unleashed, unabashed. And the stage business she has developed is hilarious. There’s a bit in which she makes a meal out of trying to step around take-out food bags. It goes on forever and just keeps getting funnier.
Ben Brown brings a sweetly understated comic sensibility to Joes and both he and Ivy Charles (Holly) are in fine voice.
I was also particularly impressed by the double-cast Megan Chenosky, who manages to make the ridiculously privileged — and oblivious — Burn sympathetic by giving him puppy-dog eyes to offset his mid-Atlantic accent. And she creates a completely different, brassy character for Dolly, a dollar sign, the blond-wigged embodiment of cash. It’s great to see Tom Pickett as Evie, the purehearted — and golden-throated — East Van sign.
Fun sets and props by Shizuka Kai. Great costumes by Donny Tejani. They include Boberta’s pastel-blue pantsuit, which the designer accents with an extravagant villain’s cape.
I loved West Van Story. If you don’t have tickets already, I hope you can get ‘em.
EAST VAN PANTO: WEST VAN STORY Written by Marcus Youssef with Pedro Chamale. Directed by Chelsea Haberlin. A Theatre Replacement Production presented by The Cultch. At the York Theatre until January 4. (Tickets and information)
PHOTO CREDIT: Dawn Patten as Boberta Rainy (Set and props by Shizuka Kai. Costumes by Donnie Tejani. Photo by Emily Cooper)
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