Slamming Door delivers a stylish production of Edward Bond’s eccentric script. (Photo of Cheyenne Mabberley and Genevieve Fleming by Erin Aberle-Palm)
Like a kid who has had the wrong kind of home schooling, Edward Bond’s The Sea is wildly creative—and undisciplined. It takes you to a refreshingly original imaginative world but then insists that you linger too long in some of the duller corners. [Read more…]
I feel revived. So many things in the world these days are so depressing and alienating—the endless Trump news, for instance. Grounded, personal, and celebratory, Mrs. Krishnan’s Party is the perfect antidote for all of that. I don’t know when I’ve left the theatre feeling so refreshed and renewed. [Read more…]
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…]
The theatre season we’re in promises to be thrilling.
As you’ll see, six of my 11 top picks will be playing at Cultch venues. So, if I were looking for season’s tickets, that’s where I’d buy.
Here we go!
Les Belles-Soeurs
Tabernac! The cast! This Ruby Slippers/Gateway co-pro features an avalanche of talent that includes Patti Allan, Eileen Barrett, Lucia Frangione, Pippa Mackie, Melissa Oei, France Perras, Kerry Sandomirsky, and Beatrice Zeilinger—and that’s only about half of them! Michel Tremblay’s 50-year-old classic introduces us to a group of women in 1960s Montreal who get together to stick savings-stamps into books. But that premise is just the fuse in this incendiary comedy about class, religion, and gender.
September 28 to October 6. Co-produced by Ruby Slippers Theatre and the Gateway theatre. At the Gateway. Tickets.
Incognito Mode: A Play About Porn
Marcus Youssef knows how to collaborate. Peter Panties and King Arthur’s Nights, which he created with Niall McNeil, and Winners and Losers, which he wrote with James Long, are among the best shows I’ve seen. The guy won the Siminovitch Prize for playwriting for God’s sake. That’s huge—like $100,000 huge. And this time out, he’s collaborating with students at Studio 58 about what it’s like to be the first generation to have grown up with constant and easy access to porn. What could be more intriguing?
September 29 to October 14. Produced by Studio 58 and Neworld Theatre. At Studio 58. Tickets. [Read more…]
> Sarvin Ismaeili *
Small Town Boys helped me to understand men’s vulnerability.
Performer/writer Sean Casey Leclaire introduces us to a group of boys who start hanging out together in suburban Montreal in 1970. Then the narrator follows his pals Bruno and Triple D out west. It’s a love story of sorts. But only one boy survives.
When Leclaire says, “No man is born violent”. I couldn’t agree with him more. And, in Small Town Boys, Leclaire looks for the roots of violence in the boys’ histories, their parenting, and their society.
That said, there are problems with Leclaire’s acting performance. When he walks onstage, he brings no energy, so it’s hard for him to drive his scenes. There are unnecessary pauses and the show feels under-rehearsed.
Still, Small Town Boys shifted my negative judgments of violent men—and that’s something.
Remaining Performances at the Waterfront Theatre on September 13 (6:45 p.m.), 15 (6:15 p.m.), and 16 (3:15 p.m.)
* This is a guest review.
Sarvin Esmaeili currently studies at Studio 58. She is a passionate 19-year-old theatre artist who cares a lot about diversity, inclusion and creating her own theatre and music. Sarvin is fluent in three languages: Farsi, English, and French. She loves reading, travelling, writing and going to the theatre. She is a co-playwright/performer of One of a Kind at the 2018 Vancouver International Children’s Festival and Doors of Choice and Identity at Vancouver Youth Theatre. She has done community theatre at Evergreen Cultural Center, Place des Arts and Pinetree Secondary’s Treehouse Theatre.
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Big Sister is intelligent, relevant, charmingly performed—and a lot less satisfying than you’d expect.
Playwright Deborah Vogt explores her relationship with her sister Naomi, who lost 75 pounds as an adult. Naomi performs the solo show, which is written in her voice, so she speaks the words that Deborah has put in her mouth. She also breaks out to address the audience as her “real self”—except, of course, those breakouts are also scripted.
At its most obvious, Big Sister is about fat shaming—social rejection and insults. But this text plays variations on the theme: Naomi is aware of the social privilege that her sleeker profile affords and, after a lifetime of being defiantly big, she finds herself uncomfortably invested in her normative beauty.
Most intriguingly, Big Sisterconsiders how we construct our identities in reaction to those around us, including our siblings, and by filling the spaces they leave vacant.
But the structural and tonal homogeneity of Big Sister undermine it. Deborah and Naomi’s sardonic voices are confusingly similar. And there’s no central story, so there are no clear stakes and the accumulation that exists feels abstract.
I’d much rather see the issues of Big Sisterexplored through a dynamic relationship, a real two-hander, rather than in this monologue, which feels too much like an essay.
Remaining performances at the Revue Stage on September 8 (1 p.m.), 9 (9 p.m.), 13 (6:45 p.m.), 15 (5:45 p.m.), and 16 (1:45 p.m.) > Colin Thomas
Sign up—free!—for Colin Thomas’s FRESH SHEET and get daily reviews from the Vancouver Fringe. (During the regular season, FRESH SHEET is stuffed with the world’s most fascinating theatre news. Here’s a taste.)
And, because theatre needs informed, independent criticism if it’s going to thrive, check out Colin’s Patreon campaign. (It takes a village to feed a critic.)
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This glorious musical retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice explodes out of the starting gate—and almost self-destructs on its high-octane ambitions.
Jasper loves Agnes. Agnes dives off a cliff. Jasper follows her into the underworld. Divine shenanigans ensue.
The production is snappy and inventive in its manipulation of fabric and crates. The actors are winning and likable. And the choice to cast Jasper as a woman (Merewyn Comeau) injects an understated and appreciated queerness. Awkward Stage Productions confidently sails this musical down hell’s river.
Then the tech nearly sinks it. The lighting (especially early on) is unforgivably patchy. And the sound design is wretched: the five-piece band routinely overpowers the singers, and Ryan Scott Oliver’s clever lyrics are often garbled in the mix. Because they’re the only performers whose mics are reliably balanced, corporate villainess Mrs. Lethe (Natalie Backerman) and tour guide Gretchen (Lucia Forward) very nearly steal the show.
Transferred to a better theatre with a professional sound technician, Jasper in Deadlandwould be unstoppable. At present? It’s still worthwhile. But clean your ears first.
Remaining performances at the Firehall Arts Centre on September 8 (6 p.m.), 9 (3:15 p.m.), 12 (8:45 p.m.), 13 (5:30 p.m.), 14 (9 p.m.), 15 (4 p.m.), 16 (6:30 p.m.) > David Johnston
This is a guest review.
David Johnston is a Vancouver-based actor, aerialist, and writer, not in that order. He recently hailed from the Edmonton Fringe, where he saw many excellent shows and also ate a green onion cake. The green onion cake got three-and-a-half stars. David is a recent graduate of Studio 58, and is currently writing a script about reviews, so this should be a rather meta experience. He’s delighted to join FRESH SHEET for the Vancouver Fringe.
Sign up—free!—for Colin Thomas’s FRESH SHEET and get daily reviews from the Vancouver Fringe. (During the regular season, FRESH SHEET is stuffed with the world’s most fascinating theatre news. Here’s a taste.)
And, because theatre needs informed, independent criticism if it’s going to thrive, check out Colin’s Patreon campaign. (It takes a village to feed a critic.)
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THE LADY SHOW
What a fabulous 25-minute sketch show! Unfortunately, the runtime is 55 minutes. The end result settles somewhat south of fabulous, but it’s still a net positive.
Four uproarious actresses present a variety of approaches—stand-up! sketches! stand-up sketches! movie trailers! vagina pants!—on the loose theme of… ladyness? Ladyism? Look, it’s feminist, it’s hilarious, and I laughed more times than I can count.
I also got bored more times than I can count. Pretty much every bit is overlong, with dead space you could haul a semitrailer through. A ruthless directorial eye would go a long way to shoring up the gaps, but the production embraces a slapdash feel, for good and for ill.
I loved Fatima Dhowre’s stand-up and Diana Bang’s surreal ballad. In contrast, a noir interrogation scene overstays its welcome by what feels like nine hours.
Still, the end result is dizzying, in all possible ways. Bring your loudest friends and remember to predrink.
Remaining performances at the Firehall Arts Centre on September 8 (8:15 p.m.), 9 (10 p.m.), 12 (7 p.m.), 15 (6:15 p.m.), 16 (8:45 p.m.) > David Johnston
This is a guest review.
David Johnston is a Vancouver-based actor, aerialist, and writer, not in that order. He recently hailed from the Edmonton Fringe, where he saw many excellent shows and also ate a green onion cake. The green onion cake got three-and-a-half stars. David is a recent graduate of Studio 58, and is currently writing a script about reviews, so this should be a rather meta experience. He’s delighted to join FRESH SHEET for the Vancouver Fringe.
Sign up—free!—for Colin Thomas’s FRESH SHEET and get daily reviews from the Vancouver Fringe. (During the regular season, FRESH SHEET is stuffed with the world’s most fascinating theatre news. Here’s a taste.)
And, because theatre needs informed, independent criticism if it’s going to thrive, check out Colin’s Patreon campaign. (It takes a village to feed a critic.)
……….
Gili Roskies as Girl and Adrian Glynn McMorran as Guy in Once. Kiss one another already. (Photo by Emily Cooper)
Once is more than enough.
Yes, Once won Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical in 2012, along with six other Tonys. And it has hauled in a bunch of other prizes, too, but man it’s boring!
Here’s the plot: boy meets girl; they dither endlessly. To be more specific, in working-class Dublin, a young Irishman who’s identified only as Guy meets a young Czech immigrant whom the script calls Girl. Guy is depressed—he’s just been dumped—and he has given up on his dreams of having a musical career. Then, through her sheer perkiness, Girl lifts Guy out of his funk. A musician herself, she presses Guy not to abandon his music. As this is going on, Girl and Guy waver about whether or not to act on the romantic feelings they obviously have for one another. They waver. And waver. Then, after the intermission, they waver some more. This kind of romantic indecision is just fine in friends but when you go to the theatre, you don’t want to feel like you’re spending the night stuck in a stalled car. [Read more…]
Yesterday, I launched a Patreon campaign. It’s all about creating an alternative funding source so that I can keep writing about theatre.
The video explains it all.
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