Review: (Vancouver / Theatre) Spamalot

(photo by David Cooper)

Mixing a classic farce with Broadway makes quite a spectacle
A mixed bag of hilarious sketches and dated humour
by Chris Lane

Spamalot is completely ridiculous, over-the-top and makes very little sense, but fortunately, that’s the whole point.

The musical is based off Monty Python and the Holy Grail, with some other Python references and Broadway spoofing thrown in. It’s a glammed-up, Broadway-style farce, full of British wit.

There are many, many laughs in the show, although a lot of the jokes drag on longer than they should. The comedy relies on a lot of easy jokes, often dependent on stereotypes that toe the line between funny or just plain offensive – sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other. But each scene is vastly different from the next, so the occasional disappointing scenes are often saved by hilarious antics moments later. The energy level is high throughout the evening; it’s a true spectacle.

Review: (Vancouver / Theatre) Kim's Convenience

Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Andre Sills (photo by Bruce Monk)

“Corner store comedy” balances humour, family drama and culture clash
Kim’s Convenience a familiar microcosm of immigrant experience in Canada
by Chris Lane

Kim’s Convenience is quintessentially Canadian, about a Korean couple in a multicultural Toronto neighbourhood overrun by condos.

It’s a classic immigrant story of a new arrival opening up a business and working long hours running it with the help of his wife and two children. The kids were born in Canada, so the play lays bare the within-family cultural clashes that arise between immigrant parents and their Canadian-born children – and how much the two generations can learn from one another.

A developer is pushing hard to buy Kim’s Convenience, but Mr. Kim won’t allow his customers to lose their shop, and is loath to see his legacy reduced to rubble. He wants his daughter, Janet, to take over; at 30, she has yet to leave the nest, and he’s worried she’s wasting the opportunities they gave her on a photography career. To him, it’s a matter of giving back after all that he gave her; to her, it should be her life and her own choices.

Review: (Vancouver / Theatre) Helen Lawrence

Lisa Ryder (photo by David Cooper)

Like a movie, but performed live
Helen Lawrence innovatively brings a slice of Vancouver’s past to life
by Chris Lane

Seeing Helen Lawrence is like watching a live performance of a movie. It combines the power of film to transport you with vivid visual scenery and to get up close and personal with actors, while at the same time delivering the energy of a live performance – thanks to the magic of projections.

The play uses an innovative mixed-media style to transport the audience just down the street to two parts of Vancouver that no longer stand: Hogan’s Alley, and the old Hotel Vancouver, which both have distinctive roles in Vancouver’s cultural history. The story takes place in 1948, a year before the grandiose Hotel Vancouver (second of three) was demolished, when the hotel was still being used to house Second World War veterans. Hogan’s Alley was the hub of Vancouver’s black community, as well as being a centre for gambling, drinking, and the sex trade – just a few blocks away from the present-day centre of the Downtown Eastside. This play brings together a cast of characters from both places, alongside the police who go between the two.

Review: (Vancouver) Driving Miss Daisy

L-R Nicola Lipman, Brian Linds, John Campbell (photo by David Cooper)

Driving smoothly and without a hitch
A smart tale of colour-blind compassion
by Chris Lane

You know just where you’re going with Driving Miss Daisy, but it’s still plenty of fun getting there.

The play opens in 1948 with the eponymous Daisy, an elderly Southern Jewish woman, stubbornly insisting to her grown son, Boolie, that she’s still a perfectly good driver – despite having barrelled into a garage by mixing up the gears. He ignores her protestations and hires her a chauffeur, Hoke, who’s almost as old as Daisy but still knows exactly what he’s doing. Daisy isn’t keen on being driven around – perhaps least of all by a black man.

The affable Hoke works hard to get along with Daisy, and to make her see him as a fellow human that she can relate to. The plot is rather predictable, and yet this production succeeds at making the audience care for the characters and about their story.

Review: (Vancouver) Mary Poppins

Scott Walters and Sara-Jeanne Hosie (photo by David Cooper)

Practically Adequate
by Jay Catterson

Mary Poppins floats onto the Stanley Industrial Alliance stage as Arts Club Vancouver tries to tackle the hit Broadway musical about the whimsical flying nanny. But is Poppins "Practically Perfect" in every way? Not quite. As with many Arts Club productions, this show is predictably passable.

Technical aspect-wise, this show works. The set design by Alison Green was effective, despite the hissing of the hydraulics being noticeable whenever the main house set moved in and out. The high flying wire work was impressive for such a small theatre. Combined with Valerie Easton's thrilling choreography, the production numbers sizzle, in particular the Act Two chimney-sweep number "Step in Time" and its proscenium-strolling tap dance act. And the costumes by Sheila White were ravishingly gorgeous. However, the Stanley is in need of a better sound system, for the orchestra sounded hollow and tinny at times. Heck, if you are going to pump in the orchestra from a room in the back of the theatre, you need to give the music some oomph to evoke the feeling of live orchestration!

Review: (Vancouver) Venus in Fur

Vincent Gale, Lindsey Angell (photo by David Cooper)

A Positively Riveting Performance by Ms. Angell
An intellectual battle of the sexes.
by David C. Jones

There are so many twists and changes and reveals in this show I don’t want to give anything away. It’s a handsome and stylish production of a 2010 award-winning script by David Ives that is being produced all across North America. The brilliant David Mackay directs it and he has cast the two-hander with great actors.

Thomas Novachek has just finished a round of auditions for a play that he wrote based on an 1870 novel by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. The story concerns sadomasochism and the sophisticated yet passionate people who engage. He is ranting on the phone because all the actresses he has seen can’t come close to the class and mystery of the lead character Wanda von Dunajew.

Review: (Vancouver) Other Desert Cities

Benjamin Elliott, Gwyneth Walsh (photo by David Cooper)

A family drama of secrets, divulgence, and more secrets

The Arts Club opens the season with a polished and compelling production

by Chris Lane

Other Desert Cities tells the story of what’s at risk when you try to tell your own story to the world – because your own story isn’t just about you, is it.

The Wyeth family is gathered together for Christmas at their lavish Palm Springs home, as for the first time in six years their 30-something neurotic daughter Brooke has returned to California from her new East Coast life. She’s there because she has a bombshell to tell her family: her new novel isn’t actually a novel, but a memoir about the family’s darkest hour.

Brooke wants to share the story of how her parents’ hard-right ideology was so fiercely at odds with that of their eldest child they abandoned him in a time of need; she wants to expose their part in the family’s sordid past. But she’s challenged by her parents and brother, who question if telling this story is truly worth alienating her family. And is her book a fair depiction of her family’s tale, or is there more to it?

The play is filled with twists and turns as the story of the Wyeth family unravels, and the motivations and faults of all five characters are revealed and reviled. They might appear as recognizable archetypes at the outset, but they all have multiple layers underneath that are gradually exposed. The power dynamics are very interesting, as they all have their own ways of exerting power, overtly or subtly.

Review: (Vancouver) Dream Girls

Aurianna Angelique (photo: David Cooper)

Dreamgirls is glitz, glam, and so very showbiz
Aurianna Angelique is powerful and passionate as Effie
by Chris Lane

Dreamgirls is about selling a performance, and selling a song, and the cast at the Arts Club truly sells this show. It’s full of Motown soul and a whole lotta vocal talent.

The hit Broadway musical chronicles the story of the Dreamettes, a Motown trio inspired by the story of the Supremes. They start out as a closely-knit group fronted by Effie, before the slick and smooth Curtis Taylor Jr. moulds them into a money-making pop group. Dreamgirls is an homage to the sounds of Motown, with an engaging storyline that still resonates today.

Review: (Vancouver) Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata

Dmitry Chepovetsky, Bree Greig, Selina Martin. Photo by David Cooper.

Just what you need: Craigslist ads set to music
A clever, hilarious and completely off-the-wall spectacle
by Chris Lane

It’s the perfect fodder for a musical: Craigslist. Co-creators Veda Hille, Bill Richardson and Amiel Gladstone have harnessed the bottomless pit of quirkiness that is Craigslist to create a gleefully entertaining snapshot of humanity.

Do You Want What I Have Got is a song cycle inspired by real Craigslist ads, and it’s amazing what oddities the creators have managed to dredge up. There are the missed connections that you can relate to until they take a certain turn for the weird, or else just plain unfortunate. There are the personals, with their outrageous requests. And then there are the sale items: some just plain ridiculous, some brimming with intrigue, and some that tell an entire story in just a few words.

Review: (Vancouver) My Turquoise Years

Georgina Beaty, Bridget Esler, Wendy Noel, and Dawn Petten. Photo by Emily Cooper.

Sometimes the book is better
Some of the best actors in town though

by David C. Jones

A book is an intimate experience; it’s you with the author.  It can sometimes be reflective and it can also meander. It can be put down and pondered, then you can pick it up again and dive back into the prose. Theatre is dynamic; it is a shared experience with many. The story needs to be in action and the protagonist has to drive us through. In improvisational theatre (I am going somewhere with this) there is a term called “Delaying”. That is when the actors are avoiding getting to the action - often because they are afraid of where the story might take them.

In My Turquoise Years - adapted by M.A.C. Farrant from her book - there is so much delaying. We keep being told something might happen eventually but nothing does. There is just delaying in the writing – it also happens in the production which features not one but three full on songs. 

Review: (Vancouver) Two Pianos, Four Hands

Greenblatt (l), Dykstra

Classical recital meets comedic genius

Two talented pianists have some very funny stories to tell
by Chris Lane

2 Pianos 4 Hands is a hilarious comedy, and like a musical, except with only piano playing instead of singing. More simply, it’s a Canadian classic that’s well worth seeing.

It tells the semi-autobiographical story of two boys growing up with their pianos. The plot follows them from piano lessons, to competitions at Kiwanis festivals, to Royal Conservatory exams, to figuring out if they’ll ever make it as professional classical pianists.

Review: (Vancouver) How Has My Love Affected You?

Marcus Youssef (photo: David Cooper)

A Very Personal Story
Engaging Actor and Musician Son Share Pain 

by David C. Jones

Marcus Youssef is a big hearted and affable man and a great storyteller. Earlier this season he was part of the intimate and cruel Winners and Losers, a show that took the audience through an unusual game of one-ups-man-ship.

Recently Mr. Youssef had to move his mother into a home because she was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. As a child he found her blunt and carefree ways upsetting like when she confessed to having a dream where they were lovers. As a young man he distanced himself from her. As an adult caregiver he got access to all her property including her journals and diaries...

Review: (Vancouver, touring BC) The 39 Steps

Shawn Macdonald, Diana Coatsworth, David Marr (photo by David Cooper)

Without a Hitch
by Jay Catterson

The hugely successful "Hitchcock meets Hilarious" stage romp The 39 Steps gets the Arts Club Vancouver treatment for the second time; this time the show hits the road for a small tour around British Columbia's Lower Mainland. 

The stage show is lovingly adapted from the iconic Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name by Patrick Barlow, which is based on the novel by John Buchan. The charm of this show is that it is entirely performed by four actors, and the creative use of lighting, props, and set pieces to illustrate the various quick scene changes, and the many role changes that these actors have to embody, is a delight in itself.

Review: (Vancouver) Boeing-Boeing

Andre McNee (photo credit: David Cooper)

A funny as ever

Arts Club’s take on classic comedy is polished and hilarious

by Chris Lane

The Arts Club takes audiences back to the high-flying 1960s with Boeing-Boeing, a classic farce filled with lies, love and lust.

The protagonist, Bernard, thinks he has it all figured out: he has three gorgeous fiancées who are never in town at the same time. They’re all flight attendants, and he carefully picked them because he knows that their schedules will never overlap. That is, until the advent of a new, faster plane that throws everything out of whack, so that he has to scramble to hide them from one another as they all end up in town at once.

Review: (Vancouver) The Santaland Diaries

Ryan Neil (photo credit: Tim Matheson)

When Santa is spelled S-A-T-A-N
by Chris Lane

Santaland Diaries certainly isn't your typically heart-warming Christmas yarn. Based on a short story by David Sedaris, it stays true to his politically-incorrect style of dark humour and social commentary.

The original is an autobiographical short story about Sedaris's experience as an elf in Santaland at a bustling Macy's in New York City. The story is filled with tales of screaming children, overbearing parents and the ridiculous and sometimes vile antics of harried shoppers in the lead-up to Christmas.

Review: (Vancouver) She Stoops to Conquer

Jennifer Mawhinney and Melissa Oei. Photo by David Cooper.

She Stoops...SHE CONQUERS!!!

by David C. Jones
@iamdavidcjones

It was tough going off the top of She Stoops to Conquer. Written in 1773 the language is archaic and it did not help that at the beginning, stepping around David Roberts 2-D set, was a chorus of servants (played with goofy charm by John Voth, Christine Quintana, Sebastian Kroon, Paul Kloegman and Christina Well Campbell) singing “wha wha blah wha wah wha plah twist”.  Couldn’t understand it but it was a pretty harmony. Then when the actors came out we are still trying to wrap our ears around the language. As with many older plays much of Act One is all about setting up the premise and it is not until the later acts that the plot and conflict really start gearing up.

Well-to-do Mr. Hardcastle (played with world-weary bluster by Norman Browning) and his wife the social climbing Mrs. Hardcastle (the hysterically certifiable Leslie Jones in a welcome return to the stage) are trying to marry off their kids. Lay-about drinker and “awkward booby” Tony (Chris Cochrane) is ordered to marry his cousin Constance Neville (Melissa Oei) - mainly so Mom can keep Constance’s jewels - and daughter Kate (Jennifer Mawhinney) is to meet with Charles Marlow in hopes they will hit it off. The problem with both plans is: Constance and Chris both are interested in other people and Mr. Marlow gets all tongue-tied around high society women feeling more comfortable flirting with lower classes. One of the many merry mix-ups and deceptions in the classic Laughing Comedy is that Kate will pretend to be a maid to put Marlow at ease. She will stoop to conquer.

Review: (Vancouver) Master Class

Gina Chiarelli (photo: David Cooper)

La Divina
by Chris Lane

Maria Callas instructs her students not to act, but to become a character, and to truly feel their emotions. Gina Chiarelli, who portrays the celebrated diva in Master Class, does exactly this in a powerful and compelling performance.

Master Class, which is being put on by the Arts Club at their Granville Island Stage, is a theatrical take on a master class that Callas gave at Juilliard in the '60s. The audience at Granville Island becomes the audience of the class as she brings out the best in her young students, but not without a few tears along the way. The play is not so much about her lessons on opera; rather, it is about her, and about what she has to say about art and performance. She tells her students to go deeper than just reading and singing, in order to find the meaning in the text and to express those emotions for the audience.

The Sunday Read: Interview - Bill Millerd, Artistic Director, Arts Club Theatre

Last Man Standing?

Bill Millerd insists Vancouver does theatre - and proves it

by Christopher Lane (CharPo-Canada Vancouver Editor)

CHARPO: What's special about this year's season?

MILLERD: It's the third season that we've had the Revue Stage (the small intimate space on Granville Island), which is special since we've been trying to figure out how to fit it into the operation. When you're running three theatres, it's a bit of a juggling act, clearly. I want to make sure that each theatre fits together.

I'm very happy with the opening show Clybourne Park. Our subscriptions are at 10,000 and climbing, which is the most we've ever had, so that's pretty exciting. And the other part of the season that I always look forward to is the new plays that we present. We have a commission program, and Marcus Youssef, we partially commissioned him. He's doing a play, How Has My Love Affected You?, later in the season at the Revue Stage. Marion Farrant has adapted her memoir, My Turquoise Years; it'll be done in the spring at the Granville Island Stage. Right now we're in rehearsals for another premiere, The Unplugging, by Yvette Nolan.

The great thing about live theatre for me, somebody who's been doing it for awhile, is that no two plays are the same, and no two actors are the same. Every day is a different day. You know that the people involved in it are so wonderfully committed, in a way that is sometimes awe-inspiring for myself. Even after a number of years doing this job, to see a collection of people come together on the first day and get excited about what they're about to embark on, and then for it to eventually reach the stage and to see an audience reacting to it? It's pretty good.

Review: (Vancouver) Clybourne Park

Robert Moloney, Deborah Williams, Marci T. House and Daren Herbert. Photo by David Cooper.

Races in the Park
by David C. Jones

Bruce Norris wrote Clybourne Park, first produced in 2010, in response to Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun written in 1959 and he, in fact, borrows a character from her play. Norris's Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning play is a social comedy about race and property values. Act One takes place in the 1950’s and Bev and Russ are selling their home after a family tragedy. Because they sold it to a black family, Karl Lindner (the borrowed character) leads the charge to ‘save’ the all-white neighborhood. Act Two takes place 50 years later and the neighbourhood has become an all black one facing the arrival of a white family. The same actors play different characters but many are related to people from the first act.

Review: (Vancouver) Xanadu

Gaelan Beatty and Marlie Collins (Photo by David Cooper)

The Joyous Camp of it All

Xanadu is a well-oiled machine

by Jay Catterson

Holy Zeus! This Arts Club Vancouver production of the delightfully zany Broadway jukebox musical Xanadu, based on the god-awful 80s movie of the same name and includes all the hit songs plus others from Electric Light Orchestra, hits the Granville Island Stage like a glittery lightning bolt struck down from the heavens. The production is a well-oiled machine, and the actors all give performances that both delight and impress. Director Dean Paul Gibson has to be commended on the splendid job of executing the ingeniously comedic book by Douglas Carter Beane on stage; this show is a juggernaut to perform, with all the witty lines and gags needing to be pulled off with enough panache that if not executed right, they could be lost on the audience. However, the cast is solid and vocally splendid, and they deliver on all levels... mostly while wearing roller skates!