Review: (Vancouver / Theatre) The Old Curiosity Shop

(photo by Nancy Caldwell)

Dickens Classic Brought to Stage
by David C. Jones
@iamdavidcjones

Charles Dickens wrote The Old Curiosity Shop as an on-going story with regular instalments in 1840-41. Like most of his works it deals with social justice in 19th-century England, particularly concerning youth and poverty. This stage adaptation is by Simon Webb and is directed by the apparently everywhere Sarah Rodgers! They have quite a task trying to wrestle a long sprawling serial with dozens of characters, into a two-hour show.

This story focuses on a young girl and her grandfather who live in the curiosity shop. The unnamed grandfather tried to secure a better future for Nell by gambling. This puts them heavily in debt with a man named Quilp. The pair run away and meet many people. Back at the shop, Quilp takes over and Nell’s ne’er-do-well brother Frederick is mistakenly convinced that his grandfather has a fortune hidden away, so he convinces his friend, a gadabout named Dick Swiveller to marry Nell. Quilp arranges for Dick to work for a lawyer named Mr. Brass in order to keep an eye on him. A young man named Kit saves Nell’s canary and worries about her safety.  On the road Nell and her grandfather meet many people, including a pair of Punch and Judy actors, a priest and a cook who makes a fantastic stew.

Review: (Vancouver / Theatre) Between the Sheets

L-R Caitriona Murphy, Stephanie Moroz (photo by Tim Matheson)

Wild trip in a confined space.

by David C. Jones

Pi Theatre has done some very theatrical shows over the years, but this time they have simplified and it was super-theatrical.

Between The Sheets is a 2012 script written by Jordi Mand; it concerns a parent-teacher interview in an elementary school that turns into a battle of wills in unexpected ways.

Artistic director Richard Wolfe has set it to great effect in Admiral Seymour Elementary School and there is no lighting design or sound design. Just the hum of the lights in a small classroom decorated with children’s art and school projects. 

Review: (Vancouver / Theatre) Dreary and Izzy

Dakota Hebert, Roseanna Superneault (photo by Barbara Zimonick)

Compel Me

by David C. Jones

Theatre that tackles issues is challenging to write. You have to go beyond pontificating about the subject matter to score easy points. Writing drama is also hard - one easy way to create drama is to have characters misunderstand what is being said and not ask for clarification. To heighten that drama just have the characters speak in half and/or interrupted sentences. Another easy device to get both issues and drama out is to have a sudden change in behaviour in character and a selective memory about the people they interact with.

Four companies came together to present Tara Beagan’s Dreary and Izzy set in Lethbridge, Alberta in 1975. The story is about two sisters, one is an adopted Aboriginal girl with fetal alcohol syndrome (FASD), the other a good Catholic girl.  There is also a First Nations vacuum cleaner salesman and older friend of the family who is a nurse who is also little bit racist.

Review: (Vancouver / Theatre) The Seafarer

(photo by Emily Cooper)

Troubled waters lead to joyous feeling.
by David C. Jones

Pacific Theatre does the most soulful dramas in Vancouver. Because of its unique design you can see half the audience on the other side of the playing area; it really creates a community experience. You can check in with other theatregoers to gauge their engagement with the production.

Their new show is called The Seafarer and it’s by Irish playwright Conor McPherson. The show itself was written in 2006 and it was nominated for many awards but didn’t win. This production reveals why on both counts.

The story concerns a troubled alcoholic named Sharkey who is returning home to Dublin after getting fired from his job as a chauffeur. At home is Richard who is blind due to a dumpster accident. A regular visitor to the home is Ivan. While Sharkey is trying to stay off the sauce Richard and Ivan  can’t get enough. 

Review: (Vancouver / Theatre) Hirsch

(photo: Cylla von Tiedemann)

With Heart and Chutzpah

One of our great Canadians is part of Vancouver's Chutzpah Festival

by David C. Jones

John Hirsch was a remarkable Canadian. A Hungarian Jew orphaned by the Holocaust finds a new home in Canadian Theatre where he gains a reputation for his talent and drive as well as his stormy temperament and corrosive demeanour.

The play Hirsch was created and conceived by Alon Nashman and Paul Thompson, starring the former, directed by the latter. The one-person show was a smash hit at The Stratford Festival. It is as frenetic, engaging and heartfelt as the person at the heart of it.

Told with crisscrossing snippets from his highly tragic life, the stage is filled with magical stagecraft. Curtains and sheets disappear and befitting a theatrical legend a stagehand wanders in from stage left or right bringing costume and set pieces.

Review: (Vancouver / Theatre) For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again

Tremblay Transformed

A play is adapted for the The Talking Stick Festival exploring aboriginal culture through the arts

by David C. Jones

The matinée performance of For The Pleasure of Seeing Her Again had school groups in with a fair number of First Nation students in attendance. Written in 1998 as a tribute to his late mother Michel Tremblay has crafted a nostalgic, funny and theatrical remembrance.

Full Circle Theatre adapts the two characters from Catholic French Canadians to a First Nations mother and son. Since Tremblay has a line referencing his Cree grandmother already there, the only clear change is a magical bit of stagecraft that has an aboriginal flair.

Review: (Vancouver/Dance) Me So You So Me

Cute playful fun.
by David C Jones
@iamdavidcjones

David Raymond and Tiffany Tregarthen are young dynamic, engaging, and brilliant dancers. They have created a series of colourful vignettes that merge cool athleticism with light and sound. They are quite accomplished and sexily playful. But what does it all add up to?

The first couple of pieces are solos and each piece segues into the next in a clever and fun way. In one section Tiffany is tangled in a rope and then gets pulled off stage right. David enters pulling the rope onstage left. When she has disappeared he drops the rope and starts a new sequence.

In a dynamically lit (designer James Proudfoot) sequence David dances through a series of six light squares to a song that has key lyrics projected and Tiffany rolls into the light revealing them like a James Bond opening title scene.

As the show progresses they start dancing more together; they are cute with each other and appear to be brother and sister or neighbours exploring the world of childlike imagination and play.

Review: (Vancouver) Bug

Genevieve Fleming, Jay Clift (photo by Matt Reznek)

The need for connection “I need you” 
The fear of conspiracy ‘They want me”
by David C. Jones
@iamdavidcjones

Bug was the second play written by eventual Pulitzer Prize winner (for August Osage County) Mr. Tracy Letts. It is an intriguing story of some of life’s losers finding hope and the destructive nature of delusion. Hardline Productions is a sexy young company that love psychologically complex stories and have a keen ear for sound and an eye for movement. The story called Bug would seem to be a good fit.

Agnes is a drug addict who drinks but is able to stay straight enough to work part time as a waitress. She lives in a hotel and when we meet her she is chilling in a doorway enjoying some red wine. Her bleary eye bliss is interrupted by a phone call without anyone on the line. She believes it might be her ex-husband recently released from prison.

Review: (Vancouver) Out of a Dream

If you love Rodgers and Hammerstein

Or if you love beautiful ballads

by David C. Jones

Some musical revues celebrate a composer and give you facts and tidbits about some other beloved songs, for example Side-by-Side by Sondheim. Others take a songbook and try to construct a plot to string all the songs together, for example Mama Mia.

Out of a Dream is a passion project of Peter Jorgensen’s, he wanted to make a loving tribute to Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II. He has assembled 42 songs primarily from classic shows like; Carousel, The King and I, South Pacific Oklahoma!, Flower Drum Song as well as lesser-known songs like Me and Juliet and Pipe Dream.

Review: (Vancouver) West Side Story

High Octane

by David C. Jones

It’s big and energetic.  

That is part of the problem.

A powerful classic is considered such because it moves generation after generation. West Side Story, premiered in 1957, and its blend of dance and social commentary captured the audience. Themes of first love/young hormones and the generation gap make the play resonate even though some of the language like “Daddy-O” has long left our vernacular. Audiences connect to the struggle of young people trying to make their way into adulthood against great odds. 

Broadway across Canada is presenting the Troika Entertainment production of West Side Story based on the recent Broadway revival. The story is of two rival gangs one Puerto Rican (The Sharks) and the other of Irish/Polish descent (The Jets). Things get heated when the younger sister of the leader of the Sharks (Maria) falls in love with the former leader of The Jets (Tony).

Review: (Vancouver) People Like Us

Earnest and well meaning but…

One woman show is pretty predictable

by David C. Jones

The setting is a mostly empty house with only a couch and chair. The walls become an army barrack tent halfway up. There are piles of sand along the floorboards in Amanda Larder’s set. On the couch a woman is packing her suitcase preparing to go to the wedding of her daughter.

We learn from Sandi Johnson's script that her husband was a veteran MP from the Gulf War who worked with mildly radioactive weapons. “What happened to Gerry, happened to me.”

Review: (Vancouver) Relatively Speaking

(photo by Wendy D Photography)

Not very nice people in old comedy.
Misunderstandings and interrupted sentences form the base.

by David C. Jones

If you are going to remount an almost 50-year-old comedy you need to know what relevance it will have for the modern audience? Attitudes and morals have changed and for better or worse so have attention spans. Slow plotting, long introductions to characters and the main premise have given way to diving head first into the action.

We are also in an era of the meanie. Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, American Horror Story, Dexter, and so on. In a complicated time we appear to be attracted to morally flexible ambitious protagonists. But we have new morals, we know racism is bad and we are also sensitive to sexist behaviour. We will tolerate it in stories if we can relate to the needs of the anti-hero.

Review: (Vancouver) Communion

Photo by Tim Matheson

Stunning production gets under your skin
The actors, the design, the direction, the script
by David C. Jones

“It’s the question” we are told from the beginning. We want comfort and clarity and certainty but how do we achieve it. We can clasp to our career, our religion, our relationships, or to booze and pills. We make choices but often lose confidence with them. We want advice and permission.

Daniel MacIvor is a renowned Canadian playwright, who explores morality and mortality, defensiveness and neediness and wraps it in dripping sarcasm.

This 2010 tale is told in three scenes and it concerns three women whose lives intersect. Leda is a recovering alcoholic with terminal cancer who is seeing a cool as cucumber psychotherapist named Carolyn who is helping her reconnect her former drug addict, now very devout, daughter named Annie.

Review: (Vancouver) Rocky Horror Show

Some brilliant casting!
But sound problems can’t be ignored

by David C. Jones

There are so many ‘stars’ in this ambitious production of The Rocky Horror Show and the show has such a desire to delight and engage that it is hard to resist. I laughed and clapped and sang-along as did the sold-out audience!

If you don’t know: Brad and Janet have just gotten engaged and they have decided to visit their professor (Dr. Evita Scott – Dr. Everett Scott in the film) to tell her. Unfortunately the clouds are ‘heavy, dark and pendulous’ and soon they are caught in a thunderstorm with a flat tire. Luckily Brad spotted a castle a mile back and before they know it they are in the company of Dr. Frank-N-Furter and his various minions and hangers on. It’s a rather auspicious night, the Dr. is about to birth his muscle bound creature.

Review: (Vancouver) Inside the Seed

Corporate Caper Masterfully Directed
The stories need to be told.

by David C. Jones

I was reared on films like The China Syndrome and Silkwood, stories inspired by true events about corporate crimes and cover-ups. I have Marched Against Monsanto and signed petitions. If you haven’t seen films like The Corporation or Food Inc. you should.

Therefore I am primed for a show like Inside The Seed by Jason Patrick Rothery and produced by Up In The Air Theatre. This is the first time the company - which has produced and presented many other artists in their various festivals – is being presented themselves by The Vancouver East Cultural Centre.


It’s a large cast for a sprawling story told in a small space. Something we don’t see that often outside of acting schools or amateur companies. Here we have some very amazing actors, great production values and a great director.

Bonus Feature: Interview - Director Chance Newman on Young Frankenstein

Brooks Alive!
by David C. Jones

CharPo senior contributor David C. Jones spoke with director Chance Newman about Last Chance Productions upcoming presentation of Young Frankenstein. He and  his crew are busy commuting between Washington and Vancouver. In February 2012 Last Chance Productions brought Evil Dead the Musical to Vancouver, a show that they took on tour to other locales. This time they are starting off in Vancouver with Mel Brooks's musical adaptation of his hit comedy Young Frankenstein.

CHARPO: Why are you starting this tour off in Vancouver?

NEWMAN:  We really like the people in Vancouver and the Waterfront Theatre. We were treated really well here so we thought this would be the best place to start. We like this city.

Review: (Vancouver) Underneath the Lintel (Fringe)

The Quest
by David C. Jones
@iamdavidcjones

With so many original works and one-person shows it is rare to find a previously produced script. This show about a passionate lecture by a Dutch librarian was written in 2001 by American Glen Berger. Played by David Cameron the librarian is stuffy and giddy, pompous and sweet. He starts his lecture by presenting us with a Baedeker travel guide that has been returned through the library drop slot 113 years overdue. Incensed and curious he uses a dry cleaning receipt that was used as a book mark to start a trip that will have him eventually span the globe in a fantastical story of biblical proportions. He has to be quick though because he only has one week of sick leave. The adventure is a warm, giggling experience that has some delightful surprises and under director Jackie Minns' guidance, Mr. Cameron with his chalkboard and slide projector is an engaging guide. Charming fun in a quiet gentle way.

Underneath the Lintel is at the Vancouver Fringe

Review: (Vancouver) Kitt and Jane (Fringe)

An insane time
by David C. Jones
@iamdavidcjones

In her last show Little Orange Man, Ingrid Hansen created a highly imaginative and heartbreaking story of a little girl trying to reconnect with her deceased grandfather. This new show has the slightly older girl (I think it's her) joining forces with her friend Jane (Rod Peter Jr.) hijacking a school assembly to lead an interactive survival guide to the apocalyptic future. 

Review: (Vancouver) Allegheny, BC (Fringe)

A Well-Told Tale
by David C. Jones
@iamdavidcjones

Rodney DeCroo is a singer song writer with a warm folky rock sound. Using spoken word poetry, stories and about eight songs, he shares portions of his life living in Allegheny, BC. He is joined on stage by Mark Haney who plays a mean double bass and sometimes provides bass harmonies. Staged by Jane Heyman with visuals by Gal Minnes the production is handsome and warm like a well loved coat. Some storytellers tell stories where you can see aspects of yourself or your life in them, some tell them because they are wild adventures they wish to share. Mr. Decroo's stories are intimate, revealing and we get insight into the man he has become, these are stories about him and his experiences. His biography is included in the program. The nearly full house was captured and gave rapt attention, some of them gently bobbing their heads to the songs. If you are a fan of the sound and/or a fan of the man then this is a staged concert you won't want to miss .

Allegheny, BC is at the Vancouver Fringe

Review: (Vancouver) Threads (Fringe)

Intimate
by David C. Jones
@iamdavidcjones

Tonya Jone Miller's story is the recollections of her mother Donna and her various experiences in Vietnam between 1962 and 1979. Armed with two red suitcases she jumps back and forth between stories and timelines and many of the harrowing tales are high stakes and tense. Like other solo storytellers she is telling truths but she also has a distancing perspective since they are not her stories she is re-creating although she is connected to them. The white knuckle adventures are thrilling but it is in the quieter moments like Donna's bond with a severely handicapped boy named Fuk that rip your heart out and haunt well into the night. Its intimate shared storytelling garnered extended and hearty applause. 

Threads is at the Vancouver Fringe
Read also: Tonya Jone Miller on surviving the Fringe