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: Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata

Veda Hille, Bree Greig, Selina Martin, Dmitry Chepovetsky & Daren A. Herbert (Photo: Joanna Akyol)

Cantata Entertains but Confounds
Sing Me the Phone Book Instead
by Jason Booker

The way to judge Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata depends on how you define it (as our Vancouver review of an earlier production proves). Do you use the monstrously long title as a reference to think of it as a cantata or do you view it the way my companion did: as a song cycle featuring the words of ads posted by random strangers?

Seeing as a cantata usually sets a sacred text to music for voices and an orchestra, Do You Want… partially succeeds since it features accompaniment by Veda Hille, the pianist and composer, and Barry Mirochnick on percussion; though Craigslist ads are far from sacred and two instrumentalists hardly comprise an orchestra. Besides how often does a cantata employ humour?

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

Bree Greig, Veda Hille, J. Cameron Barnett, Selina Martin, Barry Mirochnick, Dmitry Chepovetsky in Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata. Photo by David Cooper.

Another Hit Musical in BC

But is it the next Ride the Cyclone?

by mrAshley

Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata is an aptly-titled production that attempts to capture the experience of using the popular classified ads website. The set is a collage of dissimilar, white-washed lamps which could have each been procured from the Free section of the show's namesake, each hanging above the stage or mounted above.