Review: (Vancouver / Theatre) Whose Life is It Anyway?

Jennifer Lines, Bob Frazer (photo by Tim Matheson)

Fighting for his death
A smart and darkly funny discussion of a contentious topic
by Chris Lane

Should a hospital patient be permitted to choose death over treatment?

Bob Frazer stars as Ken, who was recently paralyzed from the neck down in a car crash, with spinal damage so severe that the current state of medicine is incapable of helping him move his body ever again. He’s a smart, quick-witted man who carefully considers his situation, and decides he’d rather die than spend the rest of his life trapped in a body he can’t control. But the head doctor firmly believes that his duty is to keep his patients alive, and argues that Ken’s depressed state is preventing him from making a sound judgment. Caught in between the two is Dr. Scott (Jennifer Lines), who is struggling to judge what to do as a medical doctor and as a compassionate person who cares for her patient’s wishes and well-being.

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) 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) Daisy Theatre

(Schnitzel)

Wonderfully, lovably, hilariously Canadian puppets
Ronnie Burkett’s latest work ramps up the silliness
by Chris Lane

Ronnie Burkett is a true master of puppets, and with his latest work, The Daisy Theatre, he’s just plain having fun, and leaving the audience in stitches.

The production is a series of 'playlets' involving one or two marionettes, which are only roughly scripted and vary substantially from night to night. They all make up The Daisy Theatre, which is the kookiest and crassest travelling theatre troupe this side of the 49th parallel. The marionettes make so many snarky asides and Vancouver-oriented jokes that each performance feels like a special treat just for that night’s audience.

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: First-Person - Richard Wolfe on Inside the Seed (Vancouver)

Directing Without Baggage 

A new tale as old as theatre
by Richard Wolfe  

Richard Wolfe is a specialist in contemporary theatre and performance. Plays he’s directed include Terminus by Mark O’Rowe, Bashir Lazhar by Évelyne de la Chenelière, after the quake by Haruki Murakami (with Craig Hall), Stupidity (La Estupidez) by Rafael Spregelburd, Blue / Orange by Joe Penhall and Thom Pain (based on nothing) by Will Eno.  He’s also dramaturged or directed many new Canadian plays including Omniscience by Tim Carlson – as well as scripts that have been translated from French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin and Russian.  Mr. Wolfe has received four Jessie nominations for Outstanding Director and one for Significant Artistic Achievement, while the shows he’s directed have received over 40 nominations for excellence in Vancouver professional theatre. He’s been the artistic director of Pi Theatre for the past five years. 

I’m currently directing Jason Rothery’s new play Inside the Seed for Upintheair Theatre. The show premieres at the Cultch in Vancouver, opening their Studio season on October 2. I like working on good new scripts. There are no production models to consider from famous interpretations of the past, nor is there any critical baggage to haul along during the process. 

This is the first time I’ve worked with Jason, or more precisely, on a script written by Jason and it’s been a pleasure. As far as I can tell, Jason trusts the process and he trusts me. He didn’t balk when I told him I was going to stage the play in an alley configuration rather than a traditional proscenium. He embraced the notion that the actors, rather than entering and leaving the stage in a realistic way, would stay onstage throughout as a kind of contemporary chorus (we call it “the global organism”).  He always sounds calm over the phone when I suggest tweaking a certain line or point out a logic trap or bring forward a general question from the company. His response to every request so far has been generously collaborative. 

Review: (Vancouver) Mump and Smoot in Something

Guffaws from the Heart.

“National treasures!” Scream the posters. Go see why.

by David C. Jones

Mump and Smoot – clowns of horror have been touring the world charming and shocking guffawing audiences since 1986. Go see why.

Most of the audience was older (Mump and Smoot last presented Something in Vancouver 1994) and most were eagerly there for their second time. Go see why.

This is the last show in The Cultch season and their fourth or fifth clown show – don’t be scared – and like two others of them - Blind Date and I, Malvolio - the audience is part of the show – don’t be scared.

Review: (Vancouver) The Far Side of the Moon

Yves Jacques

A Moon To Sleep By
by David C. Jones
@iamdavidcjones

Ah “art”. Some you tantalize, others you leave cold. It is your nature. Your audience can be fickle and sometimes you are overly enigmatic with them. It is a tempestuous relationship often exhilarating and sometimes exhausting...

Robert Lepage is celebrated as an iconic Canadian artist and a master craftsman of story and form. In 1994, he founded Ex Machina, a multidisciplinary production company, and in 2000 he created one of his most widely celebrated works - The Far Side of The Moon. The show has toured around the world starring himself or long time ‘doppelganger’ Yves Jacques. It was made into an award-winning movie in 2003 and now it returns to Vancouver.

The staging is impressive. A giant stage length 10-foot high mirror rotates above (like a ceiling) and below (like a table) in front (like a wall). It reveals a seemingly endless series of panels that slide and open and can be written on with chalk. Laurie Anderson created a soundtrack that was moody and artsy.