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) 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) Leave of Absence

Lucia Frangione and Tom McBeath (photo credit: Ron Reed)

Great cast and heartfelt writing

Lesbians and the Bible

by David C. Jones

This show is so heartfelt and presented with such integrity there is an audience for it and it even has the potential to expand some minds. Others might find it a little melodramatic or even uninvolving but there is humour and sadness to carry you through.

Leave of Absence is about a teenager who has been raised by a religious single parent. A thoughtful priest, a blunt but affable neighbour and a progressive (she is into female Christian mystics) but limited Catholic school principal surround her, which is a good thing because she is about to discover her Lesbian feelings, oh, and God is talking to her and “She” approves.

Review: (Vancouver) The Spitfire Grill

Barbara Pollard, Julie McIsaac and Caitriona Murphy - photo by Francesca Albertazzi

Better than the movie
by David C. Jones

The Spitfire Grill is a blue-grass musical based on a film that I walked out of. The story concerns a young woman who spent five years in jail. She moves to a small town she saw in a magazine and gets work in its only restaurant – The Spitfire Grill. The owner, Hannah, is running an essay contest to get rid of the diner and get out of the small dead town of Gilead.

Vancouver is enraptured by musicals – we produced an inordinate amount of them – original or otherwise - and we simply don’t have the talent to produce that many. Often we have shows that have lacklustre singers or ones who can hold a note but can’t act their way out of a paper bag.

Thankfully The Midnight Theatre Collective was able to get a top notch cast who not only can sing beautifully and act their freakin’ guts out but they all play multiple instruments...sometimes switching instruments mid-song!