First-Person: Soprano/Director Robin Eder-Warren on Hansel and Gretel, Opera Mariposa

(photo by Kathryn Nickford)

Entering the enchanted forest
making opera magic with Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel

by Robin Eder-Warren

Robin Eder-Warren is an award-winning soprano and critically acclaimed stage director, as well as the managing director of Opera Mariposa, a Vancouver-based company for emerging artists. She made her operatic direction debut in 2013 with Pergolesi's La serva padrona, which was hailed as “a masterpiece of controlled mayhem” (Review Vancouver). She went on to direct Donizetti's Don Pasquale, which was praised as “well-honed,” “delightful,” and “an excellent harbinger of more well-cast and well-directed operas to come” (Opera Canada magazine). As an award-winning soprano, Robin has sung on stages around the world, from Germany to New York to Disneyworld, and has been described as “a talent beyond words” (Life in the ‘burbs). Select role highlights include Musetta (La bohème), Despina (Così fan tutte), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel), Laurey (Oklahoma!) and Cunegonde (Candide) among many others. As well as directing Hansel and Gretel for Opera Mariposa, she is currently performing as Meg in the Broadway musical Little Women with Fighting Chance Productions.

I have a confession to make: directing a fairy tale is not as simple as it seems.

Review: (Dance / Vancouver) No. 29

White Act (photo: Michael Slobodian) 

From Athletics to Cerebral

by Jay Catterson

The Ballet BC 2014-2015 season launched on Thursday night with No.29, a bold collection of works from choreographers Jacopo Godani, Fernando Hernando Magadan, and Lesley Telford, which commemorates the 29th anniversary of the company as well as the 29th original work since the renewal of the company in 2009. 

Review: (Vancouver / Opera) Stickboy

(photo: Tim Matheson)

Almost
by Jay Catterson, Editor, Dance

Stickboy, the new work being presented by Vancouver Opera is based on spoken word artist Shane Koyczan's novel about a boy who gets bullied by his peers, and the effects of bullying on himself and those around him. Koyczan returns to provide the libretto, with music by Neil Weisensel. 

Now is it really an opera, and were they successful in bringing this story to the stage? This show is more multi-media performance art in the style of opera rather than a true opera, and at times the show brilliantly works, but most of the time it did not. The music by Neil Weisensel was evocatively lush, and his score is performed by a brilliant cast. However, the major problems lie with Koyczan's libretto. The audience is immediately thrust into a scene where Boy (brilliantly performed by tenor Sunny Shams) is being bullied by a bunch of schoolkids in a snowy playground, and similar bullying scenes occur so frequently throughout the first and second acts that we don't really have a chance to empathize with Boy's character. If they excised a few of these scenes to give the story (and the audience) a chance to breathe, perhaps spacing out Boy's journey with a few more moments of joy, we would really feel the impact of those horrific bullying scenes more.

Review: (Vancouver / Dance) Dances for a Small Stage

Falling Short

by Jay Catterson, Editor, Dance

The 31st installment of Dances for a Small Stage at the Ukrainian Hall (famous for its regular Ukrainian pierogi dinner) combines for the first time live music from Toronto's all-female Cecilia String Quartet with this popular Vancouver dance showcase through a collaboration between MovEnt and Music On Main's Modulus Festival. In fact, the true standout of the show was the brilliant Cecilia String Quartet, who flawlessly performed Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No.1 in D Major in Act One, and briefly returned in Act Two to perform a John Oswald piece inspired by Beethoven. But to have the 'Dances' show framed within the confines of the Modulus festival is where this dance show fell short. 

Review: (Vancouver / Dance) Music Creates Opportunity

Here to Stay
by Jay Catterson, Editor, Dance

Bboyizm, the jubilant urban dance ensemble led by Yvon Soglo aka Crazy Smooth, exuded joy and enough swagger to delight the Cultch Vancouver audience this past Tuesday evening with the opening of Music Creates Opportunity. The immensely acrobatic moves by the lithe cast were not only executed with precision, but oftentimes impressively within confined spaces defined via panels of light or between the dancers themselves. Explosive hip-hop movement would finish with control and restraint in bold bboy stances, and later morph into other synchronized movement propelled from one breaker to another. 

First-Person: MovEnt Artistic Producer Julie-anne Saroyan on Dances for a Small Stage

John Oswald, Holly Small (photo by John Oswald)

Crossing the Divide: Music meets Dance 
By Julie-anne Saroyan

MovEnt’s Artistic Producer, Julie-anne Saroyan loves sharing dance with everyone.  She co-founded MovEnt in 2001 and kicked off the series Dances for a Small Stage in Vancouver.  Since then, Ms Saroyan has produced many dance events including all instalments of the MovEnt series Dances for a Small Stage in Vancouver, at the Canada Dance Festival (2006) and at BC Scene (2009) and The National Arts Centre in Ottawa.  Her background includes a degree in dance combined with technical theatre from York University and an internship in stage management at The Banff Centre. But it’s the excitement of sharing dance with regular people that inspires her to continue to develop and support dance artists and push boundaries that connects them with audiences. Ms Saroyan has established herself in the dance industry as a skilled and dedicated professional in identifying, developing, and mentoring emerging dance artists. She has successfully developed Dances for a Small Stage as a breeding ground for new choreographic talent and as a stable, sustainable artistic venture. Julie-anne Saroyan has had the pleasure of working with many dance artists and companies including  Ballet BC, Lola Dance, Margie Gillis, Emily Molnar and Crystal Pite/Kidd Pivot. She was also on Faculty at Simon Fraser University from 2005-2007 as the Production/Stage Management Instructor in the School for the Contemporary Arts and currently sits on several committees including the programming committee for PAL (Performing Arts Lodge) Theatre.

Dances for a Small Stage 31 will lift the curtain October 23 on an adventurous, audacious, outrageous group of artists. Presented by MovEnt with Music on Main as part of the 2014 Modulus Festival, Small Stage dancers will be joined by live musicians – a cheeky new twist for our small stage – who will share the spotlight side-by-side in an exhilarating evening of no-holds-barred, awe-inspiring music and dance collaborations. 

Review: (Vancouver / Dance) Quantum

(photo by Gregory Batardon)

Innate Appreciation

by Jay Catterson, Editor, Dance

Born out of an artistic residency at CERN in Geneva, the largest particle physics laboratory in the world, Swiss choreographer Gilles Jobin's QUANTUM utilizes contemporary dance as metaphor for the forces that govern the universe: matter, time, gravity and space. 

First-Person: Sergio Augusto Flores on Opera Mariposa's Suor Angelica

(photo by Michelle Doherty)

Re-imagining a masterpiece
directing Puccini's Suor Angelica for the audiences of today

by Sergio Augusto Flores

Mexican-born actor, singer and director Sergio Augusto Flores trained at Methodica Acting Studio in acting and direction and graduated from Capilano University for music. As an acclaimed operatic tenor, he is a protégé of internationally renowned soprano Heidi Klassen and has performed to great critical acclaim throughout his home province of British Columbia and across Italy, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. His recent appearances include a highly successful self-produced concert with the Bowen Island Classical Concert Series; an English Arias concert with Opera Mariposa, where he was "a clear highlight of the evening" (The Vancouver Project); and Mozart’s Requiem with Capilano University, where he was "full of vigor, charisma, and infectious enthusiasm" (The Vancouver Observer). He is delighted to make his operatic direction debut this October with Suor Angelica, and he is also hard at work crafting a concert of Latin music for tenor, baritone, guitar and percussion. He is set to tour the Lower Mainland this December singing the role of The Gingerbread Witch in Opera Mariposa’s winter opera Hansel and Gretel.

This October, I will have the pleasure of directing Puccini's Suor Angelica with Opera Mariposa, a Vancouver company of emerging artists. I will also have the wonderful privilege of re-imagining the opera, creating a new vision and interpretation of what Puccini considered his finest score. 

The broad strokes of the most important changes were clear to me as I saw and heard the opera for the first time. I was entranced by Puccini's music every step of the way. Throughout the opera, I felt like the music was leading me towards what would happen next. Often I found myself holding my breath, hoping that the next lines would not disturb the scenes that fell into place so neatly in my mind. They never did, and it was a strangely satisfying feeling. There were silences where I needed them to be, and Puccini's sensitive changes led me to what I feel are the themes of the opera: the themes of love, forgiveness, and victory over death.

Review: (Vancouver) Carmen (Opera)

(photo by Tim Matheson)

Inspired (and Flawed)
by Jay Catterson

After a long and languid summer break, the 2014-2015 Vancouver Opera season opened on Saturday night with the sure-fire opera hit, Georges Bizet's Carmen. This was a great move on the part of Vancouver Opera to reinvigorate interest in the company, and the music is recognizable enough for many opera newcomers to feel a sense of comfort. In fact, it seems like the company has reinvigorated their brand, with a freshly minted logo and show artwork that reflects a fresh, contemporary opera company that is both relevant and relatable.

First-Person: Stéphanie Morin-Robert on the Fringe Tour of Body & Light (Dance)

Stéphanie Morin-Robert (photo by: Stéphanie Morin-Robert)

Body and Light on The Fringe of Existence
by Stéphanie Morin-Robert

Multidisciplinary artist Stéphanie Morin-Robert graduated first from Cégep de Drummondville with a DEC in dance (2008) and then from Concordia University with a degree in Contemporary Dance (2011) and a designation as the most outstanding graduate of that year. She is the choreographer, artistic director and administrator for the company FOR BODY AND LIGHT (a collaboration with musician/spoken word artist Ian Ferrier) creating pieces that are intimately inspired by memory, imagination and the strength and fragility of the human body. After creative residencies at L’arrêt de bus (Montreal, Québec), Main & Station (Parrsboro, Nova Scotia) and at MainLine Theatre (Montréal, Québec), Ms Morin-Robert's company is currently touring western Canada. Over the last four years, her work has been presented at the St-Ambroise Montréal FRINGE festival, the Fundy Fringe Festival, the Frigid New York Festival, the Bouge d’ici dance Festival, the Mile End Poets Festival, Festival Carmagnole, the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, Festival Phénomena, Studio 303 and the Tangente dance series. She  recently joined the DIRTY FEET podcast team as a co-host and is also a collaborating member of the multidisciplinary improvisation collective BODY SLAM directed by Greg Selinger. Stéphanie Morin-Robert currently works as Artist Liaison for the Montreal FRINGE festival and is Media Ticket Coordinator with the Just For Laughs PR team in Montreal. 

Trying to decide what to write this article about was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, especially because as I write this we are still touring.

Captured, September 10, 2014 (Video)

A brilliant short film from David Cooper and Linda Arkelian, featuring Darren Devaney and Thibaut Eiferman from Ballet BC 

Review: (Vancouver) Legally Blonde

Light and fluffy and totally entertaining
TUTS remount isn’t perfect, but it’s still fun to watch
by Chris Lane
@chrislanetweets

Just in case you thought the movie wasn’t campy enough, Legally Blonde: The Musical features even more pink and even more squeals, right from the energetic first number, Omigod You Guys.

It’s about as peppy as you would expect, but also somewhat formulaic and predictable. And yet it’s hard not to cheer for Elle, delightfully played by Reese Witherspoon’s doppelganger, Jocelyn Gauthier.

Review: (Vancouver) Shrek

Catch the Fun
by Jay Catterson

The 2014 season of Theatre Under the Stars went off with a rousing start last Tuesday with the opening of Shrek: The Musical, based on the hit DreamWorks Animation film and storybook by William Steig. This show has changed a bit since its Broadway bow, but even with all the post-Broadway tinkering done to David Lindsay-Abaire's book and lyrics and Jeanine Tesori's music, the clunky parts of the show still remain; however, the majority of the show does work, and it is done justice by the TUTS cast, directed by Sarah Rodgers. 

Review (Vancouver/Theatre) The Tempest

Art direction lets dramatic comedy brim with magic

Jennifer Lines is captivating as the sprite Ariel

by Chris Lane
@chrislanetweets

One of Shakespeare’s most fantastical comedies is brought to life this summer at Bard on the Beach, in a performance sparkling with magic, along with plenty of humour and passion. Director Meg Roe, re-imagining the script after helming the same production at Bard in 2008, brings the audience under her spell with an immersive experience.

The play begins with a powerful tempest that appears to wreck a ship and leave all aboard to perish. But it is no normal storm, as it was created by a magician, Prospero, who lives with his daughter, Miranda, on an isolated island. He explains to her that he was once Duke of Milan, but was sent out to sea by his usurping brother, aided by the King of Naples – both of whom are trapped in Prospero’s storm. He allows them, and the others on the ship, to wash up on land – at his mercy.

Prospero has carefully laid out a plan for vengeance against those who sent him out to sea without even expecting him to survive. And yet once they arrive, they are the first humans he has met in years, and the most people his daughter has ever seen all at once. What remains to be seen is how much Prospero has changed in his time isolated on the island, and what his past still means to him.

His plan is largely carried out by a sprite, Ariel, who is in his service to repay him for rescuing her tortured soul. Jennifer Lines is delightful to watch as Ariel, giving a powerfully physical performance as she flits around the stage as the jittery and fair-natured sprite. She adds loads of energy and vivacity to every scene she’s in, which, fortunately for the audience, is quite a lot of scenes. While her character essentially plays second fiddle to Prospero (Allan Morgan), Lines’s very memorable performance makes Ariel the true star of the show.

Review: (Vancouver / Theatre) The Concessions

(photo by Tim Matheson)

Facts, rumours and the preternatural collide in small-town thriller - Suspense and relationships make up for lack of warmth
A rural community is the nexus of mystery and hearsay in a play with a mystical twist on small-town drama.
by Chris Lane

The Concessions is a psychological thriller set in small-town Huron County, Ontario, where everyone knows each other and listens to the CBC. The play centres around Fay (Emma Slipp), at once a local and an outsider, as her vocation of reading tarot cards can bring about polarizing responses. She has a tumultuous relationship with barman John, thrown into even more turmoil upon the discovery that someone close to them has been murdered. Rumours abound, abetted by one meddlesome and inexperienced town reporter.

Review: (Vancouver / Theatre) Wicked

Kathy Fitzgerald (photo by Joan Marcus)

As magical as Oz

Broadway is in Vancouver with a powerful production of Wicked

by Chris Lane

A fantastic set, exquisite costumes, a highly talented cast and a captivating story spun off a well-known film: Wicked has all the right ingredients to cast a spell on a crowd, and it certainly delivers. It’s just what you expect the Broadway tour of Wicked to be – not quite the same as seeing it in New York, but oh so close.

Wicked tells the back story of the Wizard of Oz, delving into how two girls, Elphaba and Glinda, grow up in Oz and meet at college before becoming the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch of the North. It’s a captivating tale – better than many musicals that rely on song and dance to carry the plot. The play cleverly explains how all the different Oz characters came to be so Wicked or Wonderful, or to lack courage, a heart or a brain. The writing picks apart what it means to be considered wicked, and how a well-intentioned and intelligent girl, born with green skin, can become a pariah – and also forge a strong connection with Glinda, who couldn’t be more different from her.

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.

In a Word... Chelsea Haberlin on Killer Joe

Dark and In-Yer-Face
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois

Chelsea Haberlin is Co-Artistic Director of ITSAZOO Productions as well as a professional producer, director and dramaturge. Favourite ITSAZOO directing credits include The Flick (Presented by Blue Bridge), Mojo (for which she received a Jessie nomination for Outstanding Direction), Chairs: A Parable, Robin Hood, Grimm Tales and Death of a Clown. Other directing projects include Glendale (Co-op), Rhinoceros (UBC Masters Thesis project), Featuring Loretta & Criminal Genius (Vancouver Fringe Festival) and Faust is Dead (UBC). Assistant directing projects include My Turquoise Years (Arts Club Theatre), Elizabeth Rex (Bard on the Beach), The Idiot (PuSh Festival), Burnt By the Sun and London Assurance (United Players). Ms Haberlin  has an MFA in directing from UBC, a BFA with a specialization in Applied Theatre from UVic and is a graduate of the National Voice Intensive. She is the recipient of the Sydney J Risk award in directing and the Ray Michal award for outstanding body of work by an emerging director. She is currently Resident Producer with Neworld Theatre.

CHARPO:  We’re told Killer Joe is a grisly, pitch-black comedy. This is my cup of tea but I often ask myself - and am asking you - when does black comedy simply become an unpleasant night of theatre and how do you find that exquisite balance?

HABERLIN:  For me it's all about humour. We've always tackled heavy topics in our plays and the way we do that is through comedy. If we can keep you laughing you'll enjoy everything that comes at you. Killer Joe is hard hitting, dark and in-yer-face while at the same time being very funny. Tarantino films are really enjoyable and he's one of the greatest filmmakers of our time but if I described the plots to you it would be impossible to see where the humour could be found. It's found in the real human interactions that occur that we all relate to, in the clearly defined and exquisite characterizations and in the stuff that is so harsh that all you can do is laugh. That is the same with Killer Joe. It's a huge challenge but one I'm entirely up for. 

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.