I’ve said over and over again how pleased I was to learn upon moving to Calgary two years ago what a vibrant and varied theatre scene the city enjoys. And I’m both delighted and proud to be involved with it in my own little way.

And now I’m thrilled to announce that my own little way is getting a tad bigger. It’s been the worst kept secret in Calgary over the last few months (me and my big mouth!!) but now it’s official. Myself, along with Stephen Hunt and Bob Clark of the Calgary Herald and Louis B. Hobson of the Sun have banded together to establish the first annual Calgary Theatre Critics’ Awards.

We have categories, we will have nominees and there will even be a free award ceremony. What we don’t have yet is an official name for the awards. That’s where you come in, lured we hope by a fancy-shmancy prize.

All the info is in the press release below.  Have a read. Pass it on. And I look forward to your creative ideas!

  

Critics Announce New Theatre Awards in Calgary

Public invited to help give the awards an official, stage-worthy name

Oscar is taken. Tony is, too. Dora is out, Jessie is messy and better forget Betty, Emmy and Grammy as well. Help! Calgary has a new theatre award and it needs a name.

Calgary’s Theatre Critics are pleased to announce the establishment of the first annual Theatre Critics’ Awards in Calgary. Jury members, Stephen Hunt and Bob Clark of the Calgary Herald, Louis B. Hobson of the Sun and Jessica Goldman of The Eyeopener and applause-meter.com have joined forces to recognize the great productions and performances they have seen over the season and to celebrate the vibrant Calgary theatre community they are privileged to work with.

The awards will honour winners in 14 categories and will consider all productions performed in Calgary between August, 2011 and June, 2012, with the exception of Broadway Across Canada performances. Nominations for each category will be announced on July 18^th and the awards will be handed out in a ceremony at the Auburn Saloon on August 1, 2012.

Theatre Critic’s Awards have been operating successfully and with great respect in cities such as London, New York, Los Angeles and Boston. Even Toronto theatre critics jumped on the idea last year and held their inaugural award event. With Calgary’s distinction as the Cultural Capital in 2012, the group felt it was the perfect time to join their colleagues and establish a Theatre Critic’s Award here in Calgary.

But what to call the awards? “We have great respect for the Betty Mitchell Awards and we love that they are affectionately known as the Bettys” said the critics. “So when it came to naming our awards we wanted something that was equally fun and catchy”. However coming up with an appropriate name proved harder than it seemed, so it was decided to throw the question over to the public and invite them to submit name ideas for the awards.

Submissions can be sent to namethecriticsawards@gmail.com and will be accepted up until 8pm on Sunday, June 17^th. The winning name will be announced on Thursday, June 21^st and the winner will receive two tickets to see Rick Mercer live on June 22 at 8pm at the Jack Singer Concert Hall.

The Calgary Critics would like to thank their award and contest event sponsors: Calgary Herald, Davis Jensen Law, Bottom Line Productions, Auburn Saloon, The Collectors’ Gallery of Art and Petrocraft Products Storage Inc. for their support and enthusiasm.

When That I Was

May 24 to June 3, 2012

Vertigo Theatre

http://www.shakespearecompany.com/performances/

 

While I have no idea why The Shakespeare Company decided to presently remount their 2008 award-winning production of When That I Was, I am immensely grateful that they did. Not living in Calgary at the time of the initial production and not being privy to its subsequent cross-Canada tour, I completely missed what I now know is one of those rare and elusive theatrical moments – A solo show where both the performance and the play can be declared wonderfully remarkable.

When That I Was tells the story of a former child actor in William Shakespeare’s theatre company named Jack Rice (Christopher Hunt).  The play takes place in the creative black hole of 17^th century Puritanical England. By decree, all the theatres have been shut down and Jack therefore is out of a job and living as a homeless man. On a stormy night he takes shelter in an old run down building only to realize that it was once the theatre he performed in with Shakespeare as a boy. Thus begins his 90-minute 2-act monologue that not only tells the story of his boyhood days on the stage, but also provides snapshot moments of Shakespeare’s personal and creative life.

Characters in Shakespeare’s world such as his benefactor, the Earl of Southhampton, his wife and mistress, his son Hamnet (yes that’s spelled correctly) Queen Elizabeth and King James, all make an appearance in the play either as stories told to us by Jack or through flashback sequences fully performed by Hunt. To say that these snippets provide us with a juicy and interesting back story to the great writer, would be an understatement. From the way When That I Was tells it, the story of Shakespeare himself could have held court amongst his plays.

Alongside this insider historical narrative is woven the story of Jack himself told in a similar combination fashion of direct relaying and flashback scenes. From his early days with the company as just a young orphaned boy to his glory days of playing the heroines in Shakespeare’s grandest shows to his outgrowing and out drinking the ability to perform on stage, the audience is just as riveted to Jack’s story as they are to that of the more famous Shakespeare.

Part of the credit for this must go to the beautiful writing of John Mortimer and Edward Atienza who give us a script rich with imagery, emotion and language that mellifluously echoes the Shakespearean tongue while softening it just enough to make it friendly to the ears of a modern audience.

But the words in a script only truly live up to their potential if they are put into the hands of those that can do it justice, and plenty of justice is done in this resoundingly good production. No one deserves more credit for this than Christopher Hunt, who by my rough count takes on ten roles in this play and offers up an inspired performance for each. Whether playing the old Jack or his younger boyhood self, the other theatre company members, Kings and Queens and even Shakespeare himself, Hunt becomes more than simply a master story-teller. Through the force of his actorly talent, he creates mini worlds for us to see and doesn’t jar us when the view is finished and another character takes over. Hunt’s thoughtful portrayals leave breathing room for resonance and his obvious joy in this production is infectious.

Behind the writing and the performance are equally superb elements. At intermission I emailed a colleague of mine raving about the set design and lighting in the show. Both brilliantly mood-setting yet not overly intrusive in a ‘see how clever I can be” kind of way, Terry Gunvordahl’s look and feel of this production provides the perfect punctuation without intruding on or taking away from the action onstage. It’s truly an alluringly haunting design that felt immensely lush in its ability to evoke.

The final kudo must go to Director Vanessa Porteous for her stunning staging and ability to make the play feel populated with just one actor. The scenes between Shakespeare and his son Hamnet alone are worthy of a directorial award for their ability to illustrate and devastate. Moving the play along at a fair speed yet trusting in her actor and script enough to allow pauses to linger, Porteous gives us a show that both entertains and respects the sophistication of its audience.

Entertainment and respect. My Holy Grail of excellent theatre.

RATING

For the guys and the girls – It’s like an intelligent and juicy reality-show highlight reel of Shakespeare’s life with fabulous acting and beautiful writing. SEE IT

For the occasional theatre goer – the language might scare you away at first as the dialogue does sound Ye Olde English. But give it a couple of minutes and the acting and compelling story will draw you completely in. SEE IT

For the theatre junkie – A great performance where you don’t have to say, “yeah but the play wasn’t so hot”. Note the design, the direction and enjoy the fullness of the experience. SEE IT

 

Avenue Q

May 25 to June 10, 2012

Easterbrook Theatre

http://www.storybooktheatre.org/avenue-q

 

People assume that as a theatre critic I go to see plays with a trenchant eye or a fault-finding meter waiting to go off at the slightest misstep on stage or in narrative. The truth is I go into a play with the exact opposite attitude. One of optimism, excitement and curiosity. But mostly I go to the theatre with the hope of being delightfully surprised. It’s not an easy thing for a show to live up to, I know.  But it does happen, and last night it happened at the most unexpected of places – at a community theatre putting on a production of a musical I’d already seen on Broadway some eight years ago.

Storybook Theatre, deciding to step outside its usual family friendly programming, snatched up the amateur rights to the 2004 Tony-award winning Best Musical, Avenue Q and is now producing the Calgary premiere in a production that had to have its run extended even before opening night due to high ticket demand. Perhaps people are buying tickets on the show’s reputation or because they saw and enjoyed the play in New York and want to revisit the experience. Either way, they’re in for a resoundingly fantastic production that in my mind outperformed the Broadway version on a number of levels. Yes, outperformed. Imagine my delighted surprise!

Dubbed, Sesame Street through a dirty lens, Avenue Q introduces us to a cast of fuzzy felt puppets (whose human operators are visible on stage with them) and human actors living on a shoddy street outside New York. The story centers around a recent college grad named Princeton who, like many well-educated young adults, starts off with idealistic dreams of what life has in store. But soon enough Princeton’s naive dreams get quashed when he moves into a sketchy but affordable area and meet his neighbours who provide a slap in the face reality check of what life is really like. Soon enough Princeton loses his job before he even starts, screws up a budding romance, wastes his money on beer and is left depressed in his apartment moping to the tune of “life sucks”.

And I do mean tune, this is a musical after all.  But not your average uplifting or melodramatic play put to song. Musical numbers in Avenue Q include What do you do with a BA in English?, Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist, The Internet is for Porn, If You Were Gay and It Sucks to Be Me. All the numbers are sung in the mock happy-go-lucky education genre of the Sesame Street oeuvre and are immensely humorous not just because of the mocking lyrics, but also in the disconnect between the meaning of the songs and the way they are sung.

Funny as the tunes may be, they could have been taken down by unimpressive voices and acting, but this was one of the areas where the production offered up my first a heaping dose of delighted surprise. Community theatre it may be, but this cast has voices and performances fit for any professional stage. Of particular note for their superbly funny and touching performances were JP Thibodeau as Princeton and a Bert-like character named Rod and Bart Kwiatkowski who plays the Ernie-ish character Nicky, a perverted monster named Trekkie as well as other characters. But without a doubt the show stealer in the production was Madeleine Suddaby playing Princeton’s love interest Kate, a slut named Lucy and other minor characters. When she arrived on stage with her beautiful voice and impeccable comedic and actorly timing, my first reaction was, who is she? Scrambling through my program revealed that this is only her second role in Calgary (the first being a U of C student production) and that she a musical theatre grad with some recent dance training. Cue another delighted surprise!  Watching a relative newcomer take what can only be described as a star-turn in a uniformly impressive cast is one of those goose bump moments in the theatre that reinvigorates my belief in the magic of the stage.

If the cast rose above its community theatre status to make this a remarkably good production, then it was precisely because of the production’s community theatre status that it became a stellar show. The Easterbrook Theatre is a small space where the audience is seated in intimate proportion to the stage. The first row of seats is practically on the stage, affording the audience a very up close and personal view of the puppets, their handlers, the human actors and the band that plays just off to the side of the action. It was this close connection that really took the show to a higher plane for me. When I saw Avenue Q in New York, I liked but did not love the production. The cast was great and the songs just as funny, but in a traditional Broadway theatre I now realize that I must have felt removed from the characters and their emotions. The punctuations of sentimentality that creep into the script amongst the raunchy language, the depressing epiphanies, the clever use of video and the hysterical puppet sex, I felt were too neatly constructed and even corny at times. But in this up close and personal production, my distaste for the sweeter moments on the show disappeared as I found myself truly invested and rooting for the characters. Kudos must be paid to Director George Smith for embracing this small space and delivering scene after scene of wonderfully staged performances.

So, I know right……me – loving a musical and not bothered by the hackneyed moments? Well that was the biggest surprise of all, one I’m still trying to wrap my head around to get to the delighted part.  But even if I don’t ever really figure it out, I find myself happily singing The Internet is for Porn (hopefully in my head and not out loud!) and basking in the glow I still get from spending a spectacular night in the theatre.

 

RATING

For the guys – Don’t be put off by the puppet thing. These are decidedly adult puppets doing decidedly adult things. The sex scene alone will leave you laughing long after the show is over. SEE IT

For the girls– It’s not all raunch and four letter words. Although there is lots of it. The story is relatable and the character of Kate will punch a hole right through your heart. SEE IT

For the occasional theatre goer – If you can handle the R-ratedness of the subject matter and are up for a good cynical laugh, the unconventional structure of puppets as actors won’t be a problem. MAYBE SEE IT

For the theatre junkie – I could give you many reasons to go. Community Theatre fighting way above their weight class? Check. Star-making performance?  Check. Clever script and strong production? Check. Need I say more? SEE IT

Photo Credit: Mat Simpson

Big Shot

May 16 to 26, 2012

Pumphouse Theatre

http://tickets.pumphousetheatre.ca/default.asp?SearchText=big+shot&Go=Go

 Listen to my  review on Calgary Eyeopener on Friday May 18^th .

 http://www.cbc.ca/eyeopener/columnists/theatre/.

 

The story I heard goes something like this. Ghost River Theatre had space booked at the Pumphouse Theatre mid-May, but ended up not having a show to produce for that time. Rather than give up the booking, they decided to present a solo show they admired from Edmonton’s Surreal SoReal Theatre called Big Shot written and performed by Jon Lachlan Stewart.

Good for them, I say! As much as I love seeing local theatre here in Calgary, I will always jump at the chance to see something from farther afield if for no other reason than to take the theatrical temperature of companies outside our city.

Big Shot, which has played nine cities thus far, came with rave reviews from the critics and had me very eager to see it. Perhaps I should have tempered my anticipation somewhat. Like many solo shows, Big Shot is really all about an outstanding performance tackling a less than satisfying tale.

The play tells the story of a shooting incident on board a Vancouver Skytrain as seen through the eyes of an eight year old boy. To him, the shooting is a terribly exciting thing to witness, similar to all the action movies he’s totally obsessed with. Something to break the monotony of his everyday boring and not very happy life. This is how he introduces the story to us – like an action movie script with a full cast.

There are 6 different characters involved directly and indirectly with the shooting and we get to meet and watch each of them individually as they act out their part in the events that led up to the incident. This is a solo show, so obviously all the parts fall to Stewart who in addition to the little boy, plays the boy’s depressed mother, his absent father who is himself a wanna-be movie maker, a recovering heroin addict, an old Japanese man, and a Skytrain cop. Apparently many of these characters were inspired by real people Stewart knew or came across when he was living in Vancouver right near the infamous East Hasting area.

The tricky part in this play is that each character, when telling their backstories, how they came to be on the train and what role they played in the shooting, is only acting out their side of the conversation and the action. So it’s a bit confusing at first because you really don’t get the full picture of what is transpiring. But as the play progresses,  the stories build on each other and start to layer and connect and eventually come together to create a comprehensive narrative. But to get there, you have to be prepared to go through a bit of muddy storytelling and plot uncertainty.

What isn’t uncertain however is Stewart’s performance. There is no doubt this play is a showpiece for his immense talent. His performance, with its energy and variety and nuance is really quite stunning. The six characters Stewart plays are totally different in age, gender and circumstance and with nothing more than simply changing his body language and facial expressions he truly becomes the heroin addict or the old Japanese man or the despondent woman. Set-wise, there are no props in this show for Stewart to rely on, save a screen at the back of the stark stage for very occasional projections, nor are there any costumes. Dressed simply in black jeans and a black T-shirt, Stewart manages to take us beyond his physicality and wonderfully evoke these characters in a performance that is really quite exceptional.

The writing however, I’m less enthused about.  Some of the characters were utterly fascinating. The heroin addict and the Japanese man’s narratives in particular were thoroughly compelling and even gut-wrenching at times. But other characters I felt were a little sloppy in development or long-winded in delivery. It was only a 75 minute one-act play, but it felt like it went on too long and lost some of the momentum that I’m certain a good 10 minute edit could have fixed.

The surprise twist at the end which I won’t spoil, but frankly you’ll see coming a mile away, ties things up so neatly together with such a schematic coincidence that it can’t help but cheapen the story. As far as the theme of the play – which is really about urban violence and our desensitization to it – I get that Stewart was trying to illustrate this by pitching a violent act as a kind of action movie script and his writing does a decent job of that. The writing also does a decent job of making sure the play isn’t a total downer. Despite the heady subject there are actually some breaks for laughter in the script.

But as far as chiming in with raves – well for Stewart’s performance I’ll absolutely say yes to that. It’s a bravura moment and it was a pleasure to watch. For the play itself, I have mixed feelings.  Parts I really liked, parts I thought needed work and parts that I thought could be taken out completely. There is no doubt this is not a play for everyone as its alternative and disturbing in the extreme at times and often hard to follow. While generally I really like those kinds of plays, this one just didn’t hit all the marks I would have liked it to. So note to my laudatory colleagues in Edmonton and Winnipeg, I guess I’m the dissenting voice on this one.

 

RATING

For the guys and the girls – None of the characters are particularly likeable. That’s kind of the point. And the story lumbers at times. But Stewart’s performance is fantastic and the good moments are very good. MAYBE SEE IT

For the occasional theatre goer – The great performance won’t make up for what you won’t like about the play. SKIP IT

For the theatre junkie – In spite of the flaws, this is a daring piece of theatre that succeeds as often as it misses. Even if you don’t like the whole, you will be interested in the parts. SEE IT.

Playing With Fire: The Theo Fleury Story

May 1 to 19, 2012

Martha Cohen Theatre

http://www.atplive.com/The-Shows/PlayingWithFire/index.html

Tune in the CBC’s Eyeopener for my live review Monday, May 7^th at 8:20

http://www.cbc.ca/eyeopener/

Well, it finally happened. I knew it would at some point. Frankly I was hoping for it. After a year and a bit of formally reviewing plays in Calgary, I finally gave my first standing ovation. The fact that it was for a Canadian play, about a Canadian legend in a Canadian sport, just made it all the sweeter. Playing with Fire: The Theo Fleury Story was one of those rare nights in the theatre where the acting is as wonderful as the writing which is as wonderful as the direction which is equally matched by the set design. And I stood and clapped heartily for each and every one of those elements.

The play is written by Calgary’s own Kirstie McLellan Day who also authored the best-selling book, Playing With Fire, that chronicled ex National Hockey League player Theo Fleury’s life.  Initially  she had no interest turning Theo’s memoirs into play, but one year later she found herself in New York watching Carrie Fisher’s one woman tell-all show on Broadway and that’s when it hit her. Theo’s story could absolutely work in a theatre format and people would absolutely be open to seeing his story played out in this manner. So she set about writing her first play ever.

Like the book, Day’s play tells the story of Theo Fleury’s life from when he was a little boy and first strapped on skates, to his early successes in minor hockey, to his sexual abuse at the hands of his coach, to winning the Stanley Cup and representing Canada at the Olympics, to his struggles with addiction and depression that eventually forced him to leave hockey altogether, to his recovery and public admission of the abuse he suffered, right up to what Theo’s life looks like today. I call it Day’s play, but the truth is that when she brought the initial script to the folks at Alberta Theatre Projects, it was a bit of a mess. Seems that turning a thick book into a two act play was a lot harder than she had realized. So ATP Artistic Director Vanessa Porteous and Director Ron James agreed to work with Day to fine tune the play. Two years later and many rewrites and workshops undertaken, the finished script was delivered.

What a script it is. The play starts out with Theo (Shaun Smyth) telling the audience that he knows they are all there to see a famous hockey legend behaving very, very badly. No doubt this show gives us plenty of bad behavior to gawk at, but what makes the writing so compelling are the stories and motivations behind all the wild–boy antics. Delivered in a monologue format, Theo tells his story to the audience as he recounts, and at times relives the various stages of his life. Sometimes sad, sometimes triumphant often funny and occasionally upsetting, the writing gives us an unflinchingly honest look at Theo Fleury as a brutally flawed, aggressive and angry character. Underneath all the bluster however we also get to see a man who is tragically broken and in desperate need of healthy love.  With this vulnerability exposed, no matter how badly he behaves, Theo’s character elicits empathy and hope for redemption from the audience.

If the writing takes credit for a great story told, then equal credit must go to Shaun Smyth for taking that story and brilliantly bringing it to life. Smyth doesn’t so much play Fleury as he becomes him.  Not content to rely on mere imitation (although he has Theo down to an art) Smyth’s gift of character penetration allows him to bring more to Theo’s personality then the story alone dramatizes. Whether recounting Theo’s hockey glory, his confusion when the abuse started, his out of control addictions or his near suicide, Smyth hits the emotional notes perfectly, never overplaying the strings or relying on shock to take the place of smart acting. Which doesn’t even cover how funny he is. Smyth’s portrayal of Theo imitating and occasionally mocking everyone from Don Cherry to team owners to the players he fought make for some of the biggest laughs I’ve had in the theatre in a long time.

And did I mention he does it all on skates? If Smyth is the superbly mesmerizing star of the show, then the set should get a close second billing.  Turning a stage into a hockey arena is no simple feat, but Director Ron Jenkins said he knew he wanted to set the play on a rink, but not a fake rink where the Theo would have to skate around on roller blades. Jenkins wanted to get the story right and so he demanded that the ice be real and that Smyth wear real skates. While genuine ice may have been pushing it, the synthetic ice that covered the stage and allowed Smyth to lace up and skate for the duration of the entire production worked beautifully and made it possible for Jenkins to strongly direct an immeasurable dose of believability into the story.  It made the experience of watching truly thrilling.

The rest of David Fraser’s set was just as believable. From the boards with corporate logos (ATP sponsors – cute!) to the digital scoreboard suspended over the stage to the various jerseys and hockey equipment worn by Smyth, everything looked authentic and can be credited for taking this production to a higher plane. Behind the stage was a long horizontal video screen that showed footage of the Canadian flag as we all stood to sing the national anthem at the start of the show to old hockey footage and other illustrations of the narrative throughout the play. Kudos to Andy Thompson and Corwin Ferguson for their measured use of video projections that added to rather than competed with or overpowered the live action on stage. Fraser might want to take better note of their approach as I found his lighting a little heavy-handed at times. Dramatic shifts from light to dark to signal mood shifts in the play were unnecessary and broke the spell just a little, reminding us that this play was being “directed” rather than simply happening.

So, one teeny-weeny criticism aside, I am unabashedly glowy about this show. But what about if you don’t like or don’t follow hockey? Well, I’m not exactly a hockey aficionado nor was I even living in Calgary when Fleury was playing for the Flames, so I have no great loyalty to the sport or the story. Sure there is LOTS of hockey talk – games played, players fought, coaches admired, owners trading – but these details are just tentacles that spread out from the real story of the play. Playing With Fire is a story about an innocent talented kid, who makes it big, loses it all and works hard to get some of it back again. A kid that was both a victim and a perpetrator of his own tragedy, who overcomes his demons and lives to tell us about the journey. You can add hockey onto the plot all you want, this is a tale that everyone can empathize with and find inspiration from. But, if you do own a Calgary Flames jersey – I suggest you wear it to the show…..it was a big wardrobe choice for the audience and I strangely found the sea of red very moving. Maybe I’m more of a hockey fan than I realized.

RATING

For the guys – Seriously, you need to ask? You’ll love every minute of it. And if you are worried that the abuse parts are too much to handle – let me assure you it is discussed with class and intelligence. SEE IT

For the girls – There were LOTS of female hockey fans in the audience – but regardless if you like hockey or not, this is a fabulous character story that will have you rooting for Theo despite his many flaws. SEE IT

For the occasional audience – Foul language, some uncomfortable story elements and a two act monologue may make you wary. You shouldn’t be. This is great theatre that will make you laugh and cry and tell you a great story. SEE IT

For the theatre junkie – This show is a fourple threat (I just made that word up). The writing, the acting, the directing and the set will rival some of the best theatre you’ve seen. SEE IT 

 

 

We’re Gonna Die

May 2 – 5, 2012

Theatre Junction

http://www.theatrejunction.com/2011-2012-season/were-gonna-die/

 

Regardless of whatever criticisms I have about the state of theatre in Calgary, I am immensely thankful that there are so many productions going on in any given week that I cannot possibly attend and review them all. Thankful, yet sometimes frustrated. I occasionally miss a show I’d really like to see, or in the case of We’re Gonna Die at Theater Junction, only get to see it on the closing evening, leaving no time for a review. In my defense, the show only runs for 4 nights and is concurrent with the opening of one of the biggest and most anticipated Calgary premieres this year (think the hockey hero and tales of abuse). But We’re Gonna Die is a show I very much want to see – so closing night it is and therefore, instead of a review, I’ll attempt to give a preview that explains why this production is a must-attend for me.

The show is described as storytelling about human sadness and coping through a mixture of monologue and song as a kind of existential pop-concert one-woman show. That woman is none other than New York playwright Young Jean Lee, an American-Korean artist that has been hailed by the New York Times as, “One of the most adventurous new playwrights to emerge on the New York scene in the past decade.”

That alone intrigues me to the point of making sure I’m in the audience. But even though I do love being theatrically discomforted, I will admit to a healthy dose of hesitation on this one. I mean, c’mon….a show about sadness and the masks we wear to deal with the depths of our isolation accompanied by a live back-up band? Talk about postmodern downer-ism. Not exactly date-night entertainment.

Yet the blurb Theatre Junction supplies for the production calls We’re Gonna Die a “life-affirming show” that points us towards shared connection and comfort in the face of human despondency. So I figure it’s either one of those shows you just need to see to fully get, or the communications people at the theatre are trying desperately to spin this show into something you won’t want to slit your wrists after.

Either way, it isn’t often we get an up and coming hot young New York playwright presenting her Canadian Premiere in Calgary and I for one will be there with bells on. Whether those bells will be ringing with excitement or trying to drown out the memory of the show remains to be seen. But I’m excited at the opportunity to see which it is.

If you get a chance to see the production before I do, please drop me a note and let me know what you thought of it. And for those of you that would like to read the New York Times review of Lee’s performance of We’re Gonna Die from April 2011, here you go:

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/theater/reviews/were-gonna-die-by-young-jean-lee-at-joes-pub-review.html?ref=youngjeanlee

 

Hunger Striking

April 26-May 5, 2012

Joyce Doolittle Theatre at the Pumphouse

http://urbancurvz.com/?page_id=9

 

This is going to be tricky. That was my first thought upon receiving the press release for Urban Curvz’s production of Hunger Striking. A play about anorexia reviewed by a theatre critic who was herself anorexic for many years. Talk about entanglement. The way I saw it, I had two choices. I could approach the review with cool objectivity, leaving my own history and bias at the door. Or I could fess up to the intimacy of the story and allow personal insights on the subject to inform my review. As you can tell already, I chose the latter.  It felt less contrived and supported my intention of always delivering a genuine review. But more importantly, if the playwright Kit Brennan, who herself struggled with anorexia, wanted to put out a semi-autobiographical play that addresses the genesis and journey of anorexia, who better than a kindred spirit to assess if the storytelling was authentic.

So, in a sense, I have two jobs in this review – to critique the play as a theatrical offering and to also pass judgement on the content of the play from a “been there done that” point of view. Funnily enough, my feelings on this production are the same no matter which hat I’m wearing. Hunger Striking offers up some brilliant moments and piercing ideas heartily mixed with stretches of severe disappointment and frustration.

The play is a simple construct that starts with Sarah (Jamie Konchak), a high school English teacher, telling us that her student, Katie, has just died of anorexia. The death brings up memories of Sarah’s own eating issues and we are taken back to various stages in her life to witness how her anorexia came to be, grew roots and eventually retreated (a word I will come back to).

Without a doubt, the most positive theatrical kudos I can give to this production is that while the story is told via a one woman narrative, Hunger Striking is actually a 2 person show. As Sarah does all the talking in the production, she is joined on stage throughout the play by a type of mute shadow performer (Anita Miotti) who goes from physically illustrating the narrative to interacting with Sarah in a choreographed movement cum dance sequence that punctuates the story.

This integration of text and movement is the brainchild of Director, Vanessa Sabourin, and is one of those brilliant moments I spoke of. Visually beautiful, physically demanding and perfectly executed, the movement element in the play, choreographed by Miotti, is by far the most unique and interesting thing about Hunger Striking. Whether the pair is playing the role of horse and rider to underline Sarah’s childhood fantasies, doing drills as part of a brutal exercise regime or simply reaching for each other to show pathos, the stage dance provides a perfect metaphoric pitch for the duality mindset of an anorexic – namely the feeling of powerlessness in the world combined with the complete power of self-imposed starvation.

Take away the visual dazzling however, and the script starts to fall short. Sarah’s flashbacks take us to her childhood home to show us the origins of eating disorder. We see her with a father she adores who will later lose his job and a turn a cold shoulder to his family. We watch her at eleven, horrified at getting her period for the first time and seemingly turning off the notion of femaleness as a result. We witness the tension with her older sister and a mother that factors little.  What we are waiting for as we watch, is some clue as to why this girl, under these circumstances developed anorexia. The answer never really comes. Sure there are hints that the pressures Sarah was feeling led to the notion that total control was the only answer. And to be fair, Sarah herself can’t put a finger on when or how it all started. But to ask an audience to empathize with a character’s actions without providing adequate motivation under any circumstance is difficult. Add in something as complex as an eating disorder, and the audience is left unengaged and unable to relate to Sarah’s struggle.

More problematic however are the anti-narrative segments of the play. Brennan takes several sidelines in her story in the form of fantasy sequences that revolve around Sarah’s Celtic heritage and the fables her father told her. From an imaginary horse plucked out of an old Irish legend to the myth of a sibling river drowning, Brennan infuses the play with long overwrought scenes that are at best distracting and at worst dull. Each time one of these segments came up (and there are many) I slumped in my seat wishing that they would just get back to the story already. Yes I suppose somewhere in the myths there were metaphors for Sarah’s plight, but trying to stuff anorexia’s messiness into the neat literary construct of fantasy only took away from the impact of the story and again made it difficult to truly connect with the story.

Thankfully the play’s structural and script issues are offset by a remarkably strong performance from Konchak whose incredible energy and focus command attention even when the story goes off the rails. With no props save her actor-shadow and a couple of chairs, Konchak fills up the stage with her intense delivery that infuses as much life into her character as is possible under the circumstances. A joy to watch whether acting, movement-dancing or singing, Konchak shows what solid acting can bring to a less than solid play.

From an ex-anorexic compatriot point of view, I have to admit that the part they get wrong stings a lot more than the mere theatrical missteps. Anyone who has dealt with an eating disorder will have a different tale to tell and no one lands in anorexia’s lap in quite the same manner. But no matter how we arrived, if we are to depart healthfully, we all do it with the same challenge. Addressing the underlying reasons we self-punished and working through the issues so that we don’t have to use those destructive coping mechanisms any longer. It’s a long and painful process to look at and deal with your own demons, and I recognize that it doesn’t make for neat or concise storytelling. But instead of finding a way to depict that recovery process, Hunger Striking instead presents what I referred to earlier as an anorexic retreat.

The end of the play finds Sarah on the road to recovery in a completely unrealistic set of circumstances. She undergoes no real therapy or self-examination despite being hospitalized for the severity of her condition. After what seems like years of self-abuse and starvation, Sarah meets a nun at the hospital who introduces her to the history of the hunger-striking suffragettes and this somehow kick-starts her desire to get well.  A final fall into a river on the hospital grounds and a rescue from Sarah’s nun friend, and pouff, she gets better. I found this ending incredibly offensive. After 90 minutes of being asked to share in Sarah’s struggle and pain, to have her drop the issue like it was no big deal belittles the disorder and makes light of the real work involved in recovery. It was a cop-out ending that Brennan as a playwright and a recovered anorexic should be ashamed of

Especially since she does have the capacity to get it crystal-clear at other times in the play. What Brennan excels at are nuggets of dialogue and small scenarios that perfectly illustrate the way an anorexic thinks and acts. The opening scene describes the now dead student Katie examining herself in the mirror as a slow and critical strip search with the eyes of a man who is beating his wife. Later in the play Sarah describes baking a chocolate chip cookie, placing it in front of her and not eating it as “winning”. But the most spine-chilling familiar moment for me was the scene where Sarah describes the anorexic’s view of the world. On the bottom heap there are the “fatties” – those that eat and don’t have the control to stop themselves. Then come the bulimics – the wanna-be anorexics that don’t have the intelligence or control to not eat. And at the top of the pyramid are the anorexics, glorified for their control and their self-discipline. This was the brutal authentic dialogue that I was hoping for. It could only come from someone that has been there and it was a moment of revelation that shined an important light on anorexia’s unhealthy skewed mindset. It was both a teaching moment and an important part of the character development in the play.

The irony that anorexics are severely hard on themselves and now, as an ex-anorexic, I find myself being predominantly hard on this production is not lost on me. I expected a lot of this play and on some levels I was rewarded. But in the areas it mattered most, Hunger Striking let me down. As a play it failed to illuminate, engage or start a conversation. As an interested party, it failed to show me sustained authenticity or reflect the truths I know to be important. The author E.B. White said that, ‘Writing is translation and the opus to be translated is yourself.” If Kit Brennan is going to translate herself in future, I hope she has the courage to not muddy it in trope and instead give real voice to the struggle that we are all interested in knowing about.

 

RATING

For the guys – Eating disorders are predominantly (although not exclusively) female issues and it would be great to see a play that helped you understand exactly what is going on. But this isn’t it. SKIP IT

For the girls – Many of Sarah’s problems are female issues in general and are easy to relate to, but you will be left wondering how and why her problems led to an eating disorder. Some biting insights but no real understanding despite some great staging and acting. SKIP IT

For the occasional theatre goer – The fantasy sequences will bore you and overshadow the actual storyline. SKIP IT

For the theatre junkie – If you could go for the direction, choreography and acting alone it would be a strong recommendation. But you have to sit through a messy narrative lacking true impact. Depends if you are willing to seek out the nuggets of gold in the dirty river bed. MAYBE SEE  IT

I know most of you have no idea what you’re doing next month let alone next year, but with the 2012/13 season announcements out from the four major theatre companies in Calgary, I thought it would be a good time to give everyone a heads up on the productions worth noting. Or at least the productions I’m most excited about.

Alberta Theatre Projects is opening its season with Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel from October 9 to 27, 2012. Set in 1905, the play tells the story of Esther, a 35-year old African-American woman who moved from North Carolina years prior to seek her fortune as a seamstress in New York City.

Nottage is a highly respected and awarded playwright, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2009 for her play Ruined.  An earlier play, Intimate Apparel premiered in 2003 and went on to a very successful off-Broadway run in 2004 starring Viola Davis as Esther. The play won the 2004 Steinberg New Play Award, presented by The American Theatre Critics Association to “outstanding new plays produced around the United States, outside of New York City”.

I am eager to see how Nottage’s deft hand delivers the story of African-American women in the early 1900’s and to see how it resonates in a Calgary that is becoming ever more multi-cultural.

As part of its Enbridge playRites festival, ATP will be premiering Joan Macleod’s What to Expect from March 6 to April 7, 2013. The play centers on a violent Sky-train episode between a troubled teen and a cop. Implications of the incident deeply affect the involved families and the community as a whole. This promises to be a thought-provoking piece of theatre.

Macleod, who was awarded the prestigious 2011 Siminovitch Prize for writing as well as many other prominent awards is no stranger to playRites. Her previous productions of Another Home Invasion and The Shape of A Girl both had their starts at the ATP festival and went on to great acclaim.

A new play by Macleod is always something to celebrate and I’m looking forward to seeing what this important Canadian playwright has in store for us this time.

Lastly, ATP will mount a production of Red from April 30 to May 18, 2013. The play spotlights a moment in time between the renowned and cantankerous abstract artist Mark Rothko and his assistant.  They argue, laugh, obsess and actually create paintings on-stage in this intellectually challenging and insightful 2010 award-winning drama.

I saw Red at CanStage in Toronto last year and loved every minute of it. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that ATP’s version will rise to the challenge.

Theatre Calgary’s season is full of safe bets and crowd-pleasers, but two of their productions stand out to me as fresh and exciting.

The musical Next to Normal will open the season from September 11 to 30, 2012. This story about one woman’s up and down journey through mental illness was the winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and one of the most talked-about Broadway musicals in recent years.

Critics everywhere loved this show and I’m hoping that it will be one of the very few musicals I can actually say I am a fan of.

Starting off 2013 will be TC’s Canadian premiere of The Kite Runner from January 29 to February 24, 2013. Based on the internationally bestselling book by Khaled Hosseini, the play tells the story of  Amir, a young boy from Kabul, whose closest friend Hassan, is his father’s  servant. The story plays out against the backdrop of the fall of Afghanistan’s monarchy, the Soviet invasion, the exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the rise of the Taliban regime.

I loved the book when I read it in 2003 and I’m very curious to see how it will be translated to the stage.

While not a great fan of mystery plays, Vertigo has one production that caught my eye. Panic, which is playing from May 4 to June 2, 2012, won the 2008 Edgar Allan Poe Award for best play from the Mystery Writers of America and even though I understand it could use a good edit, I’m game to see what all the fuss is about.

The story concerns a famous American film director accused of an unspeakable crime while attending a premiere in Paris. Bit by bit the truth is revealed, and he and his circle of friends must decide how far they will go to protect his legend.

Lunchbox Theatre peaked my interest on two fronts. A World Premiere “Historical” Drama by Matthew Heiti, Aviatrix: The Unreal Story of Amelia Earhart runs from November 5 to 24, 2012. The play aims to imagine would have become of this famous flier as it retraces her final journey.

If done well, this could be an interesting “what if” play that I’m hoping will rely more on drama than on sentimentality.

Finally, I’m excited to see my friend Louis B. Hobson premiere his play Almost a Love Story from April 29 to May 18, 2013. The play examines understanding and identity and what it means not to really know a parent. When David is survived by his loving wife and adoring son … and by his lover, Callum. David’s son strives to find out who his father really was.

This was a daring production for the usually mainstream –friendly Lunchbox to mount and I applaud them for it and look forward to seeing Hobson’s ideas realized on stage.

Whether these are your picks for next season or not, there is a play out there calling your name. Check out the season announcements and make your theatre choices for next year.

In the words of the great Oscar Wilde:

“I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”

ATP 2012/13 season http://www.atplive.com/2012-2013-Season/Shows.html

TC 2012/13 season http://theatrecalgary.com/tickets/1213season/

Vertigo 2012/13 season http://www.vertigotheatre.com/main/page.php?page_id=65

Lunchbox 2012/13 season http://www.lunchboxtheatre.com/20122013-season.html

 

 

La Bohème

April 21, 25 & 27, 2012

Jubilee Auditorium

http://www.calgaryopera.com/performancesandevents/boheme/index.php

 

I’ll be honest, when I learned that the Calgary Opera was going to end its season with Puccini’s La Bohème I was nervous. The beloved and enduring masterpiece is the only classic opera that I haven’t seen live in full production and I was fearful that my eager anticipation would lead to over-expectation and resulting disappointment. I shouldn’t have fretted.  Conductor, Gordon Gerrard and Stage Director, Robert Herriot delivered a near pitch perfect production that not only allowed for the required suspension of disbelief, but invited the audience on a transformation to a place of moving heart-tugging reality.

The story itself is very simple and concerns a group of French bohemians in the 1800s as they try to make their way in life on little money and only their personal relationships to keep them warm. The poet Rodolfo (Antoine Belanger) meets (Marianne Fiset) and they fall in and out of love until they are finally reunited when she is on her deathbed from consumption. The opera ends with Mimi’s death, leaving Rodolfo inconsolable. Interwoven with this main narrative are short stories of their friends, most notably Marcello (Phillip Addis) and Musetta (Laura Albino) as the tempestuous and humorous on again off again couple who eventually works to get Rodolfo and Mimi back together.

Breakups, consumption and death. On the surface La Bohème comes across as just another heavily tragic opera. And while the climactic scene is a no doubt a tear-jerker, I was most dramatically struck with how clever and funny and joyfully light ninety-five percent of the opera is. The credit for this goes jointly to the Herriot and Gerrard team who allowed the comedy to shine brightly and the energetically talented cast who portrayed their characters as individuals with their own quirks and personalities.

Right from the opening scene where Rodolfo, Marcello and their friends gather in Rodolfo’s ramshackle apartment to joke and tease each other as male friends will do, the audience gets the feeling that they are watching characters they can believe in and relate to. This is no small feat. One of my biggest complaints with opera productions is that too often the directors and performers get caught up in the singing and forget that the acting is just as important if the production is going to resonate past a music listening exercise.

The same acting attention is paid in the flirtatious and game-playing scene where Rodolfo and Mimi first meet. Despite the fact that it takes them only 10 minutes to fall in love, we buy into the romance because their interaction feels familiar and plausible. In fact, this type of “realness” feeling sustains itself throughout the entire production making the tragedy of the story all the more heartbreaking because the performers let us is and we respond with a genuine sense of closeness to them.

Which is not to say that the singing isn’t excellent. In certain cases it’s beyond excellent. Fiset as Mimi is utterly captivating. Always veering towards the fragile nature of her character, her singing has a warm sweetness that is only made sweeter by the power of her voice. There is something I call a “close your eye moment “– when the voice is so moving that you have to shut your eyes for a second to let your brain truly taste it, and I had several listening to Fiset.

The other standout for me was Addis’ Marcello whose resplendent baritone voice was like rich cream being stirred deliciously into a hot cup of coffee. With the killer combination of a voice that made my ears perk up with delight and an acting prowess that should be the envy of many performers, Addis owned the stage in all his scenes and I’m sure made the hearts of many a female in the audience go aflutter.

Belanger as Rodolfo had some beautiful moments as well and his duets with Fiset flowed richly.  However at times his performance was lost under the swell of the orchestra, which was a shame as it was a voice I would have liked to have heard more clearly.

This small criticism aside, I really have nothing but praise for the entire effort of this production. With the wonderful sets on loan from the Edmonton Opera, the elevated directorial approach and a uniformly strong cast with some marvelous standouts, I’m delighted that this is the La Bohème I waited for.

RATING

For the guys – The male camaraderie will feel authentic to you and while the production will ask you to cry at the end, it will keep you laughing right up until you do. SEE IT

For the girls – The women are not the typical whore/Madonna roles you are used to seeing in an opera. They are both flawed and lovely and it’s a story that feels very present despite the historical setting. SEE IT

For the occasional theatre goer – Regardless if opera is not your thing, the acting and storyline might just make this a performance you can delight in. SEE IT

For the theatre junkie – Think of the best opera you’ve seen. Now combine it with the acting you demand in the theatre. This is it. SEE IT

Sia

April 11 – 14 & 17 – 21, 2012

EPCOR CENTRE’S Motel

http://www.downstage.ca/sia.shtml

 

It’s likely that you’ve met someone like Nick, the college-age white kid from Alberta who naively believes that he can change the world with his good deeds. It starts off with activities like local food drives and “fight the power” protests which satisfies his need to impose a sense of righteousness on the issues. But soon these local initiatives aren’t enough for his do-gooder ego and Nick looks to Africa, perhaps one of the neediest places on earth, to offer himself up volunteer-wise. It’s not that the desire of servitude isn’t itself noble or that the work to be done isn’t desperately needed and necessary. What makes us shake our head at a guy like Nick is that he takes on these roles knowingly or unknowingly as an act of liberal white guilt flagellation. And history has shown us that this never works out well.

Sia begins with Nick in Ghana working as a volunteer in a Liberian refugee camp. Its evening and he and a local named Abraham are out on the town bar hopping, getting progressively more and more drunk. Or at least Nick is. What transpires at the end of the evening sets the stage for the rest of the play. Abraham, a former child solider, takes Nick hostage and demands that a witness in The Hague trial of the “Butcher” (the warlord that Abraham was made to fight for) not be allowed to testify.

Interspersed with the hostage scenes are flashbacks to Abraham’s teenage years in Liberia prior to his soldier duties. He and his beloved sister Sia practice their presentation for the peace monitors they hope are coming and discuss what they will do if the nearby fighting makes its way to their village. We know the two storylines are related, but it isn’t until the final scenes of the play that we realize the powerful and tragic entanglement of the two narratives.

It’s an interesting story, one that won playwright Matthew MacKenzie Grand Prize at the 2010 Alberta Playwriting Competition and apparently comes from some first-hand research. According to MacKenzie, Sia was inspired by interviews he conducted during two trips to the Buduburam refugee camp in 2004 and 2007. It is this field research no doubt that gives Sia its authentic sounding dialogue and its biting criticisms of Western aid to Africa. But thankfully Sia is not simply an exercise in North America-bashing. Mackenzie gives Abraham the character complexity of being neither a victim nor a hero and instead shows that there is imperfection on all sides of the issue and subtle shades of good and evil.

So it’s a real shame then that the performers choose not to embrace the dexterous nature of their characters and instead spend most of the play yelling at full volume. The scenes with Abraham and Sia in particular are guilty of this. Monice Peter is far too unmodulated in her emphatic portrayal of the 11-year old girl while Edward Ogum as Abraham spends most of his interactions with his sister either yelling at her or teasing her at a volume that sounded like yelling. Had the pair taken it down a notch, the bond between them would have been allowed to breathe and I would have felt remarkably more invested in their relationship.

The hostage scenes between Nick and Abraham are a more appropriate place for the yelling to occur and it comes in many forms. Abraham spits vitriol at Nick for his shallowness and Nick, played by Joe Perry alternates between full throttle begging and castigating of his captor. All this makes sense. However, when the climax is revealed through a lengthy monologue by Abraham and it is delivered by more tortured yelling, it loses impact. Ogum, who was far more impressive in his quieter moments, could have slayed us all had he only dropped the shrill for still and let the power of the dialogue do the shouting instead.  Director Simon Mallett needs to instruct his cast that there are better ways to pump up the emotion than simply pumping up the volume. The dialogue deserves better and the talented cast could handle it.

 

RATING

 For the guys – Nothing subtle here. Heavy subject, violent moments, loud acting. But underneath the noise is an interesting play. MAYBE SEE IT

 For the girls – As much as you will want to empathize with Sia, her almost unlikable portrayal makes it difficult. Not for the squeamish, the story is compelling despite the faults. MAYBE SEE IT

For the occasional theatre goer – This is not a light entertaining theater experience. But the story is important and you might be ok with the shouting as it does keep the energy up. MAYBE SEE IT

For the theatre junkie –Ogum is a terribly compelling presence in his more subtle moments and Perry’s mock CBC interview scene is a combination of brilliant writing and great delivery. MAYBE SEE IT