Calgary Fringe Festival

July 29 to August 6, 2011

http://see.calgaryfringe.ca/sections/3-shows

 

I know it’s hard right now to think of life beyond Stampede, but once your feet recover from boot blisters and your liver has forgiven you for everything naughty you’ve ingested, I’m hoping you’ll be yearning for some non-cowboy cultural entertainment. And I can think of no better way to ease yourself back into the theatre than Calgary Fringe Festival.

For those of you who don’t know, Fringes are non-juried, uncensored theatre festivals that showcase many plays over several days throughout various venues. Calgary Fringe is presenting a combination of 27 local, national and international productions for a total of over 160 performances over 9 days. The plays are usually one-act or short 2 act plays (60 to 90 minutes tops) with very reasonable ticket prices. From what I can see on the Calgary Fringe site, ticket prices are running between $15 to $10 per ticket depending on the show.

I have visited Fringe Festivals in many cities over the years and I have learned the good, the bad and the ugly of attending this kind of festival:

The Good
• I have seen many fabulous productions at Fringe Festivals, several of which have gone on to national and even international acclaim.
• At such inexpensive ticket prices, the value for your money is usually very high with these productions
• The atmosphere at Fringe productions are really casual and fun, meaning you don’t have to dress up to go and enjoy
• 100% of the ticket money goes directly to the artists – talk about supporting the arts!

The Bad
• Most of the productions are new works and consequently there are no reviews to help you decide which play to see
• Popular plays sell out fast, meaning that you do need to plan to attend the shows you are interested in seeing
• Because the plays are performed at different times throughout the schedule, sometimes it’s impossible to see the productions you are keen on

The Ugly
• Because the shows are un-juried, the chance that you’ll end up seeing a clunker is very real and can be very painful

Yes I have seen my share of stinkers at Fringe festivals, but many times this was because I didn’t pay enough attention to the play descriptions beforehand. For example, I know that I do not like mainstream comedies, which is generally what gets played at Fringes. So when I’ve gone to a Fringe comedy and found it too dumbed-down for me, it really was my own fault. My advice – know your taste, read through the play descriptions and pick a few that sound like they are your speed. When I’ve taken the time to do this, I have always managed to see at least a couple productions that I really liked and I’m excited to find a few more this time around.

And if you are asking, here’s what I’m seeing this year:

This is Our Youth
http://see.calgaryfringe.ca/events/2011/07/29/324-this-is-our-youth

Spitting in the Face of the Devil
http://see.calgaryfringe.ca/events/2011/07/30/321-spitting-in-the-face-of-the-devil

Take a Bite
http://see.calgaryfringe.ca/events/2011/07/31/332-take-a-bite

Houdini’s Last Escape
http://see.calgaryfringe.ca/events/2011/08/01/325-houdinis-last-escape

The Duck Variations
http://see.calgaryfringe.ca/events/2011/08/03/335-the-duck-variations

 

Check back staring July 29th for reviews from the Fringe and Happy Stampede everyone!

Wicked

Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium

June 29 – July 17

http://www.ticketmaster.ca/event/110046708D926CAC?artistid=1452006&majorcatid=10002&minorcatid=207

 

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while now, you know how I feel about musicals. For those of you that are new, I’ll sum things up quickly. I hate musicals. Detest them.  Can’t stand them.  Really not my cup of tea.  So you can imagine my reluctance to go and see Wicked when it came to town. But with several Tony awards for the show’s Broadway run and over 2 million attendees world-wide for the touring production, I felt that Wicked was too monumental to go unreviewed in Calgary. I would go even if I hated every minute of it.

Funny thing is, I didn’t hate it. In fact, I actually liked it quite a bit. And no, my anti-musical stance is not softening. Rather, Wicked is a clever, beautifully costumed and staged,  inside jokey and fun play that also happens to be set to music most of the time.

Wicked tells the backstory of why the Wicked Witch of the West became the way she did. We are not born wicked, the play posits, but rather we are made. The play opens with Glinda the Good Witch celebrating the death of the Wicked Witch of the West with the inhabitants of Oz. But when asked by one of the celebrants if she knew the Wicked Witch and was in fact friends with her at one point, the play morphs into a long flashback that spans the length of the performance.

We see the birth of the Wicked Witch, named Elphaba, who is oddly born green from, head-to-toe. We learn that her father rejected her strangeness and later blames her for her younger sister’s handicap. We feel sorry for Elphaba as every person she encounters points and stares and mocks her differences causing her to take on the prickly demeanour of the outcast.

Fast forward to Elphaba at boarding school as she rooms with Glinda, a goody-two-shoes whose beauty is rivalled by her vanity and shallowness. The girls instantly hate each other, but eventually become a sort of odd-couple set of best friends. During this time Elphaba shows her prowess at magic and is accepted into the exclusive sorcery class, eventually insisting that Glinda be allowed entrance as well.

All seems fine for Elphie at last. She has a friend. She is studying magic. She is hopeful that her talent will get her an audience with The Great Oz so that he might take away her greenness.  But it all starts to go awry when she learns that her favourite teacher, a goat, is losing his ability to speak. It turns out that all the creatures in Oz are suffering this condition and Elphie believes that it is some nefarious plot to silence the animals and keep them under control. She will have none of it, and begins an animal activism crusade which leads to Elphie being labelled wicked and eventually causes her to behave that way.

There is much more to the plot including cute nods to all things Wizard of Oz such as the origin of the ruby slippers, why the broom flies, where the Lion, Tim Man and Scarecrow came from and why those evil monkeys have wings.  While many of the explanations were forced or overwritten, I couldn’t help but smile with nostalgic warmth as the familiar plots and characters from the Oz movie were given context and dimension in the play. 

But what really made me smile was watching Natalie Daradich as Glinda. Part Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, part Cher in Clueless and part Nelly Olsen from Little House on the Prairie, Daradich took a deliciously juicy role and made it even tastier by her abundant energy and hysterical timing. The play may be about Elphaba, but it’s Glinda that steals the show and is itself worth coming out to see.

By now you’ve probably think that I’ve purposefully forgotten about the music part of the play. Actually I have forgotten about it, but not on purpose. While the casts’ voices were all strong and a pleasure to listen to, the music itself was fairly forgettable. This is not the kind of musical that leaves you humming those memorable tunes.  The lyrics were well written and either emphasized the plot or added to it, but I felt that the music itself was just background padding to the play. It was fine while it was happening, but evaporated once the number was over. 

My final thoughts on the performance focused on the initiated as opposed to the newbie. Much of my enjoyment of the play hinged on my knowledge and fondness for The Wizard of Oz and my desire to learn the secrets of the prologue to the narrative. For those of us schooled on the original movie, Wicked provides a delightful romp in the past that gives context and credence to the story we have come to know and love. But as I looked around at the audience full of young girls under the age of 10, I questioned if the same nostalgic yearning for answers was what kept their interest.  I am hesitant to say the play holds up on its own without foreknowledge of its famous predecessor, but the youngsters in the audience seemed to be enjoying themselves either with or without the familiarity of the famous story that made this play possible.

Either way, Wicked seems to enchant all audience members on whatever level of understanding they may bring and provides good entertainment for the time being. And for me, that is a good enough reason to put on decent clothes and come to the theatre.

 

RATING

For the guys – It’s a musical, about girl power and how women are misunderstood and often victimized and taken advantage of. But if you are a fan of the Wizard of Oz you will enjoy it. MAYBE SEE IT

For the girls – You will love the girly humanness of the Wicked Witch and will relate to the bullying that leads to her downfall and the womanly strength that raises her up again. SEE IT

For the occasional audience – The sets are fantastic, the performances are great, the story is fun and you will get all the inside jokes. SEE IT

For the theatre junkies – It didn’t win all those awards for nothing. This is an opportunity to see one of the most successful Broadway musicals on your home turf. You may not love everything about it but you will appreciate the slickness and smartness of both the play and the production. SEE IT

i-ROBOT Theatre

Birds & Stone Theatre

June 17 -25, 2011

http://www.swallowabicycle.com/irobot.html

Stories about robots that can interact with humans are certainly nothing new. Whether you favoured HAL, Rosie, KITT, C-3PO or the Fembots, robot stories in all their various genres and mediums have become fairly commonplace. Except in the theatre. Think about it…..when’s the last time you saw a robot story that didn’t involve the tricked-out special effects that can only come with a big blockbuster movie? Or at the very least, the visual magic that TV can provide? Robot stories in the theatre can’t rely on technical wizardry to tell their stores. And therefore, for a lo-fi robot story to work, it must have a compelling plot, actors able to behave inhumanly, and just enough “cool” stuff to give the performance that science fiction feel.

i-ROBOT delivers quite well on all three counts.

The play starts in the home of Jonathan. A man living alone, yet surrounded by intuitive talking robots that take care of his every need. His bed adjusts its firmness depending on how restless he is. An alarm desperately tries to wake him every morning. His lamp dims or brightens as Jonathan needs to see. A humidifier works tirelessly to make sure he is moist enough. His TV finds the channel Jonathan needs according to his viewing preference and a toaster lives just to make him the perfect breakfast. But Queen among robots is Jonathan’s wife, a perfect human replica he made himself as a proto-type for a robot project he is working on at his job.

We learn that Jonathan will be presenting these prototypes to important investors in the hope that his next generation robots will mean big money for the company. But the investors, while impressed with how human the robots appear and act, are put off by the fact that they are too human and turn down the investment. Jonathan’s boss demands he stop wasting company money and shut off the prototypes, including his own wife. While Jonathan is crushed at the career defeat and even more despondent at having to lose a wife he has come to love, he is not so far gone into techno-creepy land that he cannot disengage from the project. Arriving home, Jonathan explains to his robot wife what has happened at work and that he will have to shut her down. She protests, declaring her love for him – love she says is beyond simply her programming and refuses to comply. Things turn ugly from there. Without giving away the whole plot, we are treated to robot rebellion, robot self-actualization, robot self-doubt, robot death and robot afterlife.

It’s a complex plot at times with many ideas, philosophies and imaginative themes taking place. Not to mention a poetic narrative running through the performance. Frankly it’s a play that a lot can be said about. But, in the spirit of the robot, I will be succinct and precise. Here’s the good and not so good:

Good

1. The opening scene where Jonathan’s appliances talk to him and then talk behind his back when he leaves is a brilliantly written and produced piece of theatre. In fact, all the scenes involving his appliances are well worth the price of admission

2. Jeffrey Olynek who plays Jonathan gives a wonderful subtle performance that allows his character to be somewhat nerdy without falling into tiresome cliché.

3. The three prototype factory robots, Mikaela Cochrane, Elaine Weryshko and Scott Morris steal the show with their combination robot/human delivery and intense characterization. Bravo to all three actors equally.

4. A scene in the second act that depicts a computer ossuary is spectacularly creepy and beautiful. This scene perfectly shows that you don’t need special effects to create impact when you have good writing and good acting.

Not so good

1. I wish I could say that all the cast was a strong as those I mentioned above. This was not the case. I was especially disappointed with the wife robot, whose performance lacked the energy, intensity and believability I would have liked to see.

2. A pseudo dance scene in the second act was amateurish and went on far too long. I understand that it was to be a representative plot driver, but it was unnecessary and took away from the flow of the story.

3. The final scenes were a little thin. I like unresolved stories and plots that don’t spoon feed you all the answers, but the play’s ending felt more like a lackluster trickle-off than a satisfying halt.

RATING

For the guys – It may be lo-fi sci-fi, but it has all the elements that made you love robot stories in the first place – SEE IT

For the girls – It may be sci-fi, but this is not a testosterone-fuelled story. It’s funny and sad and you’ll wish your humidifier talked to you this way – SEE IT

For the occasional audience – While the robot story will be familiar to you, the performance may be too alternative and experimental for your liking – SKIP IT

For the theatre junkie – If you are ready to forgive some performance and plot issues, it’s an incredibly well- conceived imaginative piece of theatre unlike anything you’ve seen before. SEE IT

Queen Anne’s Revenge – The Rise and Fall of Blackbeard the Pirate

Arrata Opera Centre

June 9 to 18, 2011

www.thisisamobhit.com

 

I don’t know which would have been more disappointing, watching the Canucks get walloped in game 7 of the Stanley Cup or sitting through the performance of Queen Anne’s Revenge last night. I think if made to choose, I’d have to say the play was more unfortunate. Vancouver was beaten fair and square and I really can’t complain, but I feel that Queen Anne’s Revenge unfairly forced my dislike through unnecessary and avoidable elements.

First though, the plot.

The play opens with a Royal sailor by the name of Teech who has been let go from the service and is in need of a sailing job. Unable to find legitimate work, he signs up with a crew of pirates under the rule of Captain Hornigold. The crew gets cranky when Hornigold won’t let them pillage English ships and a mutiny unfolds putting Teech in the captain’s role. Teech, unafraid to pillage any type or nationality of ship, earns a wide reputation as a man to be feared. Embracing his new found cult status, Teech takes on the persona of Blackbeard by donning ….you guessed it…a big black beard….and playing up this mythically nefarious persona.

At the same time, we are introduced to Governor Eden of the colony of North Carolina and his beautiful daughter Charlotte. Eden is suffering from a lung disease and the only way for him to get the medicine he needs is by appealing to the Governor from South Carolina, Spottswood, to give him the curatives in return for Charlotte’s hand in marriage. Charlotte loves her father beyond all else and is more than willing to marry Spottswood, despite her dislike of him, if it means her father’s health and happiness.

The two stories collide when Blackbeard decides to set up a blockade on South Carolina until Spottswood pays for the colony’s release. Charlotte and her friend Grace are captured by Blackbeard en route to South Carolina to arrange for the wedding to Governor Spottswood. Despite his pirate behaviour, Blackbeard shows gentlemanly kindness to Charlotte. A romance blossoms between the two, only to be complicated by plots of revenge from both the ousted pirate Captain Hornigold and Governor Spottswood himself.

I have no issue with the story itself. It’s a fairly safe and classic boy and girl from two different worlds meet and fall in love type of affair. And the staging, with the video projections as background scenery and the double-sided stage, was innovative and visually very clever. It was the dancing and the singing and a portion of the acting that threw the play into a tail spin for me.

I have let it be known before that I hate musicals. But to call this a musical would actually be disrespectful to the genre. Instead, what we get are generally horrid voices, singing poorly written songs that only take away from the flow and energy of the play itself. It’s a small theatre and the audience sits VERY close to the actors so there was no mistaking the many off-key or just average singing voices. But in fairness, the voices may have been better had the libretto not been so awkward. With mostly atonal music to sing by, cliché verses and sloppy phrasing, it would have been hard for even decent singers to sound great. The dancing sequences were even more of a mess. None in the cast are professional dancers, and their movements were comically stilted and amateurish.

I have no idea why the playwright felt the need to ruin a perfectly good story with these silly asides of song and dance by a cast so inept at the tasks, but by the sixth or seventh time they broke out into song, I literally had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

The acting was another head-scratcher for me. There were several standouts in the cast that kept me engaged. Sarah Wheeldon as Charlotte was outstanding as the classic goody-two-shoes with a secret passion for adventure. She was also the only member of the cast that could really sing. As tiresome as her songs were, at least it was nice to hear a decent voice giving life to them. Jeremy Coulter as both Governor Eden and Captain Hornigold carried the stage with great bravado brought dimension to his fairly thinly-constructed characters. Aaron Ranger as Israel Hands, Blackbeard’s right hand, gave a wonderful natural performance that was one of the most believable of the night. Even Darren Hopwood as Blackbeard did a fine enough job. But just when I thought I could at least settle into decent acting and forget the rest, I got hit with some of the worst performances I’ve seen in a long time. Suffice it to say that outside of Wheeldon, the women in the ensemble were remarkably awful and one of the male leads embarrassingly so. People….if you are going to do accents….can you PLEASE be consistent about them and not allow them to fade in and out or change national dialect throughout the play?!

Clocking in at 2 hours and 45 minutes with a 15 minute intermission, Queen Anne’s Revenge was a long journey that unfortunately ran aground for me.

RATING

For the guys – Yes there are pirates and sword fights. But the pirates sing and dance (sort of) SKIP IT

For the girls – Yes it’s a romantic love story. But the pirates sing and dance (sort of) SKIP IT

For the occasional audience – The staging is cool and there is some good acting MAYBE SEE IT

For the theatre junkie – Don’t. Trust me. SKIP IT

The Importance of Being Ernest

Scotiabank Theatre Chinook

June 2 and 25

http://www.cineplex.com/Movies/MovieDetails/The-Importance-of-Being-Earnest.aspx?date=2011-6-2&loc_cookie=CALGARY+-+AB&tab=cineplex#Showtimes

 

I normally don’t have wonderful things to say about Cineplex theatres. Admission is too expensive, the popcorn is often stale or overly salty (or both) and the lobby’s arcade décor and resulting decibel level is enough to make you want to stay at home and rent a DVD instead.

But when Cineplex airs one of its Front Row Centre Events, they become my hero. In 2006, the smarty-pants at Cineplex realized that by airing quality theatre, opera and concert events, they would be able to lure back the adult audiences that had been steadily slipping away over the years. My understanding is that this strategy has been a huge success for the company, and I couldn’t be happier. The productions they show are fantastic, the filming technique superb, the price points are reasonable and because the performances are captured live-to-tape in High-Definition, it truly does feel like you are part of the real audience.

The Importance of Being Ernest, the Oscar Wilde classic, is the latest offering from the Cineplex folks. Directed by and Starring Tony-award winning actor Brian Bedford, the play debuted at Stratford in 2009 to rave reviews. Then off to Broadway it went where the raves continued, landing the play an extended run and Bedford a 2011 Tony nomination for his portrayal of Lady Bracknell. Yup. You read that right. Bedford takes on the role of the formidable older woman in the play in a  way that forever changes what it means for an actor to gender-bend.

The play centers around a non-existent man named Ernest Worthing. He is the alter-ego of Jack Worthing who uses that name whenever he visits London so he can behave as he pleases without having to soil his real reputation. To his friends in the country, Ernest is Jack’s troublemaker brother. In the city, Jack is Ernest. The main reason Jack desires to visit the city these days is because he is in love with Gwendolyn Fairfax, who is very keen to marry him but cannot overcome the disapproval of her mother, Lady Bracknell. The problem it seems, is that no one knows who Jack/Ernest’s parents are. As a baby, he was found abandoned by a man who raised him, left him a fortune, an estate, and a pretty young ward – Cecily Cardew.

When Jack’s city friend, Algernon Moncrieff (Algy) learns of Cecily’s existence, he decides he must meet her. Pretending to be Ernest, he shows up at Jack’s country estate. Cecily is delighted to finally meet the black sheep of the family, and she and Algy fall in love. Jack arrives home, followed shortly thereafter by Gwendolyn and Lady Bracknell. Mistaken identity, high farce, plot twists and a surprise ending take over from there in a play that Wilde himself called “a trivial comedy for serious people.”

While the story itself may be trivial, there is no great moral lesson or social importance to be learned from the show, the use of language in the play is anything but frivolous. Wilde’s famous use of sarcasm, wit and clever turn-of-phrase are on full and glorious display in this script and the lines literally dance in your brain like an intellectual tickle-fest.

But we already know that the play itself is spectacular. The real question is, how’s the acting?

Bedford is not the first male actor to take on the role of Lady Bracknell, but there is no doubt that he is the first male to actually become the Lady Bracknell. The wonder of his acting in this performance is that he embodies the cantankerous upper-class woman without one iota of camp or affectation. In fact, he is so believably good at the part, you quickly forget it is Brian Bedford playing a woman and instead just revel in the character and her juicy, scene-stealing lines. His Tony nomination is well deserved and as my companion noted to me, “I could have watched Bedford as Lady Bracknell for 5 more hours!”

However, if you think this is a one great performance play, I am happy to say that this isn’t the case. There is not a weak link in the entire cast, and in true Wilde form, not a single character goes without the bon mot lines that keep the audience laughing. Of particular mention is Santino Fontana’s Algy, who takes his roguish persona to a new level by bringing modern effortlessness to a very smart-alecky, erudite character.

This is an outstandingly fun and clever play, performed by an outstandingly talented cast and brought to Calgary by an outstandingly savvy corporate initiative.

 

RATING

For the guys – Watching the men get into and out of trouble with the ladies will ring all your bells. SEE IT

For the gals – Watching the men dig themselves into a hole and seeing the ladies hold all the cards to get them out again is great fun. SEE IT

For the occasional audience – It’s a light, fun comedy with tons of great lines you’ll wish you wrote down so you could use them again. SEE IT

For the theater junkie – You love Wilde already. Get ready to love Bedford and his cast. SEE IT

Reverie

 Pumphouse Theatre

 May 17^th to 28^th, 2011

 http://www.pumphousetheatre.ca/mainstructure/homepage.htm

Part play, part musical performance, part video installation, part sound experiment, part spoken word and part dance. Reverie, presented by Ghost River Theatre, has more packed into a 100 minute production than most shows can ever hope to achieve. But it’s not the packing in and layering on of mediums that makes Reverie such a unique and exciting piece of theatre. It’s that each element itself is beautifully crafted, creating a wholly immersive experience that tickles numerous intellectual sweet spots.

 This is not theatre for the masses.  Reverie is experimental, often odd and way outside the lines. Nor is it the kind of production you’d want to see on a regular basis.  But if you are tired of safe and predictable theatre that entertains but doesn’t challenge, then this is a must see. Or at least the first act is.

 The story centres on a young girl living a banal and meaningless existence working as a customer service agent in a grocery store.  She, like everyone else in the cast, remains nameless throughout the play. Her days consist of taking abuse from customers and anxiously waiting for closing time so she can indulge in alcohol and drugs to help forget her life for the time being. The parties she goes to put her amongst a crowd of people, but ultimately she is alone.

 Meanwhile her older sister is desperately trying to reach her by text message. Unlike her younger sister, she is completely civically engaged and ramping up for some kind of protest that we can only assume is anti-government or at least anti-authority. Despite the older sister’s pleas to join her in the cause, the younger sister will have none of it. All she wants is to numb reality away, not confront it as part of a mass protest.

 The first half of the play ends with the demonstration turning violent and the older sister mysteriously missing. Once she realizes what has happened and what is still happening out on the street,  the younger sister is “awoken” from her self-induced daze, and begins the search for her sister.

 Had this been pure traditional storytelling, I suppose it could have been compelling enough. But the addition of video projections to mimic everything from an elevator ride, to the scenery passing by on a bus, to the reflection of the younger sister in the mirror as she’s getting ready to go out and even the wording of the older sister’s text messages on the stage wall brings a modernity and artistic cool factor that words alone could not.

 Even more dramatic was the live guitar and singer that scores almost the entire first half, sometimes with just music, sometimes with a solo singer and often with the entire cast singing. And this is not musical theatre chorus-like crooning. There are no toe-tapping catchy tunes here. They songs are compelling and clever and work to move the story forward as a mixture between musical dialogue and melodic spoken word.

 The dance scenes are physical and representative. An interesting added element that, while in some cases went on a little too long, brought an additional dimension to the experience and continued to challenge the audience.

 It was, on every level, a brilliant first half. Which is why I was saddened to be let down by the rest of the play. And notice I say play here and not performance. The actors and musician were as electric as ever in the second half, but the storyline just fell flat for me. The quest to find her older sister in the aftermath of the “revolution” felt empty and the connection to the universal angst plotline of the first half was discarded. I understand that this was meant to be the younger sister’s baptism to the greater importance of collective dissent and a parable on the end of civilization as we know it, but it just didn’t have the emotive power it should have.

 Turns out that without the right scripting or storyline, not even the cool video, smart lyrics or great acting could make me care much.

 In the end though, I choose not to dwell on the second half. The good was so deliciously good that I can easily forget what didn’t move me. Reverie is daring and demanding and astonishing in its talent. And how often do you get to say that about a night out?

 Side note here before the rating. Keep an eye out for Ava Jane Markus, the younger sister and star of the play. I hate the term triple-threat, but she absolutely is just that. Her acting, singing and dance/movement were a very big reason Reverie is as good at it is. The woman is a standout and I can’t wait to see where her career takes her next.

RATING

For the guys – The music is mostly testosterone-fuelled. The revolution violent. And although the lead is a young woman, her dissatisfaction with her job, the numbing of her reality and the awakening to a more meaningful life are all themes any guy could relate to. SEE IT

For the girls – You’ll relate to the feeling of emptiness and the longing to be a 10-year-old girl without any cares again. The singing is fantastic and the lyrics will move you. And maybe you’ll feel empathy for the search for the older sister where I didn’t. SEE IT

For the sometimes audience – This is not an easy fun night out in the theatre. Challenging and odd are probably not what you are after. SKIP IT

For the performance junkies – The first act will be one of the most interesting, professional and thrilling things you’ve seen in a long time. SEE IT

Cavalia

Calgary Olympic Park 

May 25^th to June 26, 2011

http://www.cavalia.net/pages/upComingShows/calgary.aspx?lang=EN-CA

Without realising it, I guess I’ve become a bit of a Cirque du Soleil connoisseur. Thinking back, I estimate I’ve seen the troupe at least 10 times in performances ranging from the big top shows in Toronto, to the aquatic production in Las Vegas and even as Peter Gabriel’s back-up dancers/performers years ago when he still had hair.

After all these shows, I have to admit that some of the sheen has worn off for me. Don’t misunderstand – the acrobats are spectacular, the choreography is perfect and the otherworldliness of the music, costumes and thematic lines are just creepy enough to hold my interest. It’s just that there is only so much “stricken with awe” I can manage for something I’ve seen many times over.

So when I was invited to today’s media preview for Cavalia, I was excited to see what surely would be a whole new twist on the Cirque repertoire. And despite being billed as “A Magical Encounter Between Human and Horse” which sounds woefully cloying to me, I was curious to see how they would incorporate horses into the act and the resulting impact on the wow factor.

Now, full disclosure here, I am not a horse person. Not that I don’t like them, I do well enough. But it I don’t ride or really know anything about horses.  So I was very lucky to attend the preview with a seasoned Dressage rider who could school me on the various tricks, moves and skill levels. Not to mention the amount of hard work it would take to achieve this kind of performance. I figured even if the show didn’t do it for me, at least I’d know if the horsey set would go gaga for it.

Cavalia is eight years old and is the creation of Normand Latourelle, one of the co-founders of Cirque du Soleil. While the production has toured around the world and been seen by millions of people, this is the first time it has played in Calgary. In addressing the media, Latourelle said that he is happy to come home to the “horse capital of Canada”. But after seeing the 45 highlight preview today, I’m not so sure that Calgary will be all that thrilled to see Cavalia.

Of the nine acts I saw today, only two of them really stood out, and both acts featured trick riders. The Roman Riding act, which saw riders stand astride two horses as they galloped and jumped barriers on the stage, was heart-poundingly thrilling. The horses were beautiful, the riders were athletic marvels and the pace and timing of the segment was perfect. The Trick Riding act was also entertaining with some truly fantastic feats, but suffered from being way too long and repetitive. Funny how even the most difficult acrobatic feat on a horse can become yawn-inducing after you’ve seen it (or something very close to it) over and over again.

Another act featured a mixture of typical Cirque bungee-cord aerialists and horses. When I first saw the combination on stage I thought – Fabulous! The horses are going to dance with the acrobats! But instead the horses just stood there while the acrobats bounced above them and every once in a while touched down on their backs. Frankly, the horses were utterly superfluous and the acrobatics not that interesting. The act seemed forced together and highlighted neither horse nor human well 

Two sets featured horse-only performances. A Dressage-style pas de deux which even I knew was not very well executed and some odd, tedious and long performance where a woman had eight horses run around and around  in somewhat of a formation until I was dizzy with boredom.

Things perked up again when the floor acrobats came out and showed that strength and balance were well within their command as was the ability to at times to seemingly defy gravity. These may have been the old-school Cirque tricks that I’m overly familiar with, but after the horse boredom, I was very happy to see them again.

My feeling at the end of the 45 minutes was one of being underwhelmed. Perhaps it was because I didn’t get to see the whole show and in fairness maybe its entirety is better than its parts. But for a preview that purported to showcase highlights, I felt let down.

 The trick riding was very impressive – but this is Stampede country. You can easily see great trick riding for a lot less money and without the somewhat operatic background music and cheesy costumes. I’ve only been here one year and I’ve already seen my fill!

As for the Dressage segment, well my friend was not impressed, nor did she think the horse formation segment was anything special. There was some muttering about going up to Spruce Meadows to see how it’s done…but I tuned out. I was just too relieved that I didn’t have to shun her expertise by telling her how uninspiring I thought it was.

The pure acrobatics certainly entertained, but never really felt cohesive with the horse stuff. It was as if they had taken two separate shows and merged them together in a not entirely rewarding manner. The side of me that gets thrilled by athletic stunts was never fully satisfied and the part of me that wanted to see a great horse show was also disappointed.

As for that magical encounter that was promised between human and horse?  Maybe they save it for after the lights go off.

RATING

For the guys – A couple thrills followed by lots of emotional female-horse segments with operatic music. SKIP IT

 For the girls – Yes it’s cheesy and you’ve seen better riding. But the horses are beautiful and you’ll go crazy over the foals. SEE IT

 For the sometimes audience – If you have never seen a Cirque du Soleil performance before this isn’t the best by far, but still worth a peak. SEE IT

For the performance junkie – You’ve seen better on every level. SKIP IT

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

Vertigo Theatre

April 30 to May 29th

http://www.vertigotheatre.com/main/page.php?page_id=52

 When I first heard that Vertigo Theatre was putting on a production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, my initial reaction was  – Yawn…..another remake of an old monster story. Why bother?

I mean who doesn’t know the tale of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde inside and out?  Like its contemporaries, Frankenstein and Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde has bored its way into our brains through an overwhelming number of film, stage and television adaptations. And of course there’s the spoofs – two of the best being Looney Tunes’ “Hyde and Hare” starring Bugs Bunny and Ed Grimley’s Dr. Jekyll in the skit “The Nutty Lab Assistant” on SCTV. Regardless how we’ve watched it and in what genre, we’ve all been there, done that and can agree it’s been done to death.

Then there’s the moral question of the story itself. What is good? What is evil? Can the lines be blurred between the two? Not exactly a unique plot line. It was a classic story arc long before Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the original novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and it remains an extremely popular script theme. So popular that we’ve taken the idea out of the theatre and into real life and now the description of a Jekyll and Hyde dilemma  has become part of our cultural lexicon.

So, back to my original question –  with a story so familiar that we’ve not only seen it before, but use its title as part of everyday language, why bother? In the case of Vertigo Theatre’s production, the answer is to see a modern, well-acted and thoroughly enjoyable performance that leaves the clichéd at the door.

The play opens with Mr. Hyde rushing to get home and in his haste bumping into a young girl. In his anger, he takes the jostle one step further and violently knocks the girl to the ground as payback for getting in his way. Two gentlemen witness the act and demand that Hyde make reparations. When he offers to cut the girl a cheque, the men demand that he prove his money is secure. Hyde produces a letter guaranteeing his accounts by a certain Dr. Henry Jekyll. The men, who know Jekyll, are surprised that the doctor, a well-known and respected medical professional would associate with the likes of such an obvious brute. Later they visit Jekyll’s home to inquire about the letter and he admits to knowing Hyde, but asserts that they are certainly not friends. Instead, he vaguely explains that he owes Hyde a favour and that the letter is his repayment. The men warn Jekyll of Hyde’s errant and violent behaviour and Jekyll assures them that his dealings with Hyde are coming to an end.

Thus begins the “mysterious” tie between the two men, but,  knowing the story as we do, we are already aware that Jekyll and Hyde are one and the same. Instead, the audience finds the drama in watching the struggle between the two personality sides as they battle to take full possession of their host and in the frustration of the other characters as they attempt to track down Hyde for his later crime.

In describing the play as modern, I don’t mean to suggest that the characters dress in modern clothing or use modern language. Rather it’s the sparse stage, lack of props, brevity of dialogue and restrained costuming that gives the play a contemporary feel. I’ve seen many productions try to go the minimalist route and I have found that the only time it works effectively is when the acting is robust enough to fill the stage on its own. And I’m happy to say that in this case it certainly did. Rylan Wilkie as Dr Henry Jekyll does a terrific job playing the moral upstanding doctor in public, and the increasingly tortured scientist trying to run from his demon side in private. Kevin Rothery is irritatingly good as a pompous and bigoted surgeon at Jekyll’s college who runs afoul with both sides of the Jekyll/Hyde personality. Myla Southward does a fine job as Elizabeth Jelkes, the love interest of the Hyde character; yes…the beast has a lover, even if she is given very little by way of dialogue to explain why she has fallen for such a man.

But it is Haysam Kadri’s Hyde that is the most interesting. Far from the clichéd hunched monstrous looking creature we are used to, Kadri’s Hyde is a dashing figure in a cape, walking stick and top hat. He performs evil acts such as slitting the throat of a prostitute and disembowelling her with no compunction. Yet is able to fall in love, albeit in a somewhat dictatorial and verbally abusive manner, with Elizabeth. Again here the dialogue doesn’t give much room for explanation as to why he fancies her or why he doesn’t behave with her the way he does with others, but what little we do get is nicely done.

Prior to seeing the play I was told that one of the compelling things about the production was that the actors play many roles (nothing new in that if you ask me) and that they all take a turn at playing Hyde….now that intrigued me. Until I saw it in action. Several times, the actors dressed as Hyde and appeared as either inner voices speaking to Jekyll or even Hyde himself, and this was beautifully done and spookily effective. But then every so often one of the “inner voices” would appear as Hyde for real and for no apparent reason. It happened too infrequently for us to become accustomed to it and have it not feel staged. Frankly Kadri’s Hyde was the best of the bunch and I was relieved when he took over the role again for himself. Happily these switches didn’t occur that often and turned out to be minor annoyances rather than deal breakers.

This isn’t a play that is going to change your life. And it isn’t even going to give you any new thoughts to chew on in the ongoing question of good and evil and how much of each are in all of us. But it is a play that will serve up an entertaining adaptation of an old classic and prove to Calgary audiences what good ensemble acting is all about.

RATING

For the guys – Violence, testosterone and the struggle between being the nice guy or the brute inside. Except this time it’s not about you and you don’t have to apologize for anything! SEE IT

For the gals – The violence  is a little brutal and if you have a bad boy complex this may not help. But the story is classic and you’ll like the acting. SEE IT

For the sometimes audience – Totally entertaining. Not a boring minute in the production. SEE IT

For the theatre junkies – You’ve seen the staging tricks before, but they are done well. And it’s always satisfying to see good acting from the entire cast. SEE IT