What’s showing in Vancouver?
Intimate Apparel by The Arts Club Theatre
Until March 10th
Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Lynn Nottage transports us back to 1905 New York City with warmly told tale about Ester who makes money making ornate and beautiful corsets for the women of 5th Avenue and the prostitutes of the Tenderloin red-light district. She saves up her money in a quilt that will one day buy her a beauty parlor for colored women.
Ester’s world is a small circle of acquaintances; Mrs. Dickson (Leslie Ewen) the opinionated landlady where she rents a room. Mrs. Van Burnen (Anna Cummer) a chatty women of society, Mayme (Marsha Regis) a piano playing prostitute and Mr. Marks (Jonathan Young) the orthodox Jewish merchant who sells Ester fabric so she can make her corsets.
Ester’s world is shaken though when a Barbadian (Darren Herbert) who is working in Panama strikes up a pen pal relationship. At first her friends are cautious about the correspondence, as is she but then she starts to sway back and forth when she talks and giggle as each new letter arrives.
As the distance in the relationship gets much, much shorter quiet passions and secrets under the surface start to reveal themselves like the tantalizing corsets created by Ester (designed by Alison Green).
This is a quiet and deep show as directed John Cooper – as things unspool there is no fireworks and big emotional implosions – this tale of societal and religious oppression and how to negotiate it is steady and heartbreaking.
Each of the actors gives a richly layered performance that is deeply human. They are all trapped and making the best of bad situation. There are no overt villains or heroes everyone is quietly flawed. The diverse cast are all stellar.
Marci T. House makes Ester an inspiring heroine. Righteous and hopeful, steadfastly resolute and cautiously optimistic she is so quiet you need to look for clues, how she touches a sample of cloth or subtly smiles at a word. She broke my heart and humbled me with her resolve and strength.
The production design by Pam Johnson, Itai Erdal and Doug Blafour (set, lights and sound) is evocative and as nuanced as the performances.
A lovely soft spoken show of longing and low but desired expectations , Intimate Apparel is a subtle struggle as part of Black History Month.
I Love You Because by Intimate Theatre Productions
Until February 25th
A new theatre company has been birthed in Vancouver. Intimate Theatre Production’s mandate is to do shows with small casts.
Their first show features lyrics by Ryan Cunningham, set to music by Joshua Salzman, who started writing it back when they were in the musical theatre program at New York University. It is based on Jane Austin’s Pride & Prejudice.
The show is slickly produced with multi-media elements and Kerry O’Donovan (Musical Director) plays a wicked piano. Director Shel Piercy keeps like bright and romantic and the choreographers Shelley Stewart Hunt, assisted by Julie Tomaino create some fun moves and witty visuals for the diverse cast.
Speaking as the cast – there are moments of genuine brilliance and clearly they are all very talented.
With a story so predictable – two ladies decide to find rebound guys – who are wildly different from them – to fool around with but end up falling in love with them – you need a lot of innovation as well as deep honesty to make the telling of the story compelling. Not to mention speed. But to be fair there is not a lot of tension in this script.
Will Austin choose chose Marci over his ex-girlfriend Catherine. Well since Catherine is played an invisible person I guessed ‘yes’. Will the fastidious Diana choose the rapscallion slacker Jeff (brother of Austin) – again the answer is obviously, yes.
Erin Palm (Marci) and Harper Smith (Diana) are strong singers and open performers – they could stand to make bolder choices though. Sayer Roberts (Austin) is strikingly handsome with a rich voice and a boyish charm. Victor Hunter as Jeff is another great singer but he starts to overplay the comedy to the point in Act Two I was worried he would combust.
Sheryl Anne McMillan and Aaron Lau play a variety of service people with vim and verve but their characters do not really impact the story although they are very appreciated for adding life.
In the end the 20-somethings with limited life experience and desire to make an impression wrote this script – like the recently produced Glory Days – and the results are trite but show promise. I was left with the desire – as a middle age fag – to go the New York University and say to the teachers – ‘stop telling them to write what they know.’.
If you want to see diamonds in the rough in the writing or the performers then don’t miss “I Love You Because” they are good people and deserve your support.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Fighting Chance Productions
Until March 3rd
So frustrating – I find reviewing Fighting Chance Productions tricky because I have to recognize the intentions of the company and weigh that with my opinion for the potential audience. It breaks my heart because there is so much love and commitment in all of their shows and they are clearly doing something right.
They have full casts, dozens of supporters and hundreds (thousands (?) of fans).
Writer and composer Rupert Holmes based this show on an unfinished novel by Charles Dickens, it is likely the only Panto to win a Tony Award for Best Musical (in 1985).
The mystery unfolds as close to the original source material with the aid of a narrator and when it gets to the part where there are no more words (due to Mr. Dickens untimely death) the audience is asked to vote on three things 1) Who is the disguised detective who is investigating the disappearance of the title character? 2) Who killed Edwin Drood? And 3) which two characters can have a romantic entanglement / happy ending? (It is set up so there cannot be a same-sex coupling, drat).
Since the show is a ‘sort of’ panto that means there are no human truths to connect to – no heartfelt emotions – it is a heighted silly acting and jokes. To make that sustain a three-hour show you need to be very clever in the acting choices and since it is a musical you need to hear the wit and pitch perfect vocals in the song.
Some of the diverse cast are stellar and cracked me up: Chris Lam as Bazzard is expressive and physically adroit, James Walker makes a charming and laugh inducing drunk, Jessie Steka is lanky and uniquely over the top and Alex McMorran knows how to use timing with bombastic character choices.
Vashti Fairbairn directs the band and they do a good job. The issue is the sound mix. My companion and I could not hear the lyrics at all.
So it’s silly, sometimes very funny with bouncy music.
But it is when I look at the actors in the chorus, (particularly the straight boys) and they are beaming and dancing in time and acting with verve in the group scenes my (perhaps bitter) heart melts. It is there I see community, there is fun and it is there I see the value of art and the good things Fighting Chance is doing.
David C. Jones
Middle Age Fag
West Coast Ambassador
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