Calendar Girls by The Arts Club Theatre

Until February 26^th

I remember when the movie came out – starring Helen Mirren – it was based on a true story about some middle aged British women who posed in tasteful nude pictures for a fund-raising calendar. I thought at the time 1) good for them and 2) sounds like a “women’s movie”. By that I meant a film made to appeal to women not that all women would enjoy it.

So I never saw the movie but it was my duty to see the play when it came to Vancouver and I thought it would be prudent to take my middle aged female friend along.

Even though Tim Firth bases it on a true story the script follows the formula of many ensemble women’s comedy ranging from Stepping Out, to Tea With Mussolini to For Black Girls. There is The Ballsy One, The Naughty One, The Wounded One, The Mousey One, (who will get a big laugh and a round of applause when at some time in act two she will tell someone to ‘Fuck Off’). Each is given a bit of story line about their life outside of their gathering except usually The Old One who just has to crack wise about being old and saying a few things that out naughty The Naughty One.

Being formulaic and predictable what is left is the acting and staging. The just barely diverse cast of 11 all does fine work; the highlight for me was seeing Shawn Macdonald as leukemia stricken husband who inspires the calendar. Normally a wildly comic actor he was so warm and grounded that like his (Mousey) wife, played warmly by Wendy Noel, you wanted more time with him. I love seeing artists do something new.

Director Rachel Ditor creates some lovely staged moments that are quite moving, like when the letters arrive and uses spotlights where a close-up in the movie would have taken place. There is a languid flow that moves the show along and the scene where they are taking the nude pictures has a lot of funny moments.

If you like your stories warm, witty and highly predictable, if you like shows about women empowering themselves than there is something here for you. My lady friend found it ‘sweet but a little boring, not as invigorating as the movie’ and me, I just found it … nice.

Julius Caesar by Studio 58

Until February 26^th

The students of Studio 58 – the professional theatre-training program at Langara College had a problem – they had too many female students and not enough female roles, at least not a lot of meaty female roles. Enter director Scott Bellis and his gender flipped version of Julius Caesar. William Shakespeare’s script only had two female parts, the wives Calpurnia and Portia – those remain but now Caesar, Octavius, Caius, Metellus are female. Et tu Brutus? You betcha and many others.

This is a different vision of Rome – same-sex marriages and a matriarch society where women carry swords and the men sit on separate benches. The production values are crisp and slick. The set by Amir Ofek is a raised square that features Michael Sider’s multi-media images from above and below. Naomi Sider’s costumes are fun and corporate and the lighting by Alan Brodie is moody and powerful.

I have never been a fan of this script – Caesar only has a few scenes before he – I mean she – is murdered by the conspirators and a lot of the show is about political machinations. But Mr. Bellis creates theatrical drama where he can. When Leslie Dos Remedios’ confident Caesar is set upon, she fights back with such ferocity that you think she may survive. The battles when Octavius returns for vengeance are cleverly executed  since they are scripted mostly off stage.

When Cinna the poet, a priest here, is killed by an angry mob, Stephen Beaver brings such confused sadness it is heartbreaking. Tim Carlson as Mark Anthony is so passionate and bent on justice his “cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war’” speech made me tear up.

The diverse student cast does great work – the women (especially Lindsay Winch as Cassius and Andrea Houssin as Brutus) own their space and the men are ambitious though clearly second-class in this topsy-turvy world. Sometimes the casts young age causes them to posture rather than inhabit their titles but it is a great showcase for the students and they should feel proud.

Special mention to Agnes Tong who plays a funny and aged Popilius as well as the Xena-like Octavious, she has shown herself in past productions to be an actress of considerable range and innovation and that is confirmed here.

Congratulations to Studio 58 and director Scott Bellis for taking the problem of too many actresses and making an original and sharp production of a lesser classic. Fine job everyone.

From the West Coast Ambassador,

David C. Jones

Middle Age Fag

PS: It has come up that some newer readers have questioned why I delineate if a cast is diverse or all white. For years I have rallied for Vancouver theatre to do as prescribed and use art to hold a mirror up to society. Since Vancouver is almost 52% non-white I use to tally the white and non-white faces. The disparity was very noticeable.  Weary of being a statistician, this past year I have opted to just ‘all white’ or ‘diverse’. No judgment is intended, simply fact.

Vancouver performing artists have always been innovative – they choose unusual subject matter, adapt things in unique ways and do shows in non-traditional places. Two shows I saw last week are very original for different reasons.

Do You Want What I Have Got ? A Craiglist Cantata by the PuSH Festival

Until February 11th

Originally presented as 20 minute piece a couple of years ago at PuSH International Performing Arts Festival, Mr. Bill Richardson and Ms.Veda Hille have mined the on-line ads on Craigslist and come up with a powerfully funny and deeply touching cabaret that makes you laugh and ponder at the same time.

Some of the ads are almost word for word transcribed into song existing in a surreal place of the hysterically odd. But the palatable neediness is almost disturbing in it’s desperation. Other times the songwriter and writer have been inspired by the ads to scratch beneath the surface, for example the I Saw You ads become a wry song called Did Anyone See Me?

The skilled and diverse cast was pitch perfect in the songs and I have never seen a group so skilled at comedy. J. Cameron Barnett, Dmitry Chepovetsky and Bree Grieg were so rich in exploiting the eccentricities of the various ad writers and Selina Martin knows how to play a deadpan head turn and then astonishes with a killer set of pipes.

Director Amiel Gladstone not only stages the various songs and odd assortment of characters in fluid but always eye-catching way – he also doesn’t let his actors mock the people they play. They bring great truth to the characters so that makes the laughs richer.

Veda Hille and Barry Mirichnick play live on stage and take on roles and songs as well. The songs by Ms. Hille are special creations stylized so sometimes they are Brechtian and other times show tunes and always witty and engaging.

I sometimes cry at theatre because I am moved by the story. As the cast sang and joked and danced (although no choreographer is listed – wtf?) I was socaptured when they busted out instruments I whispered an astonishment ‘no way’ and my eyes teared with delight.

Who knew that a bunch of Craigslist ads could be so entertaining? The audience laughed loud and long and the show received not one but two standing ovations. It’s funny but it’s more – because the wonderfully needy and abrasively weird people they portrayed are real, they are us.

Talking about holding up a mirror to society. Bravo! Great idea very well done.

Gunmetal Blues by The Vancouver Playhouse

Until February 4^th

The Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company performs at a building called The Vancouver Playhouse. It’s weird because they are not the same thing. The building is owned by the city and the company was (is?) British Columbia’s ‘Regional Theatre.’ The building was built years ago and it was clearly built by someone who did not truly understand what performing artists and audiences need.

Deep in the basement with no easy access from the outside is a finished – recital hall (?)  Years ago when I worked at the Playhouse – they tried to hold rehearsals there but the odd ventilation and tiny stage made it not conducive. We also had a reception there once but the room felt confined and restrictive.

But 20 years since I worked there the space it is brought back to life. Artistic Director Max Reimer has staged a very droll private eye musical called Gunmetal Blues by Marion Adler and Richard March.

A world-weary detective played with sardonic charm by Andrew Wheeler (“Don’t let the trench coat fool you, I was expecting rain.”) is asked by a mysterious blonde played by the stunningly talented Megan Gardiner to help find a wayward heiress. A lot of the action takes place at the Red Light Lounge, one of those bars in one of those hotels out by the airport.

Red Light’s resident piano player is Buddy Toupee played by the delightfully surprising Tom Arntzen. I have known the tall and handsome Tom as a piano player but who knew he was such a fun actor. Like Ms. Gardiner he has to play about 6 different characters and each was a funny creation.  A little clichéd as fitting the throwback script but fully embodied. A little like watching the variety show sketches from the 80’s tv shows, only really funny.

The show is fun – the all white cast sings and acts with inventive charm. The concept of doing a late night show in the basement of a civic building has paid off. The place was packed and appreciative. So much talent and so much fun in a ‘my dad has a barn’ type of place but please no more setting scenes on the floor. The stage is small and I was in the fifth row. On the floor scenes were impossible to see. But then again this space was not designed for theatre – oh and it got really warm with all those people in there.

Gunmetal Blues was fun and tuneful script played by great artists in an odd place. I am glad I experienced it and recommend it. Sit close and wear light clothes.

Joyously

David C. Jones

middle aged fag

Westcoast Ambassador

Glory Days by The Boys Upstairs Equity Co-op

Until January 28^th

Four high school buddies re-unite one year after graduating only to discover they have grown apart and in different ways.

They were high school losers who didn’t make the football team and so outcast and different they became besties.

  This is a 90-minute musical and that features 4 handsome and healthy men singing a pop-rock soundtrack (in the style of RENT) with passion and energy. The all white cast is dynamic with Brandyn Eddy as Skip bringing laidback seriousness and Colin Sheen as Andy provides laughs with his frat boy high-jinx.

There is not much plot – there is a prank they might pull on the football guys and things get a little dramatic when Jack (played with winsome dignity by Darren Burkett) comes out to the others.

Speaking as the writer’s voice is the always-riveting Adam Charles as Will – the young man who re-unites them.

Directing Sara-Jeanne Hosie keeps the show moving along with precise choreographed flourishes and light and fun energy.  The four-piece band lead by Nico Rhodes rocked!

Being a middle-aged fag – the thought of listening to a bunch twenty-year olds whining about how tough life is not normally my idea of a good time but I found myself enjoying the boy’s athleticism and fun and even got a little choked up at one point. These are great musical actors is a decent showcase.

Check out their voices on the link above.

Red by the Vancouver Playhouse

Until February 4^th

I love being moved by live performance – sitting in a theatre with a bunch of strangers watching other strangers pretending to be other strangers is a thrilling experience for me. If the show touches me emotionally – whether it be the truthfulness of the actors, the inventiveness of the direction or design or the insight provided by the writers – I consider it a good show. If it shakes me emotionally, makes me ponder, than that is a better show.

Red by John Logan is about a young artist who has come to work for Mark Rothko an American Expressionistic painter from the 1950’s. The younger artist, Ken – is a figment of the playwright’s imagination…

(I should first say – I am not very educated and not well versed in matters in visual art or the written word so I am saying my impressions and assumptions and may reveal myself a fool.)

Ken represents the future and the real world. He at first admires and then belittles the great artist, turns his own words against him and as he finds his own voice – he starts to drown out and consume the veteran artist, like the black edges of the red paintings he has been commissioned to make for the Four Season’s restaurant in the Seagram’s Building.

The staging by David Boechler is gorgeous – Mark Rothko’s studio is revealed within a giant cube – much like how he and his contemporaries emerged from the cubist movement. Alan Brodie’s lighting is shifting and evolving like the brush strokes in a great work. The music by Andy Creeggan is supportive and light, not overly pushy or manipulative.

Jim Mezon as Rothko is so bombastic and raw you feel his heart being stretched as he questions his fall from relevance.  David Coomer as Ken brings honesty and fire to the young protégé. Kim Collier’s direction of the all white cast and the whole production is assured and artful. She is sublime.

I was left questioning what is the significance of artists – who sometimes think their work is immortal and their worth immeasurable. Are they merely a reaction and distraction of the time they exist in, to be replace by something younger and brighter? As a bit of an artist myself I found the experience sobering and bracing.

Red is art.

Duet for One by United Players

Until February 12^th

When you see a show or a work of art you always look at it through your filters, your experiences, your beliefs. The same goes for me of course but sometimes when people are critics of art they take on (or are given) an all-knowing stature. I do not claim that and try to be up front about my filters.

Duet for One by Tom Kempinski was written in 1980 and has be re-mounted numerous times around the world and was made into a 1986 movie starring Julie Andrews.

Stephanie is a successful and well off violinist who is struggling with Multiple Sclerosis. Her husband has suggested she see a psychiatrist to help her process the feelings of suffering from this terminal illness that has already robbed her of the ability to play her beloved violin.

    I was the caregiver for my mother who struggled with Lou Gehrig’s Disease – there were moments in the play when I burst into tears, I sometimes imagined Stephanie’s lines as my mothers – who was robbed of her voice.

In the play Stepanie plays games as she avoids or tries to control her disease, she lies to herself and manipulates and rebuffs her therapist.

Alison Raine is stunning as Stephanie, cruel elitist, compassionate artist, plucky survivor and pathetic victim. There is so much ‘in the moment’ truth in her performance that I could not take my eyes off her. She is not afraid to show the ugly side of the character and that makes her journey compelling.

Graham Bullen as the German doctor is quiet and composed but reveals that the doctor is truly trying to help the patient despite her insistence that he is only after the money.

The production looks handsome as designed by Sean Malmas, Amy McDougall and Jordan Watkins. Director John Murphy guides the all white cast with an empathetic and assured hand.

There is great heart and passion here. The ball drops in a few spots and the ending surprisingly did not lift me or devastate me. But that may be more to my filters rather than the fault of the writing or the production.

I admired but was not changed by Duet for One – but that may be because my first hand experience will terminal illness cannot compete with fiction.

I hope their is art and love in your life.

The live Tops & Bottoms show celebrates it’s 200th perfromance on Monday January 30th.

So proud and so happy.

David C. Jones

West Coast Ambassador

Okay – now since I have been reviewing shows all year long – time to go back through the list and see what were the Top Ten.

These are the shows that either got my heart pumping, my toes tapping, my tears flowing and/or my imagination soaring. They served as a warning or inspired me to hope. These are the ones upon re-reading my reviews provoked memories that are fond and dear.

1) The Light In The Piazza – stunning visually a musical that I went in with low expectations and left incredible moved.

“And Katey Wright is simply phenomenal as the mother. Protective and tortured, sweet but sharp she captures her hope for her daughter to live a normal life and her fear for her safety. The character becomes more complex as you also realize her own relationship is on the rocks.

The whole cast is great and as if I could not be more effusive – they also embraced diversity in casting!!!”

2) Jesus Hopped The ‘A’ Train – bracing and shocking – a religious play that didn’t preach. Some of the best acting of the year.

“As it unfolded I pulled into the world and cared deeply as the lawyer negotiated ways to try the get Angel out of jail and Lucius tries to convert him into accepting God more fully into his life. Robert Olguin is a new actor in town and he was explosive and rage filled while being naive and lost. It was a riveting performance that frightened you but made you want to hug him at the same time.”

3) August Osage County – I have never heard an audience gasp so much as each dirty secret was revealed. Bravo actors and director Janet Wright.

“The show is hilarious – I have never laughed so hard at family dysfunction and then the thrilling roller coaster weaves and suddenly you are hit in the solar plexus as stunned tears fill your eyes. It is cruel, hopeful and unlike anything I have seen before.”

4) Death of A Salesman – a masterful tragedy that didn’t shy away from showing the dark or strong/wrong headedness of people.

“Tom McBeath is dynamic as the worn out but hopeful Willy Loman, fire and anger one minute and sad groveling the next. Bob Fraser and Kevin K. James are heart breaking in different ways as the sons Biff and Happy, whose heads have been filled with stories of glory. Mr, Fraser breaks your heart as we see his life force drain from him when he uncovers a sordid truth and Mr. James is all hopeful glances and tiny smiles as the mostly ignored son.”

5) Jake’s Gift –  Julia MacKay charmed me in this stunning one person show.

“There is also a great sense of the theatrical in the staging – already as the actress transforms rapidly from character to character in conversation. But there are moments like the putting on or taking off of a coat that a captivating and the riveted silence as the action happened is a testament to Ms. Mackey’s commitment to her characters.”

6) After Jerusalem – an impossible love story built on lies – but the need was so great that you hoped it would work out.

“What a lovely, funny and touching show!  If you want an early Christmas treasure we have here an engaging story, dynamic actors and stunning production design that stirs your heart, makes you laugh and gives you hope.”

7) Ride The Cyclone – this thoroughly original Canadian gothic musical about dead teenagers had me listening to the musical samples on their web-site over and over.

“What an amazing and original ride! The visuals complete with projections, LED lights and puppets are simple and powerful. The costumes including rock gods and bass playing rats are fun and the songs are evocative. Its weird and hilarious and a little heart wrenching.”

8 ) The Penelopiad – this was an unusual looking show to see at the big Stanley Theatre and I was riveted by the feminist story and delighted by the diversity in casting. Meg Roe is crazy good.

“10 of Vancouver’s best actresses play the maids and all the other characters in this beautifully talented and fully diverse cast. Quelemia Sparrow, Ming Hudson, Rachel Aberle, Sarah Donald, Lopa Sircar , Dawn Petten, Laara Sadiq, Lois Anderson, Megan Leitch and Colleen Wheeler all sing and move and shift in and out of character with such assurance that my eyes danced around the stage not wanting to miss any of their performances.”

9) Hard Times Hit Cabaret – over stuffed with creativity, this theatrical experience was at times bracing in it’s humanity and a part awe-inspiring in it’s artistry.

“The show is giddy, bizarre delightful queer friendly with a lesbian couple competing and bluesy drag number. The band Maria In The Shower are wildly energetic (the trumpet player climbs up the stand up bass in one number) and many of the audience stayed to party with the cast after the show.

The Hard Times Hit Parade is youthful creative explosion of art and fun. Treat yourself to this unique night out.”

10) Eurydice – an unexpected work by a new visionary director Missy Cross.

“It is truly without reservation that I say this… odd play by Sarah Ruhl based on The Myth of Orpheus … is an artistic triumph with astonishing performances and breathtaking stage images. Joey Bothwell as Eurydice has genuine warmth and great comedic timing. When her character has her memory erased by the Stones in the Underworld – her naive and petulant curiosity is both funny and heart breaking. Michael Barry Anderson creates a wonderful megalomaniac as the Lord of the Underworld – imposing yet childish, erotic and ridiculous; he oozes sadistic desire as Eurydice begs for mercy.”

Other shows that moved me were Next To Normal – rocking musical, Little Orange Man – delightfully interactive and Comedy of Errors – stunning design (addition) Falling In Time – uniquely sexual.

Diversity on Vancouver stages is still dramatically at odds with the cities demographics. My heart is always saddened when we seem to imply to our audiences that theatre in this town is a white man’s game.   Of the 50 or so shows I saw this year only 10 (or so) had any color in the cast. Only 4 had color when not prescribed by the script.

Here’s hoping this turns around in the New Year.

Joyously

David C. Jones – Middle Age Fag

West Coast Ambassador

Time for my annual list of notable queers who made an impact on the community and on me – you may not recognize all the names but they are all uber cool. But that’s just my opinion.

Also since this is my third annual list I should clarify there are no repeats (sorry Glen) – so for continuity sake I will post a role call at the bottom of the page.

So here they are in random order –

Pussy Willow – one of Vancouver’s most talented drag artists, she writes her own songs and also learned how to play the Theremin, getting international exposure for her digital X-mas Cards.

Aedan Saint – took over Queer FM out at UBC and has really made it into a funky little radio program, politics, pop culture, chat and music. He also endured a very troubling family crisis that had some of the community holding it’s breath only to sigh with relief a week later.

Greg Armstrong-Morris – I have always adored this flamboyant and heartfelt actor since seeing him in a local production of Hedwig and then directing him in Ruthless. But it was his Brava performance in an uneven La Cage Aux Folles where I knew he was a star. Thankfully his mom encouraged “Better to be typecast than not cast.”

Barb Snelgrove – Mega mouth – she is smart and a hard worker and a boisterous personality who livens up any event she is at. The only thing I love more that seeing her hosting an event – is to be co-hosting with her.

Jason Karman – an inspiring film maker who knows what he is doing – won best short at this years Queer Film Festival for his sublime and witty In The Mood For Love. Now he is about to undertake his first queer feature, Yung Men. I can’t wait.

Ellen Woodsworth – a great city councilor who has served the Vancouver community well be being the social conscious. Shame on Occupy Vancouver for not getting their 99% together enough to get the vote out to keep her or any of the left leaning COPE party in power, they were all wiped out by the big-money supported parties.

Ross Johnstone – the head of the Out In Schools films series at Out On Screen has expanded the reach of the amazing program and also gone national with the anti-homophobia PSA contest. He also endured right wing attacks against the program that he handled with diligence and a smile.

Andrea Hector-Brown – a great musician and composer, she also graphically documented her pregnancy attempt in a short film and started a revealing blog when her long time partner started the transition from FTM. Read “I am straight now” and other entries and wonder at her candor.

Chris Gatchalian – poet and playwright who works with Sean Cummings at Screaming Weenie Productions. I sometimes get lost in his words but the really cool thing is his last show Falling In Time was embraced by a community who reveled in seeing Asian characters who were sexualized not functionary or stereotypical. I loved it for that too.

Bill Taylor – a friend and the new show manager for the live version of Tops & Bottoms – he has galvanized The Bobbers and developed new improv games like Gay Scale and Ultimate Gay Coaster. I wish Out TV would do a new season of our TV show – the queer improvisers are ten times funnier and with Bill’s work ‘gayer’.

Here are the past notables in my eyes. You will have to look at old blog postings or Google them to see why.

2010 – Romi Chandra-Herbert, Morgan Brayton, Glen Callender, Ryan Clayton, Fatima Jaffer, Sean Horlor, Cameron D.F. Mackenzie, Bill Siksay, Terry Costa, Bobby Love, Robin Perelle and a dedication to Denis Simpson.

2009 – Spencer Chandra-Herbert, Malaika Millions, Dean Nelson & Ken Coolen, Stephen Mulligan, Stephen Dang, Danny Enright, Michael V. Smith, Dianna David & Ryan Steele & Peter Breeze, Drew Dennis, Vancouver Film School Students.

Cheers Queers on the New Year!

Joyously

David C. Jones

In the holiday season many arts groups present shows to celebrate or capitalize on the spirit of celebration.

In Vancouver there are two re-mounts of Christmas shows past – White Christmas and Patron Saint of Stanley Park that are quite popular (although I fail to see why really). I have already reviewed the other big shows La Cage Aux Folles and Blood Brothers, so here four other diverse holiday offerings.

The Nutcracker by The Goh Ballet

A cast of two hundred dancers brings to life Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky fairytale ballet. It has been years since I have seen it and this production warmed my heart. I have been feeling cynical and suspicious in this world of environmental disaster and corporate greed but seeing little kids dressed as mice skittering about on tip toe made me giggle with joy.

Watching the exquisite and athletic men in tights got me to perk up, then when drag queen Symone came out in a 12 foot high dress as Mother Ginger I was beaming. But my sad and harden heart was completely lifted with the kids came out dressed as sheep and did four hops in unison. I was a puddle of joy.

It was an opulent and whimsical event and the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra was in fine form. Choreographer Anna-Marie moves the diverse and large cast around the stage in stunning movements and tableau’s.

Speaking of diverse cast – there is a part of the ballet where a bunch of cultural exotica is on display as Indian, Mexican, Japanese and Russian guest arrive and dance – thankfully the ‘aren’t foreigners exotic’ aspect is toned down by having at least some of the dancers be racially appropriately cast and their ethnicity is not over played or exaggerated for laughs.

The Nutcracker was delightfully fun and dazzling.

A Child’s Christmas In Wales, In Concert by RAPproductions

I have never been a fan of Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas In Wales – I have a childhood dread of the monotonous and over told words being spoken clearly and with such importance so I don’t miss anything but don’t take in anything either.

This adaptation directed by Michael Fera is performed by some of the city’s finest older actors. The show is framed with the device that they are forgotten street people gathering to tell each other stories.

The design of the simple show is delicate but effective. Glenn MacDonald has a bench, a few bare trees and a street persons cart to work with and he does with great skill. Sean Malmas does a wonderful job with the lighting going from stark reality of the present to the flashes of color as the storytellers explore memories of the past. Actor Doug Cameron also design the costumes and the gold and red patchwork transformed the actors with a sense of hominess and whimsy.

The all white cast were delightful and charming but some were talking at us with earnest enthusiasm as opposed to pulling us into their stories. I found piano player Dave Clothier the most consistently compelling.

So I survived another trip to Wales and felt warm and fuzzy if a little sentimental.

The other two shows I saw this Christmas season were both advertised as comedies. Both were original creations making their debut and will likely be work shopped further in the future. One was a Christmas show and the other was just whimsy.

Comedy needs to be about something. The basis of most comedy routines or jokes is one of four things: you know what’s weird, hard, stupid or scary.  Comedy needs a point of view and an opinion. It also has to have some foothold in truth or at least be relatable to the human experience, so the audience can buy into the story.

Plots need to have a protagonist who has a goal they are trying to achieve and an antagonist to push against them by having conflicting goals. Then new details and breaking the routine add complexity and will make us wonder where the journey will take us. Never do or say the same thing twice and if you set up too simple a conflict and too superficial a main character the audience will reach the conclusion long before your script does.

Christmas Crackers by better than ttee Vy productions

Jane Humphries is a grumpy office worker, possibly from the future because everyone is this office talks to a computer that seems sentient. She is fowl and the interchangeable co-workers just smile and shake their heads. They leave and she is trapped in the office by the computer but them some magic Christmas Crackers allow her to sometimes jump into the past and sometimes jump into other parts of the building. It’s never clear why.

The all white cast were cute up until when on donned a mask and did an offensive Chinese character name Sing Song who was mentally challenged or stupid because whenever someone called her by name she would forget it was her name and sing a song.

There was a naïve charm but with comedy – if the joke or the scene is not making you laugh in rehearsal – it’s not going to make the audience laugh in performance, as was the case the night I attended.  Actors were not playing their given circumstances and were randomly moved around the stage sometimes in odd geometric patterns.  Things like a talking Santa Bot (so we are in the future?) and forgotten animatronics in the basement just unfolded and stopped without effecting Jane or the story or sadly most of the audience. Some of the puppets were cool though.

Another truism in story telling is you can say or do anything as long as you justify it in a reasonably plausible manner, why?

If you are creating a world of magic of fantasy, make sure that the main characters are still easy to relate to (look how moving a animated film about a flying house was in UP – it had real complex emotions that carried us through the wonder of the talking dogs and extinct birds etc.) If it is a world of fantasy or magic we need to know the rules and there needs to be risk. Kryptonite always kills Superman, you can never get Gremlins wet. When we know the rules we will follow the story and when there is risk to the rules we will feel tension.

Super Hero Boy Band

There are moments of wild artistry and fun stagecraft as should be expected by a show that has Dusty Flower Pot alumni in it. Right at the beginning giant sperm hats shoot out of doorway atop of three actors who dance and run through the audience and then perform a hilarious choreographed dance with three large inflated ‘eggs’.

The resulting babies are given super powers and they also play in a boy band. Not really sure why. There is a big concert coming up and there is a threat of terrorism at the new Collosaleum. The boys might find the terrorists or they might do their concert or they might do neither. They might do the concert in their super hero costumes or they might not.

There are two songs and some fun set pieces including a cool magic trick that are fun diversions but the story line meanders and contains very little in the way of surprises in it’s current form. When the band breaks up at the end of act one, you know they will come together and perform at the big show by the end of Act Two.

But the all white cast looked great in their tights so this makes it lovely holiday season diversion.

I look forward to seeing the second draft of both Christmas Crackers and Super Hero Boy Band.

All the best to you this holiday season! Up next the Top Ten Local Queers of 2011!

Joyously

David C. Jones

After Jerusalem by Solo Collective Theatre

Until December 11^th

What a lovely, funny and touching show!  If you want an early Christmas treasure we have here an engaging story, dynamic actors and stunning production design that stirs your heart, makes you laugh and gives you hope.

Carol is a middle-aged teacher who likes to pretend she is someone else while on vacation and if she can indulge in a holiday tryst, even better. This year she has come to Israel and when visiting Jerusalem she meets a younger Russian Solider working the security check.

They chat and joke and when she lies and says she is a Canadian actress who knows Ryan Reynolds  (“The Green Lantern!?!” he exclaims) – he reveals he is want-to-be writer. Their interest in each other grows for different reasons and since they are both telling stories the relationship they develop is built on un-stable ground.

The all white cast is spectacular. Deborah Williams is one of the warmest and wittiest actresses in town and she breaks your heart while she cracks you up. I have always admired Andrew McNee but he makes Valdimir so giddily passionate with a dangerous sexuality of someone who has seen the horrors of war that you want to hug him or fuck him.

Rachel Peake has directed this handsome production with a striking simplicity. The thrust stage is used to great effect as she stages one of the actors far back and upstage and the other close and down stage. As their distance shrinks they interact more and more on the tiny 12 x 12 platform in front of us. The set and light design Itai Erdal is stark and evocative.

We all are capable of lying to improve our odds whether it is for a job on in the name of love. As these mismatched lovers start to inter-change their lies for some truths you start to hope this impossible affair will last in the violence prone Middle East. Thoroughly engaging – this is an unexpected holiday treasure.

La Cage Aux Folles by The Vancouver Playhouse

Until December 24^th

It’s rather gaudy but it’s also rather grand, but just barely. I love this script – I saw a touring production years ago when my then boyfriend bought us tickets and we sat centre row 12 and I was dazzled by the songs and dancing and the production values and it was GAY! This was about 15 – maybe even 20 years ago and I don’t think it was just love that dazzled me.

I also love this producing company and this director and the leads and these designers – so maybe my expectations were perhaps too high but on opening night something went horribly wrong, as we were welcomed to the notorious drag club in gay Paris where life is lived on an angle. We almost slid right off,

Based on a French play from the 1970’s that was made into a movie (that spawned two sequels) and then was adapted into a Broadway Musical in 1983 and was in the 90’s turned into an Americanized non-musical called The Birdcage, La Cage Aux Folles obviously has some popular appeal.

A gay couple, one a club promoter and the other the star drag queen Za Za – have their lives turned upside down when their son proposes to the daughter of an ultra conservative homophobe Minster of Morality. Jean-Michael wants the drag queen that raised him like a son for 20 years to disappear when the in-laws come to visit.

In a modern Canadian context the son seems rather petty and cruel but when it was written – a less enlightened time – the plot seemed reasonably plausible, although it was still slight.

La Cage Aux Folles the musical was also one of the last dance spectacular musicals before AIDS cut a swath through the Broadway choreographers of the early 80’s. The dances helped distract from the simplicity of the script. La Cagelles – the other drag queens in the club – did dazzling routines that delighted and astounded as we jumped from number after sentimental but powerful numbers like Ann On My Arm and Song On The Sand. Or comedic pieces like Masculinity and Dishes. This was Jerry Herman’s last great score and a chance to prove he was one of the greats having had a couple of bombs after Hello Dolly and Mame.

As I mentioned – and I am really going on – but I am so shocked but what happened on opening night – something went wrong in this production at least on that night. I am not sure what. The set was underwhelming, the Cagelles, played by local drag queens did not dance as so much struck poses and some of the cast seemed distracted performing under level and in one case screwing up the words in one of my favorite songs Look Over There.

Thankfully there were two actors in this diverse cast that made the show very  ‘grand’. Vincent Tong popped and stole every scene he was in as the maid/butler Jacob. Then there is the always-surprising Greg Armstrong-Morris as Za Za/Albin. Dynamic and funny when he sang the joyous and hopeful The Best Of Times I was beaming and clapped my hands and when he belted out the gay anthem I Am What I Am I started crying partly because he was so moving but also partly because he saved the show.

Tis the season for treats and disappintments.

Joyously

David C. Jones

The 13^th Chair  by Studio 58

Until December 4^th

Get a wiggle on to the Crosby homestead – they have invited all their friends to grab a laugh at an séance by Madame La Grange. The Crosby’s son has just told his parents that he is going to marry that crazy dame Helen, but oh rot! family friend Edward Wales warns against it.

The 13^th Chair was written 95 years ago by Bayard Veillier and was made into a movie three times in the 20’s and 30’s. A whodunit, it was originally played straight but here director Sarah Rodgers sends up the material so that it is tongue in cheek comic mayhem.

With music cues and wild line deliveries she and cast have mined every inch of the material for laughs. But there is depth in the portrayals as well. Knowing that just big and loud would fatigue the audience Ms. Rodgers helps the performers ground their choices.

Kazz Leskard is the detective who arrives when Wales is found stabbed after the séance – elicits an early laugh by demanding “Who did this?” with such conviction that he will get an answer it’s hysterical. It’s not a bit of comedy business, it’s a strong big character choice.

As the giddy medium La Grange – Cheyenne Mabberly is fussy and naughty and a delight to watch. As her daughter, Emily Henney is heightened naïveté and a sexy imp. With great voices and silly personifications Andrea Houssin and Joel Ballard sing songs and dance at the top & tails of the acts adding to the theatricality.

Sometimes directors with vision come to Studio 58 – the theatre-training program at Langara College – and they can’t get all the actors on side.  It is a testament to not only her vision but also her communication skills that Ms. Rodgers gets great and consistent performances out of all her diverse cast.

Sure there was no way to really guess who the murderer was – it’s one of those mysteries where it could have been anyone, but man o’ man my companion and I could not stop giggling and smiling! I don’t mean to get in such lather about this production but it was gosh darn fun!

Blood Brothers by The Arts Club Theatre

Until December 31^st

I have seen this show twice and frankly I don’t get it. I thought the first production was obvious and melodramatic but it was a community theatre production so the only reason I went to this new production was because of the pedigree of the artists involved. Great cast, great directors (there were two), great production team – and I still don’t get the appeal of the show.

The premise as written by Willy Russell is that a lower class English mother, after already birthing 6 kids has found out she has twins on the way. A rich but barren English lady she cleans house for suggests she gives one of the kids to her. So one grows up rich and one grows up poor.

Oh wait – first the narrator says at the beginning that two twins are going to be born and they are going to die. Hhhmmmm, so we know how it will end.

Ignoring that, fate would have it even though separated the twins become best friends and even as they grow and move that keep being re-united and despite the different social classes remain friends.  We are told over and over one is poor and hard done by and the other is rich and well off and that they are both doomed.

The show was original suppose to be a children’s’ show which explains it’s overly simplified plot. The songs aren’t reprised so much as repeated over and over. The song ‘Marilyn Monroe’ s chorus became so annoying that every time I heard a ‘oh’ at the end of a sentence I prayed they would surprise me by saying Bridget Bardot instead.

In a good musical if you remove a song the plot would fall apart – for example if you remove “You Are Sixteen” from The Sound of Music – Rolf’s betrayal would not hurt as much. I think you can remove any song from Blood Brothers and you would still get it. Being poor sucks and the twins are going to die in the name of class injustice.

That said however this production is first rate and the cast is dynamite. Terra C. Macleod wisely plays Mrs. Johnstone desire for survival rather than pitying her lot in life, which makes her compelling to watch. Adam Charles, Shane Snow as the twins and Lauren Bowler as the friend who eventually drives a wedge between them – are spectacularly funny and touching as they have to age from 7 to mid twenties.

The whole cast are pitch perfect really and kudos to Sara-Jeanne Hosie and Bob Fraser for mining so much truth and strong choices out of underwhelming material.

One thing – and people who read my regular column here will see it coming – this show is mostly taking place urban England and it’s a cast of 12 many playing multiple parts. I had no idea that part of Europe was so very white (and heterosexual to boot).

The band lead by Sasha Niechoda is tight and the set by Ted Roberts is great. The choreography also by the dynamic Sara-Jeane Hosie is fresh and fun but to what end? For people who like their stories plainly laid out for them and who don’t like surprises Blood Brothers is likely perfect.

On opening night the audience leapt to its feet with wild applause many with tears in their eyes I am sure, so obviously it touches many. Maybe I am becoming temperamental with age?

The Tempermentals by Fighting Chance Productions

Until December 3^rd

As queer Canadians, as queers in general, we have been denied our history. I think this is lamentable and I ravenously devour anything that sheds light on our past.  Thankfully John Marans has taken a part of American queer history and brought it to life.

Although a Radical Faerie myself (barely, and don’t ask me my Faerie name – or I would have to kill you) I knew very little about founder Harry Hay. This show charts his involvement with queer activism BS – Before Stonewall – in the late 40’s and 50’s.

This is important, barely documented stuff. It’s history and it bears our attention, but sadly this production knows it. What I mean is, sometimes when doing classic or historical works actors can allow themselves to be weighed down by the importance of it and become precious with the material.

Director Ryan Mooney allows(?) his actors to speak so methodically that the delivery becomes precise and laborious. Rarely do they speak naturally. Every period is given its space and then after a pause the next line is delivered. There is no passion and discovery. Some of the actors also overindulge in emotion trying to make themselves cry and often stoically staring into the middle distance. It is a more interesting choice to see someone fighting against an emotion rather than wallowing in it.

Of the all white cast of five only Rob Monk gives himself moments of spontaneity and truthful reaction. Actually Devin Pihlanian is quite alive in the scene where he plays Harry Hays hurt wife Ethel.

This is an important mostly unknown moment in queer history but what drove these men to step forward when the world was against them, where is the joy, the pent up lust, the hope – all we get is noble posturing. I wish this production found the same fire and lust for life that the brave members of the Mattachine Society had.

In other news – it is important for Canadians to see all the awesome talent in our Canadian film industry before the Americans consume us even more. Reel Canada is a unique project that brings Canadian Films into high schools engages the kids in conversations with the directors, writers and actors.

I was fortunate to be a facilitator for two screenings the other day a John Oliver Senior Secondary – the films were Fido paired with the short Evelyn and in the afternoon the devastating documentary The Corporation.

It was thrilling seeing the films through the eyes of the youth. Not only is it promoting film but it is sparking conversation about the social issues raised. Great program – lets hope Reel Canada grows.

Hope you are well Queer Canada.

Love

David C. Jones

The weather is changing and so is the world. There is bit of anxiety and worry in the air and the theatre is turning to more serious fare. But there appears to be a trade-off. The very very good Re:Union is not getting great attendance and the same is true for many of the shows in town.

Maybe it’s just the weather – Vancouverites are very sensitive to cold and rainy weather. I am originally from Ontario and bad weather never stopped us from going out but Vancouverites hide when it’s cold and rainy.

Most times reviewers attend opening night and that night is papered with VIPS and others who all got complimentary tickets. Some times I cannot attend and I go on another night. (I don’t get paid for this blog so I take paid work where I can).

Greg MacArthur’s play Snowman is a dramatic piece about isolation and loneliness and on the night I attended there were only 14 people in the 200-seat theatre.

Snowman by Rumble Productions

Until November 19^th

Craig Hall directs this remount on the Snowman – he directed it 8 years ago and now as he leaves Vancouver and Rumble Productions he present a bigger and better production.

The story is about a slacker couple Denver and Marjorie who just one day picked a direction and traveled. Then end up north in a small isolated community and rent videos from their house and smoke a lot of weed.

One day a young gay man named Jude stops by to borrow some German porn. Jude is a tragic character whose parents abandoned him in this remote community. Jude becomes smitten with Denver but that crush is replaced when Jude finds a young man frozen in the ice and identifies with the stuck preserved fossil until it becomes an obsession.

The actors are fantastic – Derek Metz is a goofy loveable stoner and you can see why Jude would be attracted to this older man. Kathleen Duborg is heartbreaking as the girlfriend barely hanging on to her sanity and tells us she dreams of being cut open and gutted. The multi award winning Charlie Gallant makes Jude’s naïve confusion heartbreaking. His neediness is for connection and love is quietly determined in that he never expects it but won’t keep trying.

Rounding out the all white cast is the always-delightful Anna Cummer as a horny archeologist who arrives to see if the frozen boy has value.

The production is gorgeously designed with a fantastic live soundtrack created and played by Robert Perrault and the writing is poetic and with strong imagery. The characters directly to the audience narrate most of the story and it actually had a distancing effect. My friend who is not a regular theatre patron nor is he versed in the performing arts said he liked the show but it felt like he was invited to a house but only allowed in the doorway.

That might be why the show is not gathering mass appeal.

The Priory by United Players

Until December 4^th

United Players is a community theatre company that has a great reputation for choosing adult plays that appeal to the intelligentsia of the neighborhood (upper and upper middle class as well as university folks). Not only are their audiences attracted to their shows but they also attract a large number of respected directors and recent theatre school graduates hoping to expand on their training with some challenging fare.

Michael Wynne wrote The Priory and it enjoyed a sold out run at the Royal Court Theatre in England in 2009 and won Best New Comedy at the Olivier Awards.

This production directed by Kevin Bennett is only part way successful. The story is about some upwardly mobile 30-somethings who re-unite for a New Years Eve party at Monastery that has been converted into an upscale vacation home. They all work in arts related fields as TV actors, writers and architects each trying to prove their worth by their successes in the chosen field.

It is long before we find out people who work in the field of fantasy and fabrication can sometimes delude themselves.

The enjoyment as scripted is to see these fantastically artistic people behaving badly and then watch as the booze and drugs bring their world crashing down.

But the director allows almost all of his diverse and young cast to feel sorry for themselves from the get go – there is no artifice of happiness. There are no surprises or reveals. Also he allows too many of them to scream their lines.  Some were pushing so hard and jutting their jaws so much that it forces you to lean back away from the show.

The only really successful portrayals were Gordon Myren as the wildly well off and impulsive Ben and his fiancée Laura played Genevieve Flemming who brought real wit to her airhead creation.

The gay best friend character (isn’t there always a gay best friend in these ensemble pieces) was played by James Elston and he was the only Brit at the party without an accent.

Part of the challenge I am sure was how to find levels while the characters are drunk and high.

Comedy is hard – it’s delicate, you can’t underline the jokes and stamp all over the rhythms. It needs high stakes and truth but it must be played on its heels in a relaxed way.

But that’s just my opinion.

Also just saw the fascinating documentary about AIDS in the 80’s in the heart of San Francisco,  We Were Here. Well worth seeing and bring a young person with you so they can understand the history of this terrible disease.

That’s it from the West Coast. Go see something.

David C. Jones

There is something happening this season in the arts scene in Vancouver. The actors, designers and directors have really been inspired and are bring such imaginative and quality work to the stage. Perhaps it is all the uncertainty in these modern times that is making us create and crave beauty in performance arts or maybe artistic directors are just picking some challenging pieces – but whatever the reason, I have never been so happy to be the West Coast Ambassador for OUT TV so I can experience such wonders.

The Penelopiad by the Arts Club Theatre

Until November 20th

Exquisite. Meg Roe is the talented anchor in this dreamlike show that takes the audience on powerful odyssey. Canadian literary icon Margaret Atwood adapted her own short story into a play that tells the Greek tale of Odysseus from his wife Penelope’s point of view.
The graceful queen tells us her story from Hades where she is haunted by the 12 hand maidens her husband hanged while she slept. He believed them to be traitors and disloyal while he was on his 20-year adventure involving The Trojan Horse and other wars and adventures.
With wit and a regal air Meg Roe is a commanding presence play the half sprite half queen and her tortured soul battles her practical wisdom in a heartbreaking portrayal. It is very hard to believe this is the same actress who played Honey in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
10 of Vancouver’s best actresses play the maids and all the other characters in this beautifully talented and fully diverse cast. Quelemia Sparrow, Ming Hudson, Rachel Aberle, Sarah Donald, Lopa Sircar , Dawn Petten, Laara Sadiq, Lois Anderson, Megan Leitch and Colleen Wheeler all sing and move and shift in and out of character with such assurance that my eyes danced around the stage not wanting to miss any of their performances.
Director Vanessa Porteous takes this sort of 60’s story theatre approach combined with a traditional Greek chorus making something surreal and modern. She expands on Ms. Atwood’s prose in a way that would seem highly pretentious in less capable hands. This is a director with vision. The stylized set and lights by Terry Gunvordahl is mostly hanging ropes (like the nooses that killed the maids) alternates whimsy and threat.
Bravo to Bill Millerd and the Arts Club Theatre for choosing this show. A Greek experimental feminist show is not an obvious fit with the 800 seat Stanley Theatre that often features more mainstreamed commercial fare. I hope that this witty and tragic tale pulls them in – those who go are in for powerful night.

How powerful? Well how great does a show have to be and how strong does an actress have to be to induce tears as the lights fade, even though we knew how the saga would end at the beginning of the night.
There is some mighty powerful theatre to be had at The Penelopiad and it’s a risk that rewards. And for the lesbian theatre-goer you get lots of girl on girl action when the ladies play the men.

Falling In Time by Screaming Weenie Theatre

Until November 12th
This is a powerful and poetic show that touches on themes ranging from war, abuse, coming out and abandonment. C. E. Gatchalian’s focuses on two men affected by the Korean War. A deluded gay veteran who how has stage 4 cancer and the Korean grandson of a man he shared affection with during the war.
The story jumps back and forth in time and countries as well as into memory and fantasy. Sometimes there is symbolism and imagery that becomes a little challenging to follow or connect directly with but luckily there is a strong heart in the person of Nelson Wong.
A confused immigrant taking English lessons and trying to not only sort out his feelings about his war torn country but also his feelings of homosexuality Nelson Wong fills the character Chang Hyun with such desire and confusion it is heartbreaking. He tries so hard to understand not only English but also his feelings that when he reaches some sad conclusions near the end of act two it packed an emotional punch.
Allan Morgan as the veteran Steve is tortured and desperate on the run from himself and his memories of the war. An amazing actor of great emotional depth Mr. Morgan once again proves his vulnerability here.
The rest of the diverse cast is the sweet and determined Kevin Kraussler as Jamie – abandoned son of Steve and eventual lover of Chang Hyun – just one of many coincidences in the show. Manami Hara is under utilized but does fine work as Eun Ha, the grandmother.

The show comes with a warning of male nudity and frankly it is a warning I don’t see often enough.
Director Sean Cummings has crafted a handsome and powerful work and although a little repetitive early on Falling In Time is a deeply moving experience.

A Note to Queer Event producers in clubs: Start On Time!

The excuse of – ‘we are waiting for more people to get here’ doesn’t wash. If you start at the time you say you will and they are late and miss part of the show – they will come on time the next time.

Think about it – they can get to work on time – they can get to the movie theatre on time, they can get to the theatre on time.
You have a chicken / egg situation – they come late to gay events because they know they are going to start late. Start on time and they will come in time.

I went to a gay cultural award show that had 8pm start time on the poster. The show did not start until 9:45pm. Unacceptable and unprofessional.

David C. Jones

There is some interesting cross-pollination going on in the arts scene in Vancouver. We have Ballet BC doing rock music with the Elton John tribute Love Lies Bleeding, the Vancouver Opera is doing musical theatre with their take on West Side Story and The Vancouver Playhouse is doing a dance piece called Tosca Café. Innovation or folly – well, risk taking should always be applauded even when the final results underwhelm.

Tosca Café by the Vancouver Playhouse

Until October 29^th

This work was created by the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco and then further developed by Theatre Calgary and The Vancouver Playhouse.  The two main creators Val Caniparoli and Carey Perloff wanted to bring 5 actors and 5 dancers together to create a piece. That’s a lot of artistic visionaries.

The setting is the historic Tosca Café and a man who buys the place shortly after World War 1. He keeps seeing a woman in red and gets quite angry whenever someone touches a black and white photo of her.

He is joined by a runaway orphan and then a petty criminal musician and we watch them age as the decades unfold in dance. Some of the dance moments are very striking and when the show started I was on the edge of my seat with anticipation. I wanted to know where this story was going to take me in its mostly wordless movement storytelling. But as it progressed I settled in my seat.

I have seen other movement based shows – two of my favorites were done at Studio 58 – Nocturne and The Company and the program notes and press release for this show keep evocating another work called The Overcoat, but those shows did not only dazzle my eyes and ears – they connected to my heart.

Tosca Café just felt like a history lesson of styles of dance and fashions as seen through the eyes of a café. I was also disturbed that when they got to the 1980’s and gay characters were introduced – one them succumbs to AIDS and we hear one of the few spoken words in the piece that Rudolf Nureyev has died of a mysterious illness.  I know it was historically accurate in the timeline, but I was a little shaken to suddenly see gay characters appear and then die.

The diverse cast was all very capable Dean Paul Gibson as the owner was commanding and tender. The hilariously nimble Peter Anderson made me laugh and all of the dancers were great and I think it was Nol Simonse who was doing some of the more contemporary moves that caught my eye, but all in all Tosca Cafe did not catch my heart.

RE:Union by Pacific Theatre & Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Theatre

Until November 12^th

Another artistic phenomenon brought on in part by economic necessity but has also fostered artistic cross-pollination is the co-pro. Artistic companies come together the present a piece they all believe has value and/or potential.

Actor and writer Sean Devine was compelled by the story of Norman Morrison – a Quaker who back on November 2, 1965 set himself on fire outside of the Pentagon with his one year old daughter by his side. He was protesting the Vietnam war and perhaps emulating the Buddist monk who famously set himself on fire.

Mr. Devine delves into the mysteries surrounding the motivation of the child being present – the family the survived was reluctant to speak of the incident and there was government and media spin placed on the incident that he had to rely on “part fact, part fiction with more than a little speculation.”

The show is visually spectacular, John Webber makes the odd space that is Pacific Theatre transform with live camera feeds, monolithic slabs that dance with video and light projections. A powerful sound design by Noah Drew compliments the brilliant videos and computer work by Jason H. Thompson.

The all white cast is also brilliant – Alexa Devine plays the grown up one year old with steely determination and conflicted emotions. She has come to Washington as an adult to confront Robert McNamara former Secretary of Defense and the man responsible for escalating the war. Andrew Wheeler does a remarkable job playing a strong man being eaten away from the inside by doubt. Evan Frayne plays the father in flashbacks with a thoughtful pain that makes you question – is he quietly sane or secretly insane.

Perhaps because all of the characters only know of each other from arm’s length – their journey together is intellectually stimulating but a little distancing emotionally. There is horror about how the American government works then and now and in act two there is an emotional bombshell that is heartbreaking. I never lost interest though and that is more to the story and how it was told not just the eye candy.

This is clearly a passionate writer who wanted to share an important story and attracted several other great artists who came together to help share it. There is much to applaud in that.

That’s it from this side Queer Canada.

David C. Jones

West Coast Ambassador

There has been so much happening in the performing arts that here are some quick recaps.

Circle Mirror Transformation by The Arts Club Theatre

Until October 22nd

This is a simple and nice story about decent people who come together and take an acting class in a small Vermont town. They are five fine folks who spend more time doing explorative acting exercises rather than learning parts in a script for a final presentation.

The all white cast is made up of some of the cities finest actors and the director is the wonderfully talented Nicola Cavendish. I think the idea was to show how ordinary people explore and get to know themselves and grow. They do odd acting exercises and it’s fun to watch them play flapping their arms and making silly noises or learning to hula-hoop. But they are just nice people doing fun things.

There are some lovely moments – Brian Linds having a soundless breakdown after being rejected by a girl he likes and Donna White warmly and compassionately re-telling the story of the youngest women in the class played by Emilee-Juliette Glyn-Jones.

As a teacher who in the past has worked with youth at risk I have seen the amazing ability of the performing arts to transform people and change lives. I have seen it with just regular folks as well. It is a wonderful and cathartic experience that touches and moves me. But this show did not. It was just nice.

The Never Say Ga Ga Inception by The Rock Comedy Experience

Until October 15th

This is like an epic crazy party with your super talented friends who decide to put on a show. They dress up as current celebrities and notables like Lady Ga Ga, Prime Minister Steven Harper and Betty White and sing covers of well-known top 40 songs backed by a great band. It’s controlled chaos as the audience is allowed to buy the cast drinks as they are performing and they can shout out “seamless” when they forget a line. They cheer the villains and hoot at the situations. It is like a cross of the Rocky Horror Show meets A British Panto.

It’s not really parody – the impressions are not pointed or really accurate and observations don’t go really beyond the obvious “did you know Betty White was really old” or “Charlie Sheen is a crazy”. But that is not point – it’s about celebrating fun talented people having fun and getting drunk as they do it on booze you are buying them.

There are some truly talented artists in the all white cast and they each get one big song. Dan Dumsha as Stephen Harper, his love of performing is backed by his strong voice and charismatic personality; he will make you want to vote Conservative. I also enjoyed the dynamic Jeff Laurin as Charlie Sheen. Really the whole cast is quite good and I am sure we will see more of them in the future.

The Crucible by Studio 58

Until October 16th

It’s all about the words. Arthur Miller’s frightening poignant play written over 30 years ago is still produced all over the world and I personally think it should be required viewing by everyone as it so ably shows how deadly the politics of fear and rhetoric can destroy lives. How people will turn on each other in the name of self-preservation and common sense and respect can easily be trampled.

The story is several young women – in an effort to save themselves from punishment – accuse others of being witches. The people they accuse are then tried and put to death although there is no evidence.

This production directed by veteran director Jane Heyman is mostly successful but it is the words that really soar. There are great performances and nice production values but Studio 58 is the professional theatre-training program and some of the students struggle a little in their roles. Professional actor and Studio graduate Anthony F. Ingram is brought back to the school to perform the part of Deputy Governor Danforth and he is perfect. Confident and cruel but with sincere concern in justice he never allows the character to become a mustache twirling villain. His humour and hope make him a complicated man to hate.

One of the young girls, Mary Warren, becomes troubled as the lies grow and considers exposing her friends. Kayla Dunbar does great work in her performance. Turning on a dime from owning the world to begging for forgiveness to being filled with fear and then back to hate – delivering high stakes and in the moment acting.

The diverse cast is mostly game for the challenges but some simple do not have the depth for playing roles that are 20 to 30 years older than them. I also had problems with Stepanie Moroz in the role of head accuser Abigail Williams – she waggles her head and struts over to the deputy and pokes him in the chest like she is in Beverly Hills 90210 and not 1692 Salem Massachusetts.

Ride the Cyclone by Atomic Vaudeville

Until October 15th

What an amazing and original ride! The visuals complete with projections, LED lights and puppets are simple and powerful. The costumes including rock gods and bass playing rats are fun and the songs are evocative. Its weird and hilarious and a little heart wrenching. This original Canadian musical experience is touring the country on it’s way to Chicago and likely off Broadway and what a weird tale it is. Six kids who are part of a choir in a small town in Saskatchewan die in a freak roller coaster accident are brought back for one last concert by a fortune telling machine.

The all white cast – all stars on the rise – play their teenage characters with passion and a quirk that intoxicates. The songs by Brooke Maxwell and Jacob Richmond (Jacob also wrote the story) are a fun mash up gospel and Brecht and pop. They state at the beginning that the story is going to be just each character talking a bit about themselves and then singing a song and although the narrative sagged a bit damn the last two songs by the headless Jane Doe (I told you it was weird) the nice girl Constance ripped my heart out and I started tearing up.

There is also queer content as one of the kids laments he is the only gay in his small town. One of the great lines in a show filled with great lines belongs to him as he laments he is ‘like a lap top in the stone age – nowhere to plug in’.

Catch this bizarre and quirky ride as it passes through your town. Don’t believe it, check out some of these songs samples. They make me long for a full soundtrack album.

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To The Forum by Fighting Chance Productions

Until October 22nd

This old musical is a lot sexist but it has some great early songs by Sondheim and some very funny bits written by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart. This production is by local community theatre group Fighting Chance who always attract young new artists and other not yet professional actors because they chose such fun material.

The story is about three households in ancient Rome – The House of Lycus which is a Brothel – The House of Sennex with it’s hen-pecked husband and The House of Erronius which features an old man lamenting the loss of his children who were kidnapped by pirates.

Some of the cast is great – Mike Wild is great fun channeling Phil Silvers while putting his on spin on the part of the slave Hysterium. Cameron Dunster is charmingly nerdy in is scandalously high cut toga as Hero and he has a lovely singing voice. Elyse Maloway is charming in the under written role of the virgin whore Philia but her voice was a little thin on opening night.

But the star of this (barely ) diverse cast was artistic director Ryan Mooney as the narrator Pseudolus. He is that sardonic and witty slave who is always scheming a way to win his freedom and he sing his songs with aplomb and I also greatly appreciated that he added a line that sarcastically called out a rather homophobic line in the original script.

Director Cathy Wilmot did a great job keeping up the pace and getting fun performances out of the cast.

So queer Canada that’s a lot of performance from the West Coast sorry it was long winded. – Get out and see a show and when Ride the Cyclone comes to your town check it out.

David C. Jones

West Coast Ambassador

Next To Normal – The Arts Club Theatre

Until October 9th

This little rock musical has exploded off Broadway and arrived in Vancouver like a spinning Catherine Wheel of angst and pain. It’s an electric musical feast about a middle-aged mother who is suffering from bi-polar disorder. The actors are such rocking singers and band is so tight and hot that it’s like The Who’s Tommy grew and settled into an upper middle class home and is now tripping on Prozac.

Caitrona Murphy plays Diana who has suffered a gut-wrenching trauma when she was a young mother and started her decent into delusion, her stoic and supportive husband (played by Warren Kimmel) who takes her to a variety of treatments and doctors (both played by Matt Palmer) while trying to hold himself and his family together.

The children trapped in this alternately hilarious and horrifying household are “super boy” but ‘distant’ son Gabe played with sexy prowess by Eric Morin and “invisible girl” younger sister Natalie played by the same vocal powerhouse who wowed recently in Hairspray – Jennie Neumann.

Colin Sheen plays the stranger, a young stoner who is dating Natalie  – he serves as the audience’s eyes into this family of rage and secrets.  He does so with a sexy mischievousness and then curious concern.

As already mentioned the whole cast sings this high energy and rock heavy score with open throated power and there is a sexy swagger to all of them that is immensely appealing. This all white cast rocks hard!

Although some of the staging is simply stand and stare and sing loudly at the other character – the overall experience is emotionally electric and leaves one thrilled and breathless. Thanks to The Arts Club for bringing it to Vancouver.

The Light In The Piazza by Patrick Street Productions

Until October 9^th

I did not know a lot about this show and I only saw a few clips on You Tube and was not immediately impressed – so I came expecting to be bored watching a sappy heterosexual love story.

Wow! I was so wrong. As I re-read director Peter Jorgenson’s notes in preparation of typing this review I found myself tearing up again.

The story takes place in the 1950’s and well off Margaret Johnson has taken her ‘special’ 26-year-old daughter Clara on a trip to Florence Italy to explore beauty in the architecture and paintings.

While wandering through a Piazza Clara has her hat is rescued by a young Italian named Fabrizio who is instantly smitten, much to Mom’s disapproval.

In a world of class structure, 50’s sensibilities, cultural differences and language barriers the struggle to communicate is challenge especially when trying to deal with something as intangible and hard to define as the nature of love.

This show is a remarkable achievement. This small company has pulled off a beautiful work. The set and lighting is gorgeous, the mostly string orchestra is stirring and the costumes are breathtaking.

And then there are the actors. They all are powerful singers, which is good because the score is very operatic, but all were such deep and nuanced actors. Some of the lines are delivered with such depth and clarity that they pierce the heart.

Adrian Marchuk is all frustrated and revved up sexuality combined with politeness as he tries through mangled English to express what his heart contains. Samantha Hill is light and innocence as well as anger and confusion as she tries to understand what she is experiencing and her mother is hiding from her.

And Katey Wright is simply phenomenal as the mother. Protective and tortured, sweet but sharp she captures her hope for her daughter to live a normal life and fear for her. The character becomes more complex as you also realize her own relationship is on the rocks.

The whole cast is great and as if I could not be more effusive – they also embraced diversity in casting!!!

This independent theatre set its eyes on a grown up musical of substance and they pulled it off with aplomb. Their passion and desire to bring it to life has paid off in a grand way.

After dropping my companion off and driving home. I sat in the car in the dark and tried to re-capture the experience in my mind and heart. The Light in the Piazza is emotionally enthralling, gorgeous to see and hear, wonderfully acted and decidedly mature.  I sat there wondering about love and beauty and hope. And then I thought – I have to go see that show again.

So two musicals that provoke strong emotions – Next To Normal in a dynamic and visceral way and The Light in The Piazza in a lyrical and heart-tugging way.

And that is what’s happening on the West Coast now, queer Canada.

David C. Jones

PS: To be fair I should remind that art is subjective and a person sitting near me found The Light In The Piazza boring.  I don’t know how but I have to respect his experience and since I was so gushing – perhaps that can temper my comments.

Salmon Row by Mortal Coil Performance Society

Site specific theatre moves to the suburbs as Mortal Coil and writer Nicola Harwood have taken over the historic Cannery Row next to the Britannia Shipyards in Richmond BC and created a show that is part surreal spectacle and part history lesson.

The audience brings blankets and portable chairs and soon the first of four playing areas is filled with the Coastal Wolf Pack Dancers, a walking bear, stilted eagle, little kids dressed as fishes precede the arrival of three different Eastern and Western Gods.  They tell the tale of how there people will immigrate to join the people already living in the Steveston area.

The tale then amalgamates the stories of Irish, Japanese, Chinese and First Nations people worked to grow the fishing industry while being screwed by the cannery owners. The racist or bigoted characters were played in mask.

Canada’s racist history is on display here and it adds a dark tone to the fanciful staging. Set designer Yvan Morisette has incorporated pieces into historical buildings of the area to great effect and the use of projected film onto buildings (and trees!) is fun. When a cannery burns down the actors throw real water on to a real building with projected flames.

The diverse actors are in fine form although some of them age as the story spans about 20 years or so while others don’t. Donna Yamamoto, Colin Van Loon, Ronin Wong, Jim Preston and Alvin Lee Saunders stood out.

I love that here on the West Coast we have such innovative artists and creators such as Peter Hall and Mortal Coil.

David C Jones

West Coast Ambassador

Innovation and presentation in Vancouver Arts

It has been a crazy time on this side of Canada. We just finished Pride Season – one of the most polished and impressive ones in ages. The society recently hired a staff and shifting the organization from a volunteer run one to a professional one was noticeable.

But not only did we have Pride – but the Outgames was happening. Yours truly associate produced some of the galas and also hosted all three! I got to say “Ladies and Gentlemen – ACE OF BASS!” which was a thrill and a half.

Now the stray feathers and glitter have been swept up time to see what else is  happening on the West Coast of Queer Canada.

Pod Plays by NeWorld Theatre

On-going

Maybe because going indoors for entertainment seems to not excite Vancouverites we have become recognized for our site-specific theatre. Shows are mounted in parks, under bridges, in garages and in swimming pools. Now pod plays dispense with actors and tricky sets.

A beautiful experience to be done alone or with a buddy – you meet your host at a specific location. One of the two I did was outside the Kingston Pub and the other The Sheraton Wall Center.

The shows are dialogue in your head with ‘remembered’ voices of other characters. The storyteller takes you on a walk and makes you look around while telling you the story.

Authentic by Chris Gatchalian was the story of a gay man remembering a re-occurring dalliance he had in Vancouver with an older gentlemen from New York. What started as a lusty casual thing turned deeper as he shared his love of culture and life. At one point the walk takes you outside the Orpheum Theatre and the voice tells you to lean against a pole and close your eyes. Suddenly the soundtrack changes to the symphony the men experience inside the building. Lovely.

Dog of your Understanding by Jan Derbyshire starts in a goofy but warm way because it is ‘narrated’ by a dog that is trying to remember why this neighborhood seems familiar. Because the story is a “mystery” you get to take an active part in trying to figure it out. Because it is a dog you smile and feel a touch silly at being the one being walked. However as the story of the dog becomes clear it suddenly becomes heartbreaking (turns out his owner was a well known local member of the LGBT community) and the tear inducing as the walk leads you to a beautiful setting and a spiritually uplifting conclusion.

Pod Plays are by donation and last approximately 15 minutes.  They are well worth the experience.

Bare by Fighting Chance

Until August 13th

Ryan Mooney and Fighting Chance Productions pick shows that attract talent and in particular young talent. They are often big shows that really gives the actors a chance to strut their stuff.

Bare is a pop opera – a mostly sung through show about two high school boys in love in the middle of a co-ed catholic school.  The cast is outstanding for the most part. The show is filled with melodrama as befitting the subject matter and the characters. It is filled with energy and humor and makes for a compelling evening.

The band is hot and many of the cast is hotter. Lucas Blaney is the closeted boyfriend Jason and he is dynamic stage presence with a powerful voice. He dances lightly on the melodrama (most of the cast do) which helps prevent the show from getting to ‘earnest’. Lena Dabrusian as the school ‘loose girl’ Ivy who suffers the predictable consequences also makes her character open and honest so the clichés do not seem trite.

I adore the voice and acting of Matt Parsons as the straight boy who loves Ivy and knows the gay lovers secret. He makes deep connections with the material and delivers with it spontaneity and that voice – the man has pipes.

Emma Leigh Hillier as the sarcastic sister is bravely pained and Jennifer Surantos once again brilliantly funny although I would love to see her play something other than a bitch with a heart of gold in her next appearance.

Ryan Mooney deserves credit for getting such lovely performances out of these guys and the whole cast. The show is over-wrought with its drama and predictable. In the opening song they say the relationship is doomed and the students are prepping a production of Romeo & Juliet as the gay relationship unfolds – hmmm – hey the doom lovers in R & J die, I wonder what will happen in this play?

Braedon Cox as the comfortably gay Peter has a great voice but a challenging job due to the writing. Peter is very whiney and there are very few scenes where we can see why Jason would be attracted to him beyond the physical. In the early scenes he needed to have more hope that things might work out and I would have also liked more horror from him in the tragic conclusion.

That said he is part of the talented and diverse cast (working with an epic tight band directed by Caitlen Hayes) that make this show dynamic and worth catching.

There it is on the West Coast of Queer Canada.

Next up in Vancouver Queer Film Festival where yours truly has three short films screening.

Joyously

David C. Jones

Bash by Hardline Productions

Closes July 10th

Neil Labute is a bit of a nasty playwright – he sees the sneaky and dark side of life and likes to show that seemingly nice people are capable of horrific things.

Hardline Productions is a modest but bold new company that is proving quite capable of great things. Their venue only holds about 30 people and tickets for this show was by donation. There is not only a love of storytelling here – but also a lot of innovation.

The play Bash is written as three separate pieces two monologues and a dialogue. Seemingly nice and affable people who each have been motivated (for barely justifiable reasons) to commit murder. Each story tops the previous in terms of its cruelty and the director Mack Gordon has intercut the pieces and spliced in a real interview with the playwright discussing the play, his intention and reactions it solicited.

This makes the piece highly theatrical but the result although analytical is deeply affecting and moving.

I attended with some my students from the Vancouver Films School and I was thrilled for them to see such great acting. John Voth, one on my favorite young actors in the city, is the charming middle management family man chatting to a drunken guest at a hotel. Cameron McCarthy and Caitlen McCarthy are the Mormon couple re-living a trip to a dance in New York where one of them gets involved in a brutal and sick murder. All of them were charming and affable but with a heavy darkness lurking beneath. They are highly engaging storytellers.

However it was Genevieve Flemming as the woman talking to a reporter perhaps who took us on the strangest and most twisted journey. She happily recalls being seduced by her teacher and is very oddly self-effacing as she recounts how she became pregnant and opts to keep the baby. As her predicament grows worse you feel for her and the fact that she is so ‘heroic’ and sweetly humble you hope for the best.  But this a Labute so you know that is unlikely.

This young company excels at acting and sharing and the show is by donation so you know they are in it for love.

Small thing though, I was there with my students two of the five were not Caucasian and once again Vancouver puts on an all white show. What does it take to get some diversity on the stages in this city?  Here is hoping that their next show, Cativo has some local colour.

That aside Bash a harrowing roller coaster ride into the dark side of human nature. Get on board.

Coming Soon:

Fighting Chance will also present the Western Canada premiere of bare: a pop opera. This touching and truthful story centres around Jason and Peter – two students at a Catholic boarding school who share a secret love for each other. While trying to stay true to the teachings of the church and each other the two boys spiral downwards into a tricky cavern of lies, deceit and mistrust. The totally sung-through show has been compared to RENT and HAIR and marks a return to the rock musical that Fighting Chance has become known for.

BARE runs from August 4-13 at the Waterfront Theatre in Vancouver.

Starring LUCAS BLANEY, BRAEDON COX, LENA DABRUSIN, EMMA LEIGH HILLIER, MATT PARSONS, JENNIFER SURATOS, JEREMY LEROUX, NANCY VON EUW, JEREMY FORNIER-HANLON, STEPHANIE LIATOPOULUS, ARLIE WORTHING, STEWART YU, CAMERON DUNSTER, HAL ROGERS, MAX FRIESEN, KATIE MACQUEEN, IMELDA GABORNO, ARIELLE TULIAO, MORGAN MCTAGGART and KATIE PURYCH. Directed by RYAN MOONEY with music direction by CAITLIN HAYES – tickets for bare: a pop opera are now available at TicketsTonight.ca

Bob Loblaw QAS and Caged Productions presents The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) (revised) a hilarious slapstick show about three slightly crazed and inept men who try to stage all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays in 97 minutes. It’s a breakneck Romeo & Juliet, a rapped Othello and Titus Andronicus is a cooking show.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) (revised) runs at the Jericho Arts Centre  July 19th to 30th.

Starring: ROBIN JUNG, DAVID ORTENSKY and SEAN PARSONS directed by me!

Speaking of me – I would like to personally invite Queer Canada to hurry and book their tickets for the Outgames happening in two weeks here in Vancouver. I am hosting the opening and closing ceremonies and have we got a wild party planned!

See you there!

David C. Jones

Westcoast Ambassador

Check out this video promoting diveristy in casting.

Forty-Deuce by Big Bone Equity Co-op
Plays until July24th

Alan Browne only wrote a few plays and movies before the drugs and hard life he lived in the 70’s in downtown New York caught up with him. He succumbed to AIDS related illnesses with a small body of work that reflected his early rebellious and dangerous life.

Kevin Bacon starred in the off Broadway play and the hard to find movie version and it helped launched his career.

Here’s hoping this local production does the same for this young cast. The story written in New York slang concerns a quartet of drug-addicted hustlers living in the seediest part of city. One of them has picked up a young gay runaway who was thrown out his home and Ricky the addict with dreams of a better life decides to not only get involved in shifty drug deal – but he will sell the virginal kid to a wealthy homosexual.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that things will not go according to plan and when the ‘fetus’ dies of a heroin overdose – the plans change into a more upsetting and sick act of desperation.

The script is quite riveting – partly out of fascination as you see these sad but resilient men deal with their pimp and their circumstances – but also the language they use – the street vernacular forces you to focus so you can follow the conversations and the arguments.

All of the diverse young men were excellent as the hookers. Victor Ayala brings shrill indignation as the queenie boy, Tristan Bacon and Michael Antonakos are tragically sweaty and determined. Toby Stevens brings heart to the seedy goings-on grieving over the dead boy’s naked body sometimes like he’s lost a lover and sometimes like he’s lost a pet. Martin Sims (who also directed) plays the pimp with machismo.

It’s Don Adams as Mr. Roper who makes a truly frightening creation – left alone at one point his self loathing and needy anger is tragic and pitiful and you can’t take your eyes off him.

On opening night the whole show was a little too breakneck and loud. But I would think that was more to do with opening night nerves. As the run continues they will likely find more levels and heart – no matter how harden it may be.

Forty-Duece is harrowing and twisted and definitely worth seeing by those looking for a gritty and powerful night at the theatre.

Bravo to Glenn Crossly as the young runaway who spent the whole show naked wrapped in a sheet.

Lots of fun coming to Vancouver – the Outgames with yours truly hosting the opening and closing ceremonies! The Athletes will be here right in the middle of Pride so it’s going to get a little wild. You better be here.

David C. Jones

Eurydice by Secretly Women Productions
Running until June 3rd.

I love the gang that runs Secretly Women productions. I have directed two of there past shows and Missy Cross and Joey Bothwell are hard working and as talented as all get out.

But don’t think my past association will color my thoughts on their latest show. It is truly without reservation that I say this… odd play by Sarah Ruhl based on The Myth of Orpheus … is an artistic triumph with astonishing performances and breathtaking stage images.
Joey Bothwell as Eurydice has genuine warmth and great comedic timing. When her character has her memory erased by the Stones in the Underworld – her naive and petulant curiosity is both funny and heart breaking.

Michael Barry Anderson creates a wonderful megalomaniac as the Lord of the Underworld – imposing yet childish, erotic and ridiculous; he oozes sadistic desire as Eurydice begs for mercy.

The whole diverse cast gives soulful and detailed performances. Greg Bishop as the underworld bound dad exudes such warmth and a real sense of love for his daughter. The Stones are tragic buffoon creations coached by Trilby Jeeves and imaginatively costumed by Veronika Rudez and the actresses make us laugh while conveying a sense of menace. Patrick Spencer is a former student of mine and to see how much he has become a leading man as Orpheus, well, it makes me tear up with pride.

Missy Cross has always been a wonderful, wonderful actor but now as a director she is really showing what a visionary she is. There are so many ‘ah’ experiences and moods it is a delight to behold.

To the critical – some of the staging on the floor was too close to the front row. I was in the third row and missed a lot of the action, especially in the river and beach scenes. The play has also spots where it gets repetitive and talky and she allows the pace to get too languid between the many very powerful and moving moments.

But overall this is whimsical and moving look at love and loss and the monsters of the underworld.

Hairspray by The Arts Club Theatre
Until July 10th.

It’s the cult film that became a surprise Broadway musical that then became another movie! The story by the usually much more subversive John Waters concerns the overweight by irrepressible Tracy Turnblad who dreams on dancing on the Corny Collins TV show. The backdrop for the show concerns integration of the black community into the Baltimore city in the early ‘60’s.

The fight for civil rights has never been so funny and just flat out fun. This production opens with the optimistic and toe tapping Good Morning Baltimore and does not let up. The cast of colorful characters is wildly weird and adds to a rollicking adventure that pumps the audience up until the rousing and high speed finale You Can’t Stop The Beat.

The diverse cast is spectacular without a weak link anywhere in the cast of 21 mostly young actors.

Matt Palmer is the showy but sincere Corny Collins, Adam Charles as the slightly dumb but talented Link Larkin, Cailin Stadnyk is one of the most entertaining racists you will ever meet, J. Cameron Barnett the tuneful and love struck Seaweed, Laurie Murdoch as the loving dad and the ovation gathering Alana Hibbert as Motormouth Maybelle, etc. etc.

Each artist is a treasure trove of talented surprises and energy.

Jay Brazeau, who play Edna Turnblad in the production in Toronto was sidelined by a small stroke during preview week and has been replaced by the wickedly funny Andy Toth.

Jennie Neuman is a great singer and wonderful actress but she is too thin to be playing the pleasantly plump Tracy Turnblad. It makes the bitchy schoolgirls seem exceptionally cruel to call her fat. John Waters wanted to show that regular and irregular kids have power and value not push them toward bulimia.

The two movies reveled in the tacky and the crass – when Tracy sings “The rats on the street dance round my feet.” The film showed actual rats. This production dismisses that line like it is embarrassed by it.

Regardless the grit and grime squeak through the aerobic-zed and sanitized direction and the audience dances in their seats as the diverse cast sings joyously about overcoming oppression.

A perfect summer show that shows powerful fluff can contain an empowering message that we can dance and sing to.

Upcoming in finally sunny Vancouver

The big show that has caught my eye is Forty Deuce by the Big Bone Equity Co-op.
This gritty drama is about street hustlers in the 1970’s. It’s got an amazing cast and I am quite sure it will be heart breaking,

Also I am directing The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) (Revised) that will be happening during the Outgames and Pride.

Speaking of the Outgames check out the theme song by Sugarbeach. I find it rousing – what do you think?

See a show Gay Canada – be stirred.

David C. Jones

Busy times in Vancouver – especially for me! I am filming Hot Pink Shorts, rehearsing a musical – tying to meet deadline on two short films, producing kids show, producing a fundraiser, the list actually goes on but it just makes me cry to think of it. It’s all creative fun – but it is all happening at the same time.

I am going to have to curtail my going out – but I find such inspiration from seeing other artists – sometimes in how they fail but mostly when they dazzle. What I mean is when any artists set out to present they are hoping for great success – but sometimes the work doesn’t come together and the audience is left wanting. I like to figure out why so I can learn from it and build on it. I do the same when I am blown away by it. How did they do that – how did they think of that?

First up Wiggle 17 – this outrageous wig and fashion show that raises money for A Loving Spoonful a local charity that brings meals to low income people – many struggling with HIV and AIDS.

Check out this video of some of the outrageous wigs and hats – if you look against the wall whenever a model walks forward you can see me with my really tall friend Steven.

The show was uber fun but it started very late – is that a drag thing in general or a Vancouver drag thing? I thought some of the designs were stellar and the performances were awesome but what is up with lady burlesque dancers taking off their tops and shaking there ta ta’s to a mostly gay male event?

The Graduate by the Arts Club Theatre

Playing until May 14^th

What do I base my opinions on? It’s if I emotionally engaged, was I surprised or delighted, am I moved, am I challenged and more importantly did I not fall asleep.

As I am older and working on a ton of creative projects – I do tend to fall asleep during Act One – often the set up on the characters and the situation they find themselves in. Particularly with older scripts the main plot doesn’t set in until just before intermission. Just in time for me to wake up and feel rested.

The Graduate is based on the Mike Nicol’s iconic film, which was based on a novel. The cool thing about the film if you are over 35 you probably know about some of the story through cultural osmosis.

The story is about an upper middle class university graduate named Benjamin who is at a loss for what to do with his life, when he is seduced by and older woman and starts a relationship with her. When her unaware husband sets Benjamin up with his daughter Elaine complications ensue, particularly because Elaine optimisms about the possibilities of life inspire and challenge his pessimism and despair.

The late 60’s, early 70’s – North American culture became obsessed with navel gazing. Who am I, what am I hear for, why is everything the way it is. That vibe is, by today’s standards, whiney, but it is funnily captured in Benjamin.

It’s dated but darn it – I was engaged. Maybe it was the fact that handsome Kavon Khoshkam (Benjamin) spent a lot of act one in his underwear. Maybe it was the bold performance by Camille Mitchell (Mrs. Robinson) or the quirky characterization by Celine Stubel (Elaine).

I found my attention only lagged in a too long scene between Mrs. Robinson and her daughter. Otherwise it captured the spirit of the times and the actors brought more depth to their performances than the film.

I admit to reading other critics reviews and some of them disliked the show a lot especially the set by Amir Ofek who created a moving Chinese puzzle box of shifting and turning panels.

But it made me think of what a colleague said about a wigged out version of Electra I had directed, “I was pleased to see there was a very distinct vision” implying with her tone that it had not been 100% successful.

This production was fun and entertaining and I liked how it did not just try to recreate the movie – although not 100% successful – I admired that it had a clear and distinct vision.  I want art to at the very least try to do something new and director Lois Anderson sure did try and I thank her for that.

The Wiz by Fighting Chance Productions

Playing Until April 30^th

Oh Ryan Mooney (artistic director)– what do I say? You pick shows that attract suburb talent. This 70’s version of The Wizard of Oz was a funked up and silly vehicle for black artists. The movie version – starring a too old for the part Diana Ross as Dorothy – was credited by some for killing the movie musical for several years.

This version is filled with audacious fun as the diverse cast creates a hip hop and pop culture laden spectacle. The amazing Jenn Suratos is noble and sincere as Auntie Em and hysterical as Oprah Winfry (The Wiz in the version), Jenny Moase is gutsy and funny as Sarah Palin (the wicked witch) and Lucas Blaney as the scarecrow and Nick Fontaine as the alcoholic tin man are stunning singers with heart felt characterizations.

Sean Parsons as the gender bending Lion rocked in voice and interpretation and the bright Arielle Tuliao brought such innocence and hope to her performance as the lost Dorothy she made me cry as she sang Home.

Ryan points out that his company has produced something like 17 shows in the last three years. Some have been truly stellar, Sweeny Todd, Hair and Musical the Musical. However some have suffered from poor production values. In the case of The Wiz – the set and art direction is – kind of tacky and cheap looking without any sense of style. Props are also left strewn about and the microphones were not always working.

Perhaps quality should take precedent over quantity so the show could better frame such a talented cast.  Especially if you are going to charge people up to $30 a ticket. Slow down and make the whole show sing.

But the cast is stellar and the evening is fast fun – to see the stars of tomorrow you will want to Ease On Down the Road to check them out.

Gay Top Model by Miretca Arts

The fourth annual beauty contest is prematurely (by 3 years) given a James Bond theme. The final round of nine contestants was held at the lavish River Rock casino. The show featured the contestants modeling fashions, underwear, swimwear (or was it swimwear and underwear) and sexy fetish wear.

As the models changed, various singers and dancers entertained including the wonderful Sugar Beach. There was also once again a couple of ladies taking off their clothes and shaking their ta ta’s. It’s a gay modeling event, presumably attended by a lot of gay men and women who move gay men. So why was their burlesque performers? I don’t get it.

In the end Todd won (although I also like Connor) – I must admit I was not surprised – he looked the best in many of his outfits – especially the ass-less fetish wear.

Next West Coast Ambassador column will have guest reviewers opining about work I am producing and starring in. If I can dish – I better be able to take.

Hope you are well Queer Canada. Don’t forget to vote.

David C. Jones

Jake’s Gift by Pacific Theatre

Until Saturday April 16^th

Julia Mackey has crafted an amazing tour de force that effectively straddles the line between remembrances without being overly sentimental. She does this by being truthful not manipulative.

In this touring play (check it out when it comes to your town) she plays 3 different people – a little French girl who attends to graves of dead solider as part of a school project, the girl’s grandmother who was a child during world war two and Jake a war veteran sent to France to participation in a anniversary celebration.

Writers and performers should take note of this production – especially if you like drama. Julia crafts characters that are curious, obnoxious, a little selfish, who use humor as a means of deflection and protection. They are honest and relatable which is surprising given the age of most audience members – the little girl is ten and Jake is very, very old.

There is also a great sense of the theatrical in the staging – already as the actress transforms rapidly from character to character in conversation. But there are moments like the putting on or taking off of a coat that a captivating and the riveted silence as the action happened is a testament to Ms. Mackey’s commitment to her characters.

You laugh – catch your breath as the small revelations are revealed and wonder what’s going to happen. As the one act play unfolded the sounds of sobs from the audience became increasingly audible, that is until mine drown them out.

Another Home Invasion by The Arts Club Theatre

Until Saturday April 23^rd

Nicola Lipman is a fantastic actress and Joan Macleod is a prolific playwright, so why was this show just fine? Director Richard Rose constructs a simple show with an elderly woman sitting in a chair telling us a story about a time when she opened her door to sketchy man who clearly wasn’t from her North Shore neighborhood.

There is a creepy sense of menace achieved with a single silhouette of the man. The woman also tells of her husband’s struggles with dementia and their hope of moving into a senior’s facility together.

Although touching and sincere the piece just felt like a real person telling a story. I listened with compassion but I never got pulled in. I felt sadden but when it was over my companion and I were just ‘that was nice’.

I tried to determine why – was it because she and her husband were upper middle class? Was her story too predictable? Was it that it meandered? I am not sure – maybe it was because of all those things.

Mambo Italiano by the Firehall Arts Centre

Until April 30th

This silly play is a perfect way for a young gay person to introduce his parents to homosexuality. It fun and wacky and a little expository about some of the ins and outs of being gay and the options to staying closeted or not.

Angelo (Joseph Gallaccio) is the closeted Italian gay son to Maria and Gino (Susan Bertoria and David Adams). Only his sister Anna (Suzanne Ristic) knows the truth and that is just how his live-in boyfriend Nino (Francisco Trujillo) likes it.

It is done in the style of a sitcom with lots of broad Italian stereotypes. There are a few serious and tender moments but mostly the whole show is played for laughs.

It has been a big hit having been produced all over North America and even adapted into a movie, and it is easy to see why – there are some terrific one liners and when the parents try to one up each other as to who has the better gay son it is quite novel and fun.

The women in the cast are all very funny including Irene Karas as a single girl on the make and Gina Chiarelli as Nino’s mom – but it is Ms. Bertoria who steals ever scene she is in, whether is a withering glare or an indignant protestation she is the mother of all Italians.

The men are all fine and the script really meanders but there is heart and fun to be had here and as I mentioned – if you have someone who does not get this whole gay coming out of the closet thing – this may be a good way to introduce them.

Lots of fun things coming up including Wiggle and the Gay Top Model Contest finale – so that’s it from the West side of Queer Canada. Don’t forget to vote and make sure you bring someone with you.

David C. Jones