Reprise : Leonard Cohen cabaret Chelsea Hotel back at the Firehall for a 5th tour

Ed note : Due to vagaries of the hectic Christmas season, BLR will not be able to view the latest iteration of Chelsea Hotel that starts tonite on through January 9, 2016. What follows in lieu is a revised redux of last year's review. Most of the players are back for another go and Leonard, well, Leonard is always Leonard. 

Quick take : Leonard Cohen's musical poetry will once again astound you and steal your heart at the Firehall Theatre's fifth reprise of Chelsea Hotel. Six song-&-dance troupers weave a clever tapestry showing us Cohen-the-man, Cohen-the-loner, Cohen-the-hustler. Melancholy, loss, romantic dread and love's wreckage are never far from the tip of Cohen's quill & inkwell. That's why a famous NYC hotel that's tattered and torn is the perfect backdrop for his stories put to song.

Redux : Leonard & Janis :  Vancouver's Tracey Power conceived, scripted, directed and choreographed the show. She will also perform in it later in this season's run when she replaces Lauren Bowler. Power pitches the story on an endlessly re-written Cohen storyline, "Chelsea Hotel #2". In it LC recalls a night of sharp drugs and limp sex with Janis Joplin.

As Cohen sings it he's enjoying some wee-biddy fellatio from JJ to the hum of streetscape chirps & sirens below. "You told me again you preferred handsome men / but for me you would make an exception / And clenching your fist for the ones like us / who are oppressed by the figures of beauty / You fixed yourself, and you said / 'Well never mind, / we are ugly but we have the music.'" Janis explained it somewhat differently in a 1969 Texas interview. She maintained Cohen "gave me nothing" the night in question. Then quickly added : "I don't know what that means. Maybe it just means (he was) on a bummer."

Power's power unclenched : Power's cabaret format features some two dozen Cohen songs in whole and in bits, intermingled and refrained again-&-again (e.g. "I am the one who loves / Changing from nothing to one.") The plotline works if you like hearing all about writers who write about writers having writer's block. A famous if tiresome John Irving schtick. Still, Marshall McMahen's clever set rescues the scene : Jonathan Gould, writer manque, emerges from a mountain of scrunched-up poetry and song lyric detritus piled high and wide. Classic Cohen, this. The sufferer championing his angst and dread. Words not only fail him but taunt and defeat him altogether. Stacks and stacks of them.

Gould shares the stage with five other actor musicians. Three women -- Lauren Bowler, Rachel Aberle, and Christine Cuglietta are the lost / abandoned / forsaken loves who are central to Cohen's world : Suzanne, Marianne and Jane. Along with Gould, Benjamin Elliott and the show's musical director Steve Charles join the women in this two-hour bittersweet musical caper. "I'm Your Man" features Bowler prancing about in a bedsheet blowing a kazoo. How could one not remember the Sigmund Freud vignette : the good Dr. puffing away on one of his signature stogies during a lecture. After sucking in a good mouthful off the thing, Freud released it ever-so-slowly and lovingly from his lips. With a wee grin he proclaimed : "And it's also a cigar!"

Throughout the show the women sing songs designed by Cohen to be for men about or to the women in their lives. But these days gender is more a matter of preference, choice and public declaration. Out-of-the-womb biology is less relevant. So who sings what to whom works regardless. Analogous to the basement bathroom markers at the Firehall : one with pants, one with a skirt, and one 1/2-pant \ 1/2 skirt on each door.

The songs tell the tales : Fortunately not all of the songs in Chelsea Hotel have the same tempo and tone and melancholia of Cohen's oh-so-famous lost lover laments. Musical director Charles jazzes up LC's tunes to make them a lot less "drone-y" than he is famous for. Surprise stylings galore pop off Charles' arranger's notepad, notably the chirpily up-tempo "Closing Time". "Suzanne" countrified with cello and banjo was a treat. The layered harmonies of "Marianne" were tight tight tight. And I could never tire of "First We Take Manhattan" done in 2:2 rock double time. More whimsical and less Teutonic than Jennifer Warnes' famous cover of it with its jackboot heel-clicks echoing underneath.

Indeed, it's the cabaret collection of cover songs deconstructed from Cohen's originals that are then re-synthasized with a dizzying array of instruments : banjo, accordion, tambourine, blues harp (a.k.a. harmonica), double acoustic bass, electric bass, violin, cello, electric guitars, acoustic guitar with pick-up mic, drums, ukulele, keyboard piano and organ and if my ears didn't deceive, an off-stage mandolin plink'd once or twice for good measure. Each of the cast play a slew of these instruments in this talent jamboree of theirs.

Poor ol' Lenny, gotta love him : The leitmotif of Leonard Cohen's lyrics and poetry is always rejection, loss, hoped-for redemption. "I cannot follow you, my love / You cannot follow me. / I am the distance you put between / All of the moments that we will be" he mourns. Reminiscent of Dave Matthews' haunting song "The Space Between". Love is real, physical, metaphysical and lyrical always. "Now I am too thin and your love is too vast." Or, "Lover come back to me [repeated seven times] / Let me start again, I cried." Which of course is but the flip-side to "I know from your eyes and your smile / Tonight will be fine, will be fine, will be fine / For awhile." Or this priceless line : "I heard of a saint who loved you / He taught that the duty of lovers / Is to tarnish the Golden Rule". Only Leonard, probably, capable of such lyrics.

Indeed, LC's entire oeuvre is what I would term "universal self-indulgence". It's that universality in our common western 1st- world experiences that rescues some lyrics from a bend toward banality or silliness. 

Music highlights : The second act starts with "Chelsea Hotel #2" and ends with "Bird on a Wire" with its romantic opener "Like a bird on a wire / Or a drunk in a midnight choir / I have tried, in my way, to be free...". Again, quintessential Leonard.

Another of my favourite Charles arrangements was "That's No Way To Say Good-bye". The Cowboy Junkies style is spot on with string bass and banjo. Superb stuff. Many of the exchanges musically and dramatically are very touching between Cohen's star-crossed lovers. 

For his part, Elliott at moments almost steals the show acting as Gould's muse and conscience. Aberle and Bowler choreograph the twin angels / devils forever teasing and taunting the show's self-absorbed cad of a protagonist. Steve Charles' singing and string-play throughout are champion. The cacophonous "Hallelujah!" at the end starts off wonderfully jarring, then resolves into its original melodious self to finish off.

Production values : Power's choreography is clever, engaging and utterly in synch with the McMahen set. No corner of the homey Firehall stage was left out of the exuberant action. Designer Barbara Clayden stitched together an eclectic mix of plain-jane off-the-rack twills and Converse runners plus circus get-ups and cocktail waitress black-&-whites and funky ribbon'd hair for lover Cuglietta. The white-face make-up throughout on most of the cast added a neat thematic hue. Ted Roberts' lighting aided all the right moves at all the right times. 

Who gonna like : No doubt there are scores of folks who find Leonard Cohen's writing not only self-indulgent but mawkish and melodramatic. I am not one of those. Tracey Power's script is a true joy to watch jump into action.  Chelsea Hotel is entertainment that not only excites and thrills both eye and ear, it displays all the verve and spunk and spice of Vancouver's rising stars of the future. Move over, Boomers, the next wonderful wave of stage performers is not only at the door but right in front of you in what is surely a Must see! performance.

Particulars : Chelsea Hotel : The Songs of Leonard Cohen at the Firehall Arts Centre theatre, 280 East Cordova Street (corner of Gore), until January 9, 2016, Box Office 604.689.0926.

Production Team : Artistic Director / Producer Donna Spencer.  Creator / Director / Choreographer Tracey Power.  Musical Director and Arranger Steven Charles.  Set Designer Marshall McMahen.  Costume Designer Barbara Clayden. Lighting Designer Ted Roberts.  Sound Designer Xavier Berbudeau.  Stage Manager Jaimie Tait.  Assistant Stage Managers Emma Hammond / Jillian Perry.

Featured Actors :  Rachel Aberle.  Lauren Bowler.  Steve Charles.  Christina Cuglietta.  Ben Elliott.  Jonathan Gould.  Tracey Power. 

Appendices :  

The Vancouver connection in the Janis / Cohen story

The dubious get-on between Janis Joplin and Leonard Cohen occurred shortly after Janis's final Big Brothers and the Holding Company concert here in Vancouver at the Coliseum in October, '68. The band formally dissolved at midnight. Warm-up for them that night was a newbie group called Chicago Transit Authority. Their big-band instrumentals, reminiscent of David Clayton Thomas's Blood, Sweat & Tears, excited the crowd. Soon CTA would become, simply, Chicago, after the actual bus & elevated train company CTA sued them over name copywright. Personally I enjoyed the band CTA much more than I did Big Brother : Janis was uber-pissy on a quart of Southern Comfort bourbon, a x3 or x4 margin above her normal altitude and cruising speed. I can still hear the words "Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz" : they sounded mushy, sort of like "Lorne, wonja buy me a moozhiging frien'?". It wouldn't be long before Janis' last moozhiging frien' was a needle stick in a 2nd class L.A. motel room.

Backdrop to the show's title

The Chelsea Hotel in NYC has been a famous and favourite drop-in home for artists of all sorts ever since it opened back in 1885 and was, for one brief shining moment, NYC's tallest building. Joni Mitchell's chipper & cheery "Chelsea Morning" gave the place rock star status, though its fame had earlier been marked, darkly, when poet Dylan Thomas died there on a grey November day in 1953 after bragging about the 17 or 18 or 19 whiskies he'd just finished polishing off at his favourite watering hole the White Horse Tavern up the street. 

The 250-room 12-storey Victorian gothic with iron brocade balconies gained further notoriety when punk rocker Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols allegedly stabbed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen to death there in 1978. (Out on bail, Vicious himself would die in Greenwich Village of a heroin overdose just five months later. The investigation into the murder in Room 100 at The Chelsea was promptly abandoned by NYPD and never proven or solved.)

Cohen stayed at The Chelsea in the late 60's along with Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix, among others, when Cohen was chasing them around The Big Smoke to absorb their genius. This was around the time the Canadian National Film Board championed the emerging Montreal persona. His metier was poetry in those days that he shared both in books and in coffee house gigs. The NFB put out a 16mm black-&-white bio-pic I used to show my senior high English students, Ladies and Gentlemen : Introducing Mr. Leonard Cohen. Clever and amusing, the flick includes Cohen bathing in a clawfoot tub at a seedy Montreal hotel while he smirks at the lens and writes the words caveat emptor on the bathroom wall as a kind of warning to viewers about all this precious fooferaw over him. But music was bursting in Cohen's breast, too, not just poetry, and NYC was where those times were a-happenin' and a-changin'. 

Best description of the hotel from Cohen's time there came from someone named Nicola L. in a 2013 Vanity Fair article by Nathaniel Rich entitled "Where The Walls Still Talk". Quoth she : "Anything could happen... It was either Janis Joplin or the big woman from the Mamas and Papas who tried to kiss me in the elevator. I can't remember which. It was a crazy time." 

"Hallelujah" out-take : 

Cohen's iconic 1984 spellbinder "Hallelujah" reportedly had some 80 (!) original verses to it. After years of slashing and re-writing, Cohen managed to bring it down to just seven. Its final two verses perhaps say all Cohen himself might, ultimately, want to conclude about his life as a writer and performer:

"There's a blaze of light in every word / It doesn't matter which you heard / The holy or the broken Hallelujah.../ I did my best...I've told the truth...And even though it all went wrong / I'll stand before The Lord of Song / With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah."

k.d. lang's performance at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver is probably unmatchable among some 300 other covers of the song that media journals report as having been recorded, one of the more recent by Rufus Wainwright in his best-hits album "Vibrate" from 2013. 

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Daisy's a doozy of puppetry & cheek @ d'Cultch

N.B. BLR gives readers a Quicky version that features three sections of just a few paragraphs that sum up my overall take on the show. Readers who want more back-story & production details can read the expanded review in the Wordy version that follows.

Quicky Version

From the footlights :  This reviewer is still a relative newby to the current BLR phase of Vancouver play reviewing (original newspaper phase from '73-'88). Thus I trust I'm forgiven to admit that seeing puppeteer Ronnie Burkett's The Daisy Show at The Cultch on Dec. 8th was my inaugural take of "the renowned puppeteer provocateur" the program describes. For the few others who might not know his work, Lethbridge-born Burkett is a 58-year-old ironic, cheeky madman who has a troupe of some 40 marionettes, a baker's dozen of which he brings to life on a night. 

The current show is fresh from an October run off-off-Broadway in NYC @ the Baryshnikov Arts Centre where the New York Times gave him a snappy and Pip pip! review ["Mr. Burkett is a benevolent god: indelicate, a little poignant and kind of fantastic."] 

The script sets its aim squarely at the jr. adult crowd due to its bawdy, risqué, potty-mouthed routines. Well, "routines" is a bit of a misnomer because each night's show changes. And not simply because Burkett is an accomplished ad lib artist, he invites the crowd to help choose which of the wood-&-cloth stringed creatures they want most to see. 

If you're a Jim Henson hanger-on-er or if the work of Jeff Dunham snizzles your fancy, you can't miss with Burkett -- unless the tickets are all sold out and likely will be right smartly.

  
What makes the show click : Burkett's talents are huge and many. Schnitz challenges him : "Why are you up there jerking me around?" And it is his skill at pulling the right strings at the right time that is one aspect of his ginormous talent. But mostly it is his Robin Williams-y Gatling gun delivery while dancing a marionette in each hand. With a voice reminiscent of Rick Mercer when he's doing straight-up stuff, basso profundo when embellishing a character, Burkett is absolutely nonpareil when he flips instantly into his sotte voce inner voice -- usually with Schnitz, the show's narrator -- that is indescribably clever and snivelly, much like what our own inner voices sound like to us. 

At show's end Schnitz returns and does a very cute monologue with his nitey-nite bear Justin. All about "stepping over the line", i.e. taking chances "because it's 2015", about renewing one's faith in the future, in the hope, again, that our better angels flutter forth from us. Such hope we must have, we're reminded, despite our anxieties about refugees, about gathering in groups in public places post-Paris or San Bernardino to celebrate the season or witness artistic performance, about sharing the joy community gives us regardless of the risks.

Who gonna like :  As noted up top, liking puppets is a must. Not minding double entendres linked to erotogenesis and descriptive bodily function references is also a must. With those as givens -- and for me they are -- Ronnie Burkett's show is a masterwork of ingenious creativity and skilled delivery that is simply breathtaking. That he can do all these voices, sing, twitter the marionettes, ad lib the smart-assisms night-after-night-after-night is a stupendous piece of theatre mania to witness. Final note, redux : "You can't miss with Burkett -- unless the tickets are all sold out and likely will be right smartly."

Wordy Version

From the footlights :  This reviewer is still a relative newby to the current BLR phase of Vancouver play reviewing (original newspaper phase from '73-'88). Thus I trust I'm forgiven to admit that seeing puppeteer Ronnie Burkett's The Daisy Show at The Cultch on Dec. 8th was my inaugural take of "the renowned puppeteer provocateur" the program describes. For the few others who might not know his work, Lethbridge-born Burkett is a 58-year-old ironic, cheeky madman who has a troupe of some 40 marionettes, a baker's dozen of which he brings to life on a night. 

The current show is fresh from an October run off-off-Broadway in NYC @ the Baryshnikov Arts Centre where the New York Times gave him a snappy and Pip pip! review ["Mr. Burkett is a benevolent god: indelicate, a little poignant and kind of fantastic."] 

The script sets its aim squarely at the jr. adult crowd due to its bawdy, risqué, potty-mouthed routines. Well, "routines" is a bit of a misnomer because each night's show changes. And not simply because Burkett is an accomplished ad lib artist, he invites the crowd to help choose which of the wood-&-cloth stringed creatures they want most to see. 

If you're a Jim Henson hanger-on-er or if the work of Jeff Dunham snizzles your fancy, you can't miss with Burkett -- unless the tickets are all sold out and likely will be right smartly.

How it's all put together : Puppeteering has been around for years heck, centuries. And its perpetrators have at times so unsettled the authorities that they've been killed for their shows (see Addendum that explains the Czech origin of the expression "daisies").  In the hands of Burkett, who reportedly has been practicing and perfecting his schtick ever since he saw my namesake Bil Baird's puppets in 1965 in The Sound of Music, the "point" of his company The Theatre of Marionettes is to entertain by hitting folks right where their neuroses are nestled. Who isn't affected by lust? Or troubled about being accepted at face value, for who they are. Or confused about love. About ongoing relationships that have de-fizzed. About whatever god they might like or loathe or long for, achingly. About aging and sickness and dying.

Some of Burkett's monologues are scripted playlets, but much of his stuff simply riffs on current events in the towns where he puts on his shows. Certain favourite characters from earlier of his roster of 13 productions over the years make command appearances. Such as Edna Rural from Turnip Corners, Alberta, who's a chattery cut-up in a Sears housedress. Another fave is Schnitzel, the wispy elfin metamorph with a daisy growing out its head. Who in Daisy plays opposite a sex-hyped baldie named Franz. Or Esme Massengill ("esteemed douche" suggests Urban Dictionary) who was too drunk backstage to perform last night, Burkett advised, but the chief graphic on its advertising posters. Also Rosemary Focaccia -- Burkett has a food-jones for his act's various names, no question -- who made a brief but noisome appearance. 

As Dunham does so expertly, equally so Burkett : it's Burkett's manic, antic and endlessly mischievous brain that brings all these characters to life, gives them personalities crowds will latch onto, makes them as real to big-kid audiences as ol' long-nose Pinocchio was to Geppetto and grammar school kids.

The rainy Tuesday crowd : Burkett is famous for riddling his marionette monologues with local references, often vulgar, to bring his humour home. Such zingers as "Who the fuck crosses Commercial Drive in the rain on a Tuesday to see a fucken puppet show?" the bullying priapic Franz demands to know of wee Schnitz. And when Schnitz starts to put on an air or two, Franz scoffs : "Don't worry about 'acting' too much, you'll never get a Jessie nomination in this city, not even with 10 shows in 30 years...", referring of course to himself. And as if to zap early doubters who wonder about his satyric and scatological script, Schnitz asks "Why do you make everything dirty?" Franz instantly retorts "Because they like it."

In all there were some 10 skits presented, including three musical numbers sung by Burkett, one or two extended monologues and some shorter snatches to mix up the pace. The crowd was largely a 30-something group with some mom's and grandma's brought along for a Christmas treat. From the applause meter, maybe a third of the Cultch crowd had seen Burkett before, but he had the house in his hand from moment one.

What makes the show click : Burkett's talents are huge and many. Schnitz challenges him : "Why are you up there jerking me around?" And it is his skill at pulling the right strings at the right time that is one aspect of his ginormous talent. But mostly it is his Robin Williams-y Gatling gun delivery while dancing a marionette in each hand. With a voice reminiscent of Rick Mercer when he's doing straight-up stuff, basso profundo when embellishing a character, Burkett is absolutely nonpareil when he flips instantly into his sotte voce inner voice -- usually with Schnitz, the show's narrator -- that is indescribably clever and snivelly, much like what our own inner voices sound like to us. 

Audience participation is a must for a Burkett show. In the fifth scene he features a pianist he's named Ivor Tinkles with fading operatic diva he calls Clara Dribbles (body part references are equal to the foody ones in his characters' names). To assist, he searches the crowd for a buff male to man the Tinkles marionette. Dec. 8th seven rows up he found one unsuspecting Daniel Holburn* -- not a plant -- and convinced him to do the bit which even included Holburn being asked to strip off his sweater and go bare-chested for a piece while sharing the puppeteer's bridge with Burkett. Every step of the way Holburn was cheery & chipper and played along : his double-take @ Burkett at the "strip" command was priceless. [*I caught up with Daniel at show's end and he generously permitted me to use his last name in the BLR review.]

Most compleat vignette of the night was Burkett's 20 minutes or so verbal diary of long-time favourite Edna Rural in her cheap Sears polyester housedress "from Communist China" that sticks to her 80-year-old legs. "If you don't stop talking you don't get the bad news," Edna explains. She then launches into a long tale about her late farmer husband Stanley and the nooner they had for dessert at 12:45 each day for 63 years. Also the Vancouver liaison she had all those years, at Christmas and Easter, when Stanley would send her off to the downtown Hudson's Bay Company to buy some new Naturalizer shoes. That Helgar the Dutch immigrant dutifully fit for her. But this "Same Time Next Year" story differs in that Helgar was a transvestite back in the day before that became maybe a bit passe given a 1st-world topsy-turvy'd in its gender assumptions by Caitlin Jenner. Quite a poignant story out of Turnip Corners, no question. Being told via Burkett thru marionettes makes it none the less so.

At show's end Schnitz returns and does a very cute monologue with his nitey-nite bear Justin. All about "stepping over the line", i.e. taking chances "because it's 2015", about renewing one's faith in the future, in the hope, again, that our better angels flutter forth from us. Such hope we must have, we're reminded, despite our anxieties about gathering in groups in public places post-Paris or San Bernardino to celebrate the season or witness artistic performance, about sharing the joy community gives us regardless of the risks.

Who gonna like :  As noted up top, liking puppets is a must. Not minding double entendres linked to erotogenesis and descriptive bodily function references is also a must. With those as givens -- and for me they are -- Ronnie Burkett's show is a masterwork of ingenious creativity and skilled delivery that is simply breathtaking. That he can do all these voices, sing, twitter the marionettes, ad lib the smart-assisms night-after-night-after-night is a stupendous piece of theatre mania to witness. Final note, redux : "You can't miss with Burkett -- unless the tickets are all sold out and likely will be right smartly."

Particulars :  Created & performed by Ronnie Burkett. At the Cultch Historic Theatre, Vennables at Victoria in EastVan, through December 20. Run-time between 90-120 minutes depending on how responsive "the dark people" [audience] turn out to be. Intermission? No. And no re-admits if you leave to visit the WC.  Tickets & schedules : Box office phone 604.251.1363 or via the web @ thecultch.com.

Production team : Marionette, Costume & Set Design : Ronnie Burkett.  Music & Lyrics & Sound Design : John Alcorn.  Production Manager & Artistic Associate : Terri Gillis.  Stage Manager : Crystal Salverda  Associate Producer : John Lambert.  Costumes : Kim Crossley Puppet Builders (Angela Talbot, Gemma James-Smith, Marcus Jamin w/ Gil Garratt & Martin Herbert).  Shoes : Camellia Koo.  Accessories : Robin Fisher.  Marionette Controls : Luman Coad.  Majordomos : Robbie Buttinsky & Daisy Padunkles [sic].

Addendum : Some interesting recent history around puppetry within the Soviet Union is provided by the website rogueruby.com which features an essay "History of Radical Puppetry" by visual-&-performing artist K. Ruby whose e-mail handle is "wisefool". An edited squib of her essay is provided below given the Czech "daisies" hook that Mr. Burkett brings to this particular production of his :

Under socialism Lenin had said, art would no longer serve the elite, "the upper 10,000 suffering from boredom and obesity," but the tense of millions of labouring people, "the flower of the country, its strength and future."

The design of mass festivals was not just a phenomenon but also an intentional and orchestrated design of the communist party, who were well aware of the power of visual metaphor. Early festivals were dominated by avant-garde artists, the futurists. But in the 20's and 30's "fine artists" were dissuaded and themes were simplified and made representational, carried out by the workers and unions themselves. Throughout the years before World War II, May Day and the Anniversary of the Revolution were events filled with elaborate and highly evocative street art, giant statuary, puppets of the evil imperialists designed to denigrate the bourgeois and celebrate the workers.

Indicative of the contradictions inherent to the Russian Revolutional Spirit, is the evolution of the party's relationship to the puppet character Petrouchka. Petrouchka was an underdog and popular hero, a working class trickster in conflict with authority, much like Punch -- a perfect revolutionary. The Red Petrouchka Collective started in 1927 and dozens of others sprang up in the following years. But of course Petrouchka's eternal problems with authority soon led the Soviet state to suppress the anarchic and rebellious Petrouchka in favour of a more benign version of the character, suitable only for children -- a parallel to the watering down of puppetry in the west for purposes of education and advertising.

Undisputed leaders of puppetry in Europe, the Czech puppeteers also had a tradition of radical puppetry. When the Czech language was banned by the Austrian Hungarian empire in the 19th century, puppeteers continued to perform in the Czech language as an act of defiance. During Nazi occupation, Czech puppeteers organized illegal underground performances in homes and basements with anti-fascist themes, called "daisies". Karel Capek, who wrote the famous anti-technology play RUR and coined the word robot, wrote anti-fascist prose pieces for the puppeteers. Josef Skupa, a famous popular puppeteer known for his leading character Spejbl, did wartime tours of adult puppet plays with subtle allegorical points imperceptible to the censor. In the concentration camps, Czech women made puppet shows from scraps of nothing to keep up their morale. Eventually the Nazis suppressed all Czech puppetry and over 100 skilled puppeteers died under torture in the camps.

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Hansel & Gretel family fun @ EastVan Panto

Refresher on panto's :  By way of redux from last year's two pantomimes seen : the British tradition of pantomime is family entertainment designed for the Christmas / New Year's season. It's a blend of music, dance, slapstick, robust audience participation, all about cheering the heroes, booing the villains -plus- lots of sing-along tunes, local political satire, unfunny puns and cross-dressing actors (always a prime key to the revelry). Panto's are based ever-so-loosely on a fairy tale to give the seasonal show a storyline the kids down front can relate to. 

For the 3rd year running, Theatre Replacement teams with the Cultch to do its annual EastVan Panto at the York on The Drive. It's a rocking rollicky cut at Hansel & Gretel that is set in that vast unfamiliar territory from a land far, far away -- Stanley Park, some 10 kx west of where our home was for almost a decade -- Trout Lake. Returning principals from last year, Alan Zinyk and Dawn Petten, drive the laughs with lusty good cheer once again in a show that had kids of all ages cheering and laughing and booing and clapping with abandon.

Home base hooks :  Riffing on all things Vancouver-esque, the kids' dad and evil step-mom are, or were, foody bloggers. Until their ever-sarcastic reviews caused the Sandwitch restaurant to close its doors, after which the witches convinced every eatery in town to boycott them and their blogsite schadenfoody.org. With "no free lunch" now literally true, they need to ditch H&G in order to have two fewer mouths to have to feed, just like in the Brothers Grimm original overture from 1812. 

As they sneak away from the kids in the middle of Lord Stanley's 1,000 acres of frightful west end wilderness, stepmom nudges dad : "Let's make like a crowd at a Canucks game and resentfully trudge home...". To help the kids fall asleep, H&G first are given some strata council minutes to pore over, followed by a tome containing "demographic polling data on the recent transit plebiscite". These are classic panto routines, lots of local references that a visitor from even nearby Point Roberts likely as not wouldn't get. 

High-cost of Vancouver real estate? Check : "It's just a detached house in Vancouver, nothing to obsess over!" coupled with one or two references to the recent high housing cost protests from which the hash-tag #donthaveamillion sprang up overnight like an EastVan mushroom. Politics? Check : "We're lost in the wilderness!" Hansel wails to Gretel. "Now you know how Thomas Mulcair feels," Gretel responds. Hansel continues : "I've failed us completely !" "Now you really know how Thomas Mulcair feels!" she says consolingly. 

Musical underlay ties it all together : Once again Musical Director & Composer Veda Hille reveals a witty and capacious grasp of musical genres in putting together the 27 songs that she on keyboards and percussionist Barry Mirochnick slip gleefully among : everything from "Wilkommen" from Cabaret to the Gilligan's Island theme song to R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" to "West End Girls" by Pet Shop Boys &c. &c, "Silver Bells" re-written with nonsense lyrics such as "Platypus, obstreperous" replacing the song's eponymous refrain line that the crowd joins in on. 

Production values galore : Playwright Charles Demers started piecing together this year's script way back in January last year. Through trial-&-error, workshopping and constant review, quips were thrown in, re-written, deleted, replaced. Only one sort of untimely clanger in the piece, reference to a situation "as inescapable as a Roberto Luongo contract". But that's wee criticism indeed. 

What makes EastVan Panto such a full-house draw show-after-show is, quote, "the usual suspects" that most live theatre try to round up : wizard acting talent, canny choreography, dashing sets & costumes. Well check, check, check & check again this year. 

EastVan painter Laura Zerebeski was commissioned once more to do the primary set paintings under the watchful eye of 11-time Jessie winner Set & Properties Designer Drew Facey. Primary backdrop screen is a whimsical winter take on the giant EastVan cross by artist Ken Lum that's lit up, all 19.5 metres of it, at the top of Great Northern Way & Clark Drive. It looks down at the Burrard Inlet longshore davits and out at the North Shore mountains and Lion's Gate beyond. (See Addendum.) The stacked leaning tower of droopy egg cartons in Witch's kitchen were a delight, as was the giant pizza oven in the shape of a face with its mouth agape, a first-rate mock-up of the real thing at Marcello's restaurant up The Drive.

Zerebeski's roguish and witty eye was aided and abetted capably indeed by Costume Designer Marina Szijarto. Her over-the-top creations for Allan Zynik as both evil stepmom and evil witch of Stanley Park were campy and droll. The "frightful wild creatures" in the Park -- a skunk, a racoon, and a squirrel -- were done equally well for the "senior" animals (Lillian Doucet-Roche, Caitlin Goruk, and Carly Pokoradi) as for the identical "junior" costumes worn by the charming ingenue Panto kids (some 15 Panto kids in all involved at various times with the show).

Still and all, what has to be foremost in any performance is what is done with and by the actors. Director Stephen Drover corralled multi-talented Tracey Power to do the fancy footwork for the show, and with Hille's help they pull the cast and the plot and the one-liners and the music and the by-play with the audience together. Special mention again of Zynik in each of his twin-evil masques, but Dawn Petten is an artful and nifty Hansel for sure. Good turns both by the other principals as well, Maiko Yamamoto (a Theatre Replacements founder) and Josue Laboucane.

Who gonna like : A good half-the-house at Sunday's matinee was a cadre of littlun's, many of primary school age. A lot of them in clumps with their parents and grandparents, and as noted above, all of them (us) "cheering and booing and laughing and clapping with abandon." I remarked to my wife on the way home how delightful it was to be in a house packed with young children fully engaged in the spectacle before them. Charming choice lyrical escapism that even folks from west of Main Street will enjoy thoroughly, almost as much as we who think of EastVan as the true heart-&-home of this city. 

Particulars :  Produced by Replacement Theatre [Producer Corbin Murdoch] in collaboration with The Cultch.  At the York Theatre,  639 Commercial Drive, right next to Nick's old-time Italian pastapizzaria. On thru January 3rd. Run-time some 120 minutes with intermission. Box office 604.251.1363 -or- via the internet at tickets.thecultch.com. 

Production team :  Playwright Charles Demers.  Director Stephen Drover.  Musical Director, Composer Veda Hille.  Choreographer Tracey Power.  Set & Poperties Designer Drew Facey.  Costume Designer Marina Szijarto.  Lighting Designer Adrian Muir.  Scenic Illustrator Laura Zerebeski.  Stage Manager Jan Hodgson.  Assistant Director Katrina Darychuk.  Apprentice Stage Manager Ruth Bruhn.

Orchestra :  Veda Hille.  Barry Mirochnick.

Performers : Josue Laboucane.  Dawn Petten.  Maiko Yamamoto. Allan Zinyk. With Lillian Douce-Roche.  Caitlin Goruk.  Carly Pokoradi. 

Panto Kids :  Eva Andrade-Gingras.  Maya Dance-Thomson.  Yuki Enns.  Fumiko Enns.  Sascha Gibbs-Pearce.  Anders Hille-Kellam. Olive Knowles.  Nasja MacRae.  Felix MacDuff.  Sophie Oldham.  Nora Pontin.  Hazel Pontin.  Kiyo Roth.  Mateo Sallusti.  Cooper Thompson.

Addendum :  Laura Zerebeski describes her jaw-dropping and brilliant visuals thus :

"I am (an) expressionist painter with a surrealist edge. I paint urban landscapes and personify buildings so they look like the people that live in them. As an avid runner and cyclist, I want to portray what you feel when you move through a scene. The vivid colours and implied instability create a whimsical and cheerful view...when the ordinary becomes absolutely beautiful due to whatever effects of light or season or one's own mood."

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Peter & the Starcatcher has good panto-ish pranks

N.B. BLR gives readers a Quicky version that features three sections of just a few paragraphs that sum up my overall take on the show. Readers who want more back-story & production details can read the expanded review in the Wordy version that follows.

Quicky Version

From the footlights : "Prequel". Some words will forever clang on the ear. But that's what Peter and the Starcatcher is called. The after-the-fact predecessor to Peter Pan that tells its backstory. It's the inaugural production at ACT's new 250-seat stage on West 1st at Cook Street in the heart of Olympic Village, known officially as "the Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre" : new administrative offices, large rehearsal space & costume shops for both ACT and Bard on the Beach. 

Our hero was orphan'd as a wee babe and he's not only nameless, he's filled with existential angst and no small quantum of fear-&-loathing for all things adult. They did, after all, abandon him at an early age. The story tells us how with his ragtag pals and "mother Molly", Peter finally got his name and the start of folklore immortality aboard the good ship Neverland. 

Anticipation runs exceedingly high for the show that as of Opening Night (Dec. 2nd) already boasts 14(!) sold-out performances. It's sustained silliness suited equally well to either summer's usual frothy nonsense or to the crop of phantasies that always seem to find the footlights at Christmas.  

Acting pin-spots : No question to this viewer that Colleen Wheeler as Black Stache with her hideously hand-painted lip whiskers was the show's standout, though Emmelia Gordon as Smee was of equal oomph and dash. As Alf, Chris Cochrane was charmingly uncouth. Still, it would be refreshing, lit.& fig., if director David Mackay would for once not feature fart fanfare as a central sight-&-sound gag in one of his future shows. The distance between trope and meme and weary cliche is pretty short when hi-lited repeatedly in dramatist's c.v. A broader range of slapstick creative options surely could present itself.

Chirac Naik as the ever-starved Ted dreaming of food was just choice, and Benjamin Wardle as Boy/Peter Pan was a distinctive ingenue : a mix of whimsy and gusto.

As Molly, Rachel Cairns gave viewers every reason to believe she was an intellectual snot quite disliked by classmates (in pre-bullying parlance). Choice choice stuff.

Who gonna like :  As noted infra, "PATS is part summer camp skit, part vaudeville, part English panto, part story theatre and part radio play with appropriate sound effects." Whether primary school kids would get much of anything out of all the verbal by-play I would doubt. But any youngster who knows the Peter Pan story -- even if just from seeing Disney -- would likely find this to be accessible fun. Given the lines I've quoted, clearly the Boomerista crowd will find lots to laugh at. A first-rate launch on this new state of the art stage at just the right time of year. 

Wordy Version

From the footlights : "Prequel". Some words will forever clang on the ear. But that's what Peter and the Starcatcher is called. The after-the-fact predecessor to Peter Pan that tells its backstory. It's the inaugural production at ACT's new 250-seat stage on West 1st at Cook Street in the heart of Olympic Village, known officially as "the Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre" : new administrative offices, large rehearsal space & costume shops for both ACT and Bard on the Beach. 

Our hero was orphan'd as a wee babe and he's not only nameless, he's filled with existential angst and no small quantum of fear-&-loathing for all things adult. They did, after all, abandon him at an early age. The story tells us how with his ragtag pals and "mother Molly", Peter finally got his name and the start of folklore immortality aboard the good ship Neverland. 

Anticipation runs exceedingly high for the show that as of Opening Night (Dec. 2nd) already boasts 14(!) sold-out performances. It's sustained silliness suited equally well to either summer's usual frothy nonsense or to the crop of phantasies that always seem to find the footlights at Christmas. 

How it's all put together :  The storyline finds two ships sailing from Portsmouth the same day in 1885. The sleek frigate Wasp with  Lord Aster (Aadin Church) aboard is to carry unidentified valuables of Queen Victoria to a place called Rundoon whose King Zarboff is evil incarnate. A fatter two-masted cargo schooner Neverland is to carry a dummy steamer trunk to foil would-be brigands. It also carries three waifs from St. Norbert's orphanage to be sold as "snake food". And, for her safety, her loving dad Lord A. orders precious teenie daughter Molly (Rachel Cairns) to join the Neverland crew, too. 

One of the orphans is nameless, called simply "Mule" or "Boy" (Benjamin Wardle) by the ship's first officer Slank (Vincent Tong). His co-orphans Ted (Chirag Naik) and Prentiss (Katey Hoffman) are collectively referred to as pigs. They are mustered in the ship's dungeon and fed wormy slop from a bucket by Alf (Chris Cochrane).

On Wasp, meanwhile a crewman imposter pirate named Black Stache (Colleen Wheeler) with help from sidekick Smee (Emmelia Gordon) mutinies in order to grab the Queen's trunk of treasures for themselves. Which, of course, was purposely trick-switched in Portsmouth and is "supposably" on the Neverland instead. And so the chase is on, the Wasp fully intent on stinging Neverland right in its booty.

What the show brings to the stage :  PATS is part summer camp skit, part vaudeville, part English panto, part story theatre and part radio play with appropriate sound effects. The set is spare : five risers that act primarily as the ships' various decks with huge round-timber masts, rigging ropes galore, yardarms and a coupla sails. The intent is to have the audience throw their febrile imaginations into the mix to fill in the missing pieces.

Director David Mackay tells viewers the show "depends so much on you to participate with an active imagination." He notes that the thirteen cast members play multiple roles, "sometimes switching characters before your eyes, and other times actors are incorporated directly into the scenery as props." This latter effect is used often, usually having the cast act as one of the ship's walls with creaky sound effects as players open and close its doors. Very cleverly imagined and executed. 

Character Mrs. Bumbrake (Beatrice Zeilinger) demonstrates the allure of alliteration brought to the show by playwright Rick Elice (from the novel by Rick Barry and Ridley Pearson). Other textual riffs : her suitor Alf woos her with such wit as "I have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them." These exchanges are completely au courant, nothing old school straight stuff at all. Palm slaps. "Snap!"  Comments to the crowd : "We can't take all night here, the people have paid for parking and nannies!" Black Stache natters at Smee. Molly refers to "people hungry for world power like Caesar, Ghengis Khan or Ayn Rand" and mentions that "saving the world's a bit abstract for a 13-year-old". When Stache tries to draft Peter as a pirate, too, he says Peter as a pirate will be "as iconic as the moonwalk in a Michael Jackson video." Nice link. Or during one trunk switcher sequence, this beauty : "This trunk is hard to find : it's as elusive as a melody in a Philip Glass composition!" And not to forget a current favourite of Millenials : "You're killing' my buzz, Boy!" B.S. snipes. So clearly clever timely dialogue is paramount in this piece, no question.

Act 1 exposition has too little of Wayne Barker's music numbers and too many words-chasing-words by Elice i.m.o. But Act 2 almost makes up for it with its whiz-bang opening number where we see the pirates have morphed into mermaids in absolutely stupendous fishy outfits : "Starstuff made my tuna melt and made a mermaid out of me" they sing and dance in slow kick Moulin Rouge fashion. ("Starstuff" is magical fairy dust. It looks like sand but it's got magical qualities. That's the treasure Queen Victoria's trying to secret away to Rundoon.) 

The later scene with the native "Mollusks" on shipwreck island with everyone trying to avoid pelting monsoon rains under a tribe of yellow umbrellas was choice staging and costuming both.

Acting pin-spots : No question to this viewer that Colleen Wheeler as Black Stache with her hideously hand-painted lip whiskers was the show's standout, though Emmelia Gordon as Smee was of equal oomph and dash. As Alf, Chris Cochrane was charmingly uncouth. Still, it would be refreshing, lit.& fig., if director David Mackay would for once not feature fart fanfare as a central sight-&-sound gag in one of his future shows. The distance between trope and meme and weary cliche is pretty short when hi-lited repeatedly in a dramatist's c.v.  A broader range of slapstick creative options surely could present itself.

Chirac Naik as the ever-starved Ted dreaming of food was just choice, and Benjamin Wardle as Boy/Peter Pan was a distinctive ingenue : a mix of whimsy and gusto.

As Molly, Rachel Cairns gave viewers every reason to believe she was an intellectual snot quite disliked by classmates (in pre-bullying parlance). Choice choice stuff.

Production values of note :  Very clever blocking, staging and choreography by Choreographer Jennifer Copping. Lots of group routines coupled with good individual moves for the cast, too. Costume Designer Carmen Alatorre threw up some terrific period pieces along with more fantastical outfits, a mix of just right dull and dreary offset by the colourful and clown-y. Upon reflection, probably not quite enough can be said about Laughlin Johnston's extremely clever and workable skeletal set, with the soundscape performers completely visible on both stage left-&-right. Musical Director Kevin Michael Cripps put together nice plinky-plink vaudy tunes on the piano and other fun touches to underscore the on-stage goofiness.

Who gonna like :  As noted, "PATS is part summer camp skit, part vaudeville, part English panto, part story theatre and part radio play with appropriate sound effects." Whether primary school kids would get much of anything out of all the verbal by-play I would doubt. But any youngster who knows the Peter Pan story -- even if just from seeing Disney -- would likely find this to be accessible fun. Given the lines I've quoted, clearly the Boomerista crowd will find lots to laugh at. A first-rate launch on this new state of the art stage at just the right time of year. 

Particulars :  Script by Rick Elice based on the novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.  At ACT's new 1st Avenue / Olympic Village stage.  Run-time 140 minutes including intermission.  On into January, no set end-date.  Schedule information & tickets via www.ArtsCentre.com or by phoning 604.687.1644.

Production team :  Director David Mackay.  Assistant Director / Choreographer Jennifer Copping.  Set Designer Laughlin Johnston.  Costume Designer Carmen Alatorre.  Lighting Designer Conor Moore.  Musical Director Kevin Michael Cripps.  Assistant Musical Director Lindsay Warnock.  Assistant Director Mitch Ward.  Fight Directors Mike Novak / Ryan McNeill Bolton.  Music Supervisor Murray Price.  Stage Manager Caryn Fehr.  Apprentice Stage Manager Michelle Harrison. 

Performers :  Rachel Cairns (Molly).  Aden Church (Lord Aster).  Chris Cochrane (Alf).  Kevin Michael Chips (Ensemble).  Emmelia Gordon (Smee).  Katey Hoffman (Prentiss).  Catriona Murphy  (Captain Scott / Musician).  Chirac Naik (Ted).  Vincent Tong (Slank / Hawking Clam).  Benjamin Wardle (Boy / Peter).  Colleen Wheeler (Black Stache).  Joel Wirkkunen (Grempkin / Mack / Sanchez / Fighting Prawn).  Beatrice Zeilinger (Mrs. Bumbrake / Teacher).

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Wonderful Life rings everyone's Christmas chime

N.B. BLR gives readers a Quicky version that features three sections of just a few paragraphs that sum up my overall take on the show. Readers who want more back-story & production details can read the expanded review in the Wordy version that follows.

Quicky Version

From the footlights :  Every North American and their dog has seen the Frank Capra classic movie It's A Wonderful Life starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. And who doesn't remember Zuzu Bailey's famous show closer : "Look, Daddy. Teacher says 'Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings!'" Press materials tell us more than 80,000 people in years gone by have seen ACT's earlier productions of Philip Grecian's adaptation of the Capra film. (He has also done a radio theatre version.) So after a three year hiatus, IAWL returns to the Granville Island stage to toggle opposite the song-&-dance version of A Christmas Story playing up the block at the Stanley. While many of its actors reprise earlier performances for ACT, a host of newbies join the cast in this ever-popular Christmastime script.

Acting pin-spots : Bob Frazer as George Bailey vied all evening long with his heavenly counterpart, lit.& fig., Bernard Cuffling as Angel 2nd Class Clarence Odbody for the nod as audience favourite. But a terrific turn as the dottery addlepated Uncle Billy by David Marr as well. Lindsey Angell pulled off a sexy but sad Violet Bick, tartly done. As the villain Potter, Alec Willows was devilishly dislikable, while Irene Karas Loeper channeled Lily Tomlin to a T as Tilly the ditzy switchboard operator at Bailey's.

Who gonna like : As stated from the top, this play works particularly well because almost every breathing soul in N.A. knows the Frank Capra film by heart. Were this a fresh new script for 2015 audiences, well it just might be viewed more as simply the "sentimental hogwash" Ph.D. candidate Daniel Sullivan talked about. The American Dream shill, many argue, is myth. That's why the dream isn't dead : it never was, some say. But no Boomers (self included) are likely to buy into that view. Want a cleverly-wrought stage version of a film classic I know you and your family will watch on NBC sometime this month? The ACT production is timely, telling, and touching : it grabs the eye and the heart with age-old truths. And it isn't on a 55" LED t.v. screen in your media room. It's on stage and plops the story directly into your lap. 

Wordy Version

From the footlights :  Every North American and their dog has seen the Frank Capra classic movie It's A Wonderful Life starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. And who doesn't remember Zuzu Bailey's famous show closer : "Look, Daddy. Teacher says 'Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings!'" Press materials tell us more than 80,000 people in years gone by have seen ACT's earlier productions of Philip Grecian's adaptation of the Capra film. (He has also done a radio theatre version.) So after a three year hiatus, IAWL return to the Granville Island stage to toggle opposite the song-&-dance version of A Christmas Story playing up the block at the Stanley. While many of its actors reprise earlier performances for ACT, a host of newbies join the cast in this ever-popular Christmastime script.

Re-cap of the Capra story:  Based on Philip Van Doren Stern's 1939 short story "The Greatest Gift", IAWL is plunked into a fictional town called Bedford Falls, apparently modeled after Senneca Falls, NY. Small-town America in the late 1940's. Post-war mania sets in. Folks scrabble to start families, buy cars, and own their first homes. They borrow from local lending institutions called "building and loan associations" that are like privately-owned credit unions. They go to church, believe in helping their neighbours, are well-meaning good-hearted souls. Although he dreams of world travel and creating iconic architecture for the world's great cities, George Bailey (Bob Frazer) has had to take over the family business when his father strokes out from stress in his 50's. No world travel for this young man, now, nor college : at 20-ish he takes over the company reins from loveable but inept Uncle Billy (David Marr).

Dreamer George, thrust into the harness of "real life" right out of high school, hasn't lost his romantic urges. When his dad's nemesis Henry F. Potter (Alec Willows) threatens to kill Bailey Brothers Building & Loan from an $8,000 loan payment default due to mysteriously-disappeared company funds, George ditches his wife-&-family on Christmas Eve and -- in the movie -- roars off, gets drunk, fights with a neighbour in a saloon, cracks up his car then flees to the local river bridge with full-on suicide thoughts. He looks up and pleads to God woefully, hopelessly.  

Enter wannabe full-patch angel Clarence Odbody (Bernard Cuffling). He's been sent by Senior Angel Joseph to save George and see if he can earn his 1st-class angel's wings in the bargain. "Maybe it would have been better if I'd never been born!" George agonizes. Clarence grants George this "wish". He walks George back through the time he's been on earth. Shows him what Bedford Falls would have been like had George never lived. Only then does George realize his "boring" life just helping folks get started as young adults has been truly rewarding, to them, to the town, to George and his family. All's well that ends well.

Why folks love this story : In a Humanitas article entitled "Sentimenal Hogwash?" a decade back, doctoral candidate Daniel J. Sullivan puts out that Capra's production might not have done much more than simply to have "manufactured the perfect feel-good holiday vehicle." His essay expands : "The satisfaction the film provokes makes it easy for audiences and critics alike to consider it a puff piece, a sweet and superficial sop to our nostalgia for 'times gone by', heightened as it is during the holiday season when the modern American is most in need of respite from the wearing pursuit of mammon. For many, the film is no more than a cinematic candy cane, a Christmas treat that requires no assembly and induces no hangovers."

Sullivan spends the ensuing 23 pages of his thesis quoting Plato, wise old Job from the Bible as well as philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Edmund Burke and Thomas Hobbes ["...the life of man : solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short"] trying to convince readers otherwise, however. "Some critics might interpret the cascading elation depicted in the film's final scenes as a cheap appeal to modern man's flabby weakness for contrived, feel-good endings. Such an interpretation would fail to appreciate that the true source of elation lies not in George Bailey's miraculous salvation, but in the realization that true meaning in life lies within the humble grasp of each and every one of us."

Sullivan had it right on both counts i.m.o. Charles Dickens mourned in Barnaby Rudge that "the shadows of our desires stand between us and our better angels". And so it is with us in the secular 21st century first world : we each recognize we have the potential for ourselves to let our better angels come into play. Daily. Moment by moment. To act more genuinely. Emblemised by such values that were promoted when I was in short pants : as a Boy Scout I pledged each week at our Troop 5 meetings in the Presbyterian Church basement to be more "trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent". [Scout Pledge from memory JSYK, not google'd...]. In an age when ISIL assassins and suicide bombers commit mass murder of civilians at Paris cafes & concert halls, there's another word implicit in the Stern / Capra story : hope. We are called on, emphatically, to not let disastrous misfortune thrown in our faces dictate to us a negative and cynical view of life.

That said, we have also been trained by movies and t.v. to like feel-good endings to phantasy stories, too. To imagine an idyllic world where constant strife and striving and grasping at brass rings or straws or avoiding catastrophe are not the norm. Where presto-change-o! all is sweetness and light.

And so we love the show IAWL because it is a combination of vinegar and treacle, but mostly treacle. We want the good guys to win, not the bad guys. Especially at Christmas. And in IAWL they do, big-time.

How it's all put together :  The ACT production is cleverly wrought. A full-screen backdrop upstage provides projected film clips -- mostly stills, but some slo-mo runs, too -- taken from the original Capra black-&-white film. In front of the screen Ted Roberts has created mini-sets on rollers that the actors propel on and off as needed : Gower's Drug Store and soda fountain; the Bailey Brothers business; Potter's office; the bank; George's childhood front porch; his family home at 320 Sycamore Street. From on high a stage-width snowy railroad bridge drops down, the "suicide bridge" George eventually dives off of to rescue Clarence from drowning. Scenes performed by the movie's 46 characters are compressed, deleted or simply hinted at on the Granville Island homey stage by the 16 actors in Grecian's live theatre version. To help tie it all together, the blend of film footage with the on-stage scenes creates a sequencing that fits together quite tightly.

What the show brings to the stage : Live performance always puts skin in the game that two-dimensional film -- or even 3-D film for that matter -- simply cannot. Real people roaring hither-&-yon across a set, descending the theatre steps from above or breaking plane onto the audience floor, these actions help to plop the story directly into peoples' laps. Mixing the two media meanwhile -- particularly with such a famous and well-loved script -- works well indeed. While the blend of projection design and real-time acting is not as intricate as last year's Helen Lawrence, it is still cleverly wrought stuff. The phantasy sequence of the imagined "Pottersville" speakeasies and gambling joints and pleasure palaces was particularly good film footage created for this production. Marsha Sibthorpe's perennial lighting finesse coupled crisply with Jamie Nesbitt's film projections.

Acting pin-spots : Bob Frazer as George Bailey vied all evening long with his heavenly counterpart, lit.& fig., Bernard Cuffling as Angel 2nd Class Clarence Odbody for the nod as audience favourite. But a terrific turn as the dottery addlepated Uncle Billy by David Marr as well. Lindsey Angell pulled off a sexy but sad Violet Bick, tartly done. As the villain Potter, Alec Willows was devilishly dislikable, while Irene Karas Loeper channeled Lily Tomlin to a T as Tilly the ditzy switchboard operator at Bailey's.

Who gonna like : As stated from the top, this play works particularly well because almost every breathing soul in N.A. knows the Frank Capra film by heart. Were this a fresh new script for 2015 audiences, well it just might be viewed more as simply the "sentimental hogwash" Ph.D. candidate Daniel Sullivan talked about. The American Dream shill, many argue, is myth. That's why the dream isn't dead : it never was, some say. But no Boomers (self included) are likely to buy into that view. Want a cleverly-wrought stage version of a film classic I know you and your family will watch on NBC sometime this month? The ACT production is timely, telling, and touching : it grabs the eye and the heart with age-old truths. And it isn't on a 55" LED t.v. screen in your media room. It's on stage and plops the story directly into your lap. 

Particulars :  Script adaptation from the 1946 Frank Capra film by Philip Grecian.  At ACT's Granville Island stage.  Run-time 140 minutes including intermission.  On through Boxing Day.  Schedule information & tickets via www.ArtsCentre.com or by phoning 604.687.1644.

Production team :  Director Dean Paul Gibson.  Assistant Director Angela Beaulieu.  Set Designer Ted Roberts.  Costume Designer Rebekka Sorensen-Kjelstrup.  Lighting Designer Marsha Sibthorpe.  Original Music / Sound Designer Neil Weisensel.  Projection Designer Jamie Nesbitt.  Dramaturg Rachel Ditor.  Stage Manager April Starr.  Assistant Stage Manager Yvonne Yip.  Apprentice Stage Manager Tessa Gunn. 

Performers :  Lindsey Angell (Violet Bick / Mrs. Thompson).  Eileen Barrett (Mother Bailey).  Ted Cole (Rieneman / Gowar / Man at Bank / Carter).  Bernard Cuffling (Clarence).  Bob Frazer (George Bailey).  Emily Grabovac (Young Violet / Janie Bailey).  Kyle Jespersen (Harry / Peter Bailey / Ernie / Tom).  Alistair C.W. Leong (Young Harry Bailey / Tommy Bailey).  Jennifer Lines (Mary Bailey).  Irene Karas Loeper (Tilly).  David Marr (Uncle Billy).  John Murphy (Bert / Ed).  Taylor Dianne Robinson (Young Mary / Tilly's niece).  Sylvie Odette Thomas (Zuzu).  Toby Verchere (Young George Bailey / Peter Bailey).  Alec Willows (Henry Potter).

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