Photo: Barb Gray
Some ideas should remain just that: ideas. Putting them on stage does no one any favour, least of all audiences. That’s the case with Jill Connell’s Hroses, a hodge-podge of semi-defined concepts and often vaguely poetic language that never figures out what it wants to be when it grows up.
Photo Barb Gray
Nick Di Gaetano and Katie Smith
Studio A at Arts Court is an open and flexible space that allows for multiple relationships between performers and an audience. In this production, the audience surrounds the acting space, which occupies a large area in the middle of the room. A tarpaulin painted a dry sandy colour is spread out on the floor and at one end of the space we are greeted by a large, solid form with four strong appendages, a back and a head shaped object. One or two people can sit comfortably on its back. It is not supposed to imitate a horse , obviously, but it does suggests a horse-like form, that is lifted up at various moments of the performance, and set down on different spots of the acting space.
Photo: Barb Gray
You meet some of the strangest people on buses, particularly it seems, on The Number 14 now making its twentieth anniversary tour around the country.
The Number 14 route in Vancouver is between Hastings and the University of British Columbia, so the passengers are likely to be varied. In life or on the Axis bus, you may meet passengers on their way to work or school, seniors off to bingo, street people coming in out of the cold, neat freaks and other weirdos — even an Italian realtor late for work and dressing on the bus as she tries to close a house deal by phone. The last, depicted by Morgan Brayton, is one of the most successful sketches in the collection. Two others of note are the extraordinarily athletic performance by Neil Minor as he uses the bus poles as trapezes and Stefano Giulianetti’s depiction of a fast-talking crazy man.
Photo: Barbara Gray
Jane Austen’s novels have become synonymous with passion and romance in genteel society, none more so than the legendary Pride and Prejudice. The novel is a love story, but it’s also a story about social ranking, wealth (or lack thereof), and moral as well as snap judgment. Many of us have seen ourselves as the spirited, intelligent Elizabeth Bennet and have pined over the seemingly proud yet really affectionate Mr. Darcy. The book is an example of simmering passion and subtle, yet powerful societal Austinian jabs at its best. Although there are many different adaptations, this subtlety is key to the story. Unfortunately, the NAC/Theatre Calgary co-production at the National Arts Centre took away much of this key element and, coupled with a thoroughly bizarre set, managed to transform a very complex and human story into one littered with stereotypes and cheap laughs.