Goblin Market - Experience the Magic

(Quoted from the program notes)

Directors Notes:

"Have you ever pondered what lies beyond your front gate?  Did you go out and take a risk, try something new?  If yes, hopefully your dearest friend or sister was there to hear your exciting tale and perhaps love and comfort you if you went astray.  Enjoy our fairy tale in the glen.."

The Goblin Market - A Musical through setting, music, and performance takes us into a magical otherworld away from our common realities.

Easily and wonderfully the physical setting of Circle Point slips this site specific piece into the worlds of myth, and magic. I was strongly reminded of a quote from James P. Blaylock about the work of Canadian author Charles De Lint. Blaycock states:  "You open a de Lint story, and…the atmosphere is suddenly full of deep woods ….and a magic that's nowhere near so far removed as Middle Earth.”
                                                                                               
The company -Roaring Lion Theater Collective- chose what must be one of De Lint’s magical spots, Circle Point.

Circle Point is a magical circular knoll on Granville Isand , which has False Creek lapping it on three sides. On the pathway to Circle Point, is a site specific art piece named “Connected” as part of  the ART (IS)LAND Exhibition which is bringing a visual element to the Fringe Festival this year. Connected portrays  the trees on the slopes of Ron Basford Park connected by channels of coloured sand “pouring” between them.  It’s intent is to invite viewers to connect with the island and its living creatures.

I personally have no problem with the idea of goblins and Victorian women being some of the magical creatures residing in this knoll.( In fact we are simply privileged to see them through this performance).

The Goblin Market is about love, and redemption between sisters.Tracy Power as Laura and Lauren Bowler as Lizzie who live together, along in the woods, and are tempted by the goblins there:

"We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?"
"Come buy," call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen."

But of course one of them is…

This musical production is adapted from the poem Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti (1830–94). The poem (and musical) are  placed in Victorian times - the sisters arrive in beautiful long black (and restrictive) Victorian dresses which they carefully take off and hang in the trees.

Clad in white Victorian undergarments they then performed much of the highly physical musical (which, from just a practical point of view, would account for the underclothing). Some of the audience semi-circled the performance so performers Lauren Bowler and Tracy Power acted - squeezing  fruit, falling, crawling, leaping, kissing and embracing, eating and singing within arms reach.

(A mundane thought, perhaps – but kudos to the poor person who has to get the grass, dirt and juice stains out of the Victorian undergarments after each performance!)

The singing voices of both are beautiful and clear.  Tracy Power and Lauren Bowler  were wonderful to hear and exquisite  to watch in their performance as sisters. Magically playing are musicians –Steve Charles (guitar) and Carmen Yeun (violin), calling and swaying our emotions beautifully.

The poet Rossetti lived at the same time as Virginia Wolf who said to her:: "Your instinct was so pure, so intense that it produced poems that sing like music in one's ears--like a melody by Mozart or an air by Gluck."

 This musical production of the Goblin Market would have the approval of Virginia Woolf, it certainly does me.

 I recommend you go….
…  see what you think…
…experience the magic.