Paleoncology - Beautiful and Gentle

The first 16 bars of the Jurassic Park Theme song are perhaps my most favourite instrumental 16 bars of music.  Walking into a theatre that happened to be playing these bars raised my expectations pretty high. Were they met?  Very nearly yes.  

Written and performed by Kira Hall and directed by Andrew Young, this 60-minute solo show was a late addition to the Fringe Festival, finding out only a few weeks before the Festival began that they got in.  It is to the benefit of Vancouver audiences that they did. 

My affection for this show grew gradually.  I found the first 10 minutes a bit slow, but eventually it settled into a nice pace.  The subtle shifts actress Kira Hall explored between puppeteering dinosaur versions of her character of Leaellyn and Leaellyn’s brother, Daniel, explaining facts about different dinosaurs in a lecture hall setting, and everything in between were just enough to keep things interesting, but not so much that she dipped into the trap of overacting.  

Strangely, the slowness I felt in the first 10 minutes were mainly when Leaellyn was having a one sided conversation to a character who wasn’t on stage.  The program does credit an actor for the voice of this character, so perhaps the slightly longer pauses were due to a technical glitch?

Paleoncology beautifully and gently explores what it is to grow up with a sibling, and then grow old with them sooner than you expect.  This is the perfect piece for anyone who has a sibling, has lost someone close to them, or loves dinosaurs.  Kira Hall certainly makes Paleoncology worth the trip off of Granville Island to the Cultch – catch it before it goes extinct. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself.)