Vangroovy - To Be Satirical, You Need To Love Your Subject

Vangroovy is a Theatre Ocean Production written and directed by Christopher Ross-Ewart. The show got off to a bit of a rough start. Our Box Office manager playfully got upset at the crowd for not reacting during the preshow speech. We weren't exactly brimming with energy. Unfortunately the show didn't help get us out of our stupor. 

Vangroovy is about Vancouver. And what a terrible place is it to live.  It focuses mainly on how screwed we all are because of the pipeline and global warming and how we are all self obsessed zombies who are incapable of creating and maintaining any sort of meaningful relationship because we are overly concerned with Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn. And it's a comedy. 

Christopher Ross - Ewart (who also plays Santa and the Executive) wants to be Judd Apatow. I know because he talks about how hard it is to write like him in the show. And that's the main problem. Everything in the show seemed forced, and every line was just another reason to throw in a bad sex joke or a semi-insulting dig at Vancouver. 

Nicholas Porteous as the Homeless Man shone in the four-person cast, grounding the piece when he could.  He had a lovely sonnet half way through - it's too bad he has to talk about dicks and blow jobs so much, because when given the chance, he can really act. 

Jazmine Cuampanale as Decky and the Yuppie was really trying, but unfortunately it was impossible to see past the fact that she didn't know her lines. Her pauses looking for her words added time to an already clunky show. Michael Bescha as the Gorilla and Woman suffered from another form of clunkiness, often needing to appear on stage as the rocket ship building gorilla with a bag of props.  He would then unpack them, perform a 30-second solo scene and then struggle to gather his things in the black out as we waited for the action to continue. 

There were some beautiful moments when it came to imagery. Ilia Sosner (lighting, sound and video design) stole the show for me, especially when he was allowed to get creative (Satan Santa was a highlight). 

The thing with satire is that you need to love your subject. You need to have deep care for it before you can debunk it. Vangroovy seemed to have nothing but hate for our fair city. Which is too bad, because I think this place is pretty rad. 

(P.S. - The show spoke about how hard it is to connect  - but in the audience of 14 people I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in a year. Connection for the win!)