This musical took Broadway by storm about 10 years ago - and it’s still a damn funny show. It has puppets! Naked puppets! Sex with naked puppets!
And even better, Avenue Q aims to make you think. Featuring puppets of all colours, races and orientation, the show mercilessly mocks our age of political correctness with dazzling musical numbers such as “If You Were Gay”, “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” and “The Internet Is For Porn.” Though Avenue Q is not authorized or approved by the Jim Henson Company or Sesame Workshop, puppets such as porn-addicted Trekkie Monster and...
As Director Bill Millerd rightly states in the opening sentence to his written message contained in the program for DREAMGIRLS, “musicals are a special breed, and they have their ardent fans and equal ardent detractors.” Certainly detractors were thin on the ground at the opening on Wednesday evening of DREAMGIRLS, the final show of the season at the Stanley Industrial Alliance stage. Instead, “ardent fans” practically tore the place apart with some of the most robust cheering I have heard - anywhere - in many years of attending and appearing in productions.
Recently at the Havana Cafe, I was having lunch with David Bloom (Artistic Director, actor, writer, fight master - all-round Renaissance Man of Vancouver's alternative theatre scene). To arrange this meeting was an exercise in perseverance. Why? Bloom is a dervish of activity - just finished a role in Three Sisters, already gearing up to teach at Capilano University and now plunged into rehearsal for his next appearance in Brief Encounters.
At that my mind reels. Brief Encounters?! I cry out, “Why would you do a Noel Coward play?! Is there an audience for that in small theatre? Isn’t...
Brief Encounters is produced by the Tomorrow Collective
Tea: A Mirror of Soul is an exotic, symbolic, operatic exploration of the role of tea in Eastern culture. This unique piece is playing at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre for four nights only: May 4, 7, 9 and 11.
Mirrors are about perception. Is a reflection truth or its opposite? I found this opera full of contrast and juxtapositions, perhaps a more accurate reflection of the muddled and conflicted human spirit than I had expected to see.
The piece opens with a bare stage, a zen garden...
ChenYe Yuan (Seikyo) Ning Liang (Lu), photo by Time Matheson
We muse little on the cult of death in 2013. Instead of funerals, everyone is invited to attend a celebration of life. But a funeral is what it is. A memorial service. A remembrance of a soul gone from this earth.
As we enter the theatre, fog is everywhere. A man in a top hat wanders and mutters. There is a printed card on my seat which reads: "All kinds of black fur and seal-skin are worn in deep mourning." Now the man climbs up near the balcony and he keens: "Listen to the little lady!" The little...
Ballet BC’s Giselle is running for 3 nights only at the Queen Elizabeth theatre. A contemporary re-imagining by choreographer José Navas, this performance is both accessible to the uninitiated and bursting with artistic depth, passion and integrity.
I believe that a production should stand on its own merit without any background knowledge. I like to go in to a performance as “blind” as I can without having read any reviews or even the program notes in order to get a clean, unbiased experience.
When it comes to ballet I consider myself an ignorant enthusiast. My friend that typically joins me...
In their production of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, Jane Heyman and Jesse Johnston, together with the company of The Only Child Collective, have offered up a rare gift to Vancouver theatre-goers.
Not to say the production is without flaws, but it is a tribute to one of the 20th century’s great literary giants and, at the same time, a breathtaking leap of faith for a small, unfunded collective to do what so many larger wealthier companies do not, i.e.: challenge their audiences with complex, nuanced material, and a large ensemble cast of 13 actors.
Anton Chekhov...
Bob Frazer and Emma Slipp in The Only Child Collective production of Three Sisters. Photo by Emily Cooper.
The techno-dance aliens have landed. There are twelve of them. They wear beige unitards, have their hair pasted to their skulls and their eyes whited out. The unitards give them the look of shaven Caucasian babies, with adult sexual organs straining to break free of the latex epidermal membrane.
We first encounter them in a circle, facing in, with their arms outstretched to the heavens, from where they have apparently been teleported to Earth. Nature sounds—birds singing, etc.— fill the air. These are soon obliterated by a machine-made pulse. The techno-babies have come to dance and they prefer to...
Dance House’s presentation of Carte Blanche, a program of the Norwegian National Company of Contemporary Dance
The difficulty in writing about a show such as 2 Pianos 4 Hands is that there is very little left to say that hasn’t been said or repeated in the 16 years and 5,000 performances that have elapsed since it appeared, to great acclaim, in its first incarnation at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto.
Far more accomplished reviewers than I doubtless ran out of superlatives years ago in writing about this show as it progressed from venue to venue and country to country, garnering more than two million in attendance, so I will just get in line and say...
Written, Starring, and Directed by Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt
Drawing from a number popular dystopian themes, Broken Sex Doll is a slick, silly, scifi satire. Kinda like if Ray Bradbury had written Grease.
The story revolves around, as you can imagine, a “broken” sex doll but there are a number of twists and turns in the plot to keep you on your toes. The musical numbers are strong, the set is fabulous, and the acting is fun and fearless. Without giving too much away I’d like to say that my favourite parts were the very first action sequence, the umbrella montage and some very expressive leg acting.
