Dirty Dancing – the musical
The Lion King – second time around
The History Boys - live
January 12-14, 2008

London, UK: Timing is everything! Pass it on. For several reasons including airline bookings, the timing of my four day stopover in London ended up with me arriving on Saturday Tuesday. While perfect for New York where it would mean I could see a matinee and evening performance on Sunday, in London virtually all the theatres are dark on Sundays. From the hordes of people in and around Leicester Square and Covent Garden it seems a somewhat
unbusinesslike way of doing things. Surely it makes more sense to have some shows run Sunday and be dark on Monday or Tuesday? At any rate the ONLY show with a Sunday performance was The Lion King at 3 pm. Although I saw it several years ago in New York, I decided to see the London version, and The Lyceum Theatre which must seat at least 1500 people, was packed. So there is an audience for Sunday shows.

Hecuba by Euripides, adapted by George McWhirter
Directed by John Wright
Vancouver East Cultural Centre
Blackbird Theatre
December 28 – January 12th

Vancouver, BC: I think our enduring fascination with Greek tragedies written around 2500 years ago lies in their fundamental questioning of human behaviour and morality through themes that still resonate with contemporary audiences. The issues of justice, revenge and free will, of power, honour, guilt and innocence that permeate these plays cry out to us to examine our personal ethics and the moral choices we make in our own lives. Blackbird Theatre’s production of Euripides’ Hecuba, elegantly and sparely directed by John Wright, spotlights many of these ethical issues with pin point precision.

"Seussical: The Musical" by Lynn Ahrens (Book and Lyrics) and Stephen Flaherty (Music) Directed by Carole Higgins; Music Director Steven Greenfield
The Waterfront Theatre, Granville Island
Carousel Theatre
November 30 to January 5.

Vancouver, BC: Saturday, December 1st, was not shaping up to be one of my favorite days. Despite driving in Vancouver for many more years than I drove in Cape Town I still don’t feel comfortable taking my precious little Audi out in snow. I had a ticket to Seussical on Granville Island for the evening so my chionophobic anxiety was high. Drive and risk my car sliding all over the icy roads, or walk to the Aquabus at Hornby, and risk me slipping on icy pavements – good bye dancing!

Time for comfort food - so I thought I would heat up the contents of one of the gourmet, low fat, no-preservative, vegetable soups that I stock in my pantry, so I will have something to eat when “the big one” hits. (I dutifully read the emergency preparedness articles about self-reliance in emergencies and long ago took as my own the Boy Scout motto – Be Prepared.) I set the microwave to auto reheat – pressed 2 for soup – and the phone rang. A few minutes later I returned to the kitchen to find that my pristine microwave oven was now a brightly coloured Pollock-like riot of orange (carrots) and green (herbs) and brown (spices? Who knows?).

“Alas” I said, “I am so sad, I am so sad I can’t be glad. I wish I had not turned my soup into a mess of sloppy goop. I do not want to go outside, I’d rather stay in bed and hide until this weather goes away and it becomes a sunny day.” But then I thought “despite the snow I really think I have to go”.

A Moon for the Misbegotten by Eugene O'Neill
Directed by Jack Paterson
Jericho Arts Centre
November 16 - December 9, 2007

Vancouver, BC: It is a week since I saw this play and I have had great difficulty in coalescing my reactions into a coherent form. So armed with the very real excuses of a schedule crowded with deadlines and electronic crises such as crashed computers, I did what I do best - procrastinate. Ironically, what jolted me into sitting down at my newly repaired computer to finish these thoughts was my going last night to the opening of Seussical: The Musical. Of the Seuss titles, the one I love the best is Oh, the Thinks You Can Think. Because after all the capacity to think is what distinguishes humans from other species. So here are my "thinks" on Eugene O'Neill's "A Moon for the Misbegotten," at the JAC.

Richard lll by William Shakespeare
Directed by Scott Bellis
Studio 58, Langara
November 15- Dec 9, 2007

Vancouver, BC: In Stephen Greenblatt’s introduction to Richard lll in the Norton Shakespeare, he relates a story about Shakespeare and the play, said to have been recorded in 1602 in the diary of a London law student. The gist of it was that a woman was so impressed with Richard Burbage in the title role that she invited him to visit her that very night as Richard lll. Shakespeare contrived to arrive before Burbage. When the announcement came that Richard lll was at the door, WS sent a return message that William the conqueror was before Richard lll. True or not, as Greenblatt points out, the story illustrates that despite Richard’s physical deformities and anti-heroic villainy, this protagonist has exerted a compelling attraction on generations of playgoers.

So thinking back to when I wondered how handsome hunk, Bob Frazer (remember those jeans in Taming of the Shrew) could possibly portray the “rudely stamped, deformed and unfinished” Richard – I can only sigh “oh ye, of little faith”. The man can act! From the minute he dragged himself on crutches, leg in a brace, face discolored by a birthmark, and declared with a devilish smile that since he could not be a lover, he was determined to be a villain – I was entranced. Frazer plays Richard as a charming sociopath who, in fulfillment of his desire to rule, manipulates others to bump off anyone who stands in way of his ambition. The only moment when he drops his shield of arrogance and insouciance allowing us to see the vulnerable,inner Richard, is when he stumbles while moving to ascend his newly acquired throne.Brilliant.

Joan and Beatrice by Carol Fréchette. Translated by John Murrell.
Directed by Del Surjik
PAL Theatre, Cardero Street.
Pi Theatre
Nov 14 to Dec 1, 2007.

Vancouver, BC: Not so very long ago, playing strategy games on my computer was my favoured form of procrastination, and SimTower kept me distracted for hours at a time. The game objective was to build a towering skyscraper, with hotel rooms, condominiums, offices and restaurants, increase the resident population and keep the Sim people happy. Still today I keep calm in interminable lineups by remembering the Sims turning pink with frustration and then red with rage, as they waited for elevators to carry them down to their offices or up to their homes. As the hours progressed through days and nights, lights in the building units would switch on and off when the Sims woke or went to bed. I was reminded of this, watching Tim Matheson’s video projection of lights flicking on and off in the high rise buildings behind the new PAL Theatre. Pi Theatre’s Western Canadian Premiere of “John and Beatrice,” directed by Del Surjik, is the production chosen to launch this welcome addition to theatre space in Vancouver’s downtown core.

Tideline by Wajdi Mouawad
Translated by Shelley Tepperman
Directed: Katrina Dunn, Camyar Chai
Roundhouse Community Centre
Neworldtheatre and Touchstone Theatre
November 8-24, 2007

Vancouver, BC: In 1997 I spent a week in war-torn Beirut. It was a mere 7 years after the official end of the civil war between Christians and Muslims that ravaged the city. Syria was effectively in control of Lebanon and in the south, fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli forces was ongoing. I was invited to Beirut to lecture and give workshops at a medical conference. When an ex-student of mine, suggested I combine the trip to Lebanon with a visit to Egypt to meet her family, against the advice of family and colleagues I decided to go. I saw the news of Princess Diana’s death in a Cairo travel Agency as I was booking a tour to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. Less than 10 weeks after I had wandered enthralled among the temple ruins, news headlines told of tourists gunned down on that very site. A random conjunction of time, place and terror – and 62 lives lost.

Beirut – for me the name evokes memories of driving past bombed buildings where people once lived and worked. Pipes and cables dangling from shattered bare concrete walls open to the elements, as we pass by on our way to dinner at an opulent mountainside apartment overlooking the shattered city. Images flicker through my mind like frames of a film.

Which brings me to Tideline, a play about - the mind of a man in a film or a film in the mind of a man – or is it about dreaming of death or the death of dreams, about murdering a father or killing a mother, or perhaps about burying the past or returning to it … see a problem?

Vancouver, BC: It is fitting that Meta.for Theatre opened its production of Sherman’s play, BENT, on Halloween night. Though first produced in 1978, and set in pre-world war II Germany, this powerful play evokes the ghosts of the millions who were killed because they were Jewish, homosexual, disabled, or otherwise “different” as well the millions more who died in action on land, or in sea or sky. In Vancouver on Halloween night the dead walked among us again with their plea to “never forget”. And although the events of this play and The Holocaust that followed, happened years before most of the cast and crew were born, and even before I was born, indeed we must never forget.

The Stone Face by Sherry MacDonald
The Waterfront Theatre
Damfino Theatre
October 25- November 10, 2007
Vancouver, BC:

Sam: To be is to be perceived
Buster: To be perceived is to be

Alan: The film, Film, is about the object versus the subject. Titling the film simply Film, in effect draws attention to the subject as a reflection of its viewed self

In her play, The Stone Face, that premiered last night at The Waterfront, local playwright Sherry MacDonald skillfully manages to pay homage to Buster Keaton and Samuel Beckett while jibing at subjects as diverse as theatre of the absurd, Abbott and Costello and academic literary theory. As one who admires the dedication of the many writers who toil in solitude, writing and polishing books which don’t get published or plays that don’t get produced, it’s a real pleasure for me to see The Stone Face brought to life on stage.I saw a much earlier version at the Playwrights Theatre Centre New Play Festival in May 2004 and it is interesting to see the evolution from previous draft to final production.

The Wars adapted by Dennis Garnhum from the book by Timothy Findley
Directed by Dennis Garnhum
Vancouver Playhouse
Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company
October 11 – November 10th, 2007

Vancouver, BC: I first read “The Wars” as an assignment in a distance education Canadian Literature course when I was working ten hour days, and studying three to four hours a night. Reading for pleasure was limited to ten or fifteen minutes before I could no longer keep my eyes open and drifted into sleep. The night I began “The Wars” was no different. In bed by eleven, I opened the slim paperback, determined to make a start on my next assignment. Three hours later I closed the book. I lay awake thinking about Robert, a compassionate, sensitive 19 year old boy who was compelled to take on responsibilities no young person should ever have to face. The thought of the terror that he experienced in the moment when he realized that he and his beloved horses were trapped had me shivering in the warmth of my comfortable bed. With an economy of words Findley had recreated a world of artillery barrages, poison gases and young men sent to die in futile attempts to capture a piece of ground. He also showed how tenderness can be nurtured in a young person and how he can be driven to desperate measures to protect the vulnerable.