On stage, naughty fun and unlikely love

Kathleen Oliver

Ah, spring! The snow will pass, the blossoms will bud, and exciting shows will proliferate on Vancouver stages. My picks include premieres and proven successes; as usual, I don’t have room for all the shows I’d like to mention.

So, in addition to those highlighted below, there are formally innovative shows: Reverberations at Presentation House, Ce qu’on attend de moi from Théâtre la Seizième, and Nassim at the Cultch all promise to shake up the usual relationships between audience, performer, and script.

Women writers are getting plenty of stage time this spring, and the coming months will see the return of some excellent feminist shows from the recent past: my 2018 Fringe favourite Poly Queer Love Ballad at the SUM Gallery, Hot Brown Honey at the York Theatre, and the latest Mom’s the Word: Nest ½ Empty at the COME FROM AWAY (At the Queen Arts Club’s Granville Island Stage in Elizabeth Theatre from March 5 to June. If you missed any of these the 10) Vancouver finally gets a chance first time around, go see them! to see one of the most successful

Shows for younger audiences include Canadian musicals of the past decade, Carousel Theatre’s Salmon set in Gander, Newfoundland, the Girl and Iron Peggy at the Vancouver community that welcomed thousands International Children’s Festival, of passengers whose flights were both written by Indigenous women. redirected after the 9/11 terrorist And watch for more strong women attacks. The Draw: Major, sustained in Glory, Tracey Power’s play about buzz. Irene Sankoff and David a 1930s female hockey team at the Hein created this show at Toronto’s Gateway, and in Lois Anderson’s Sheridan College; it has gone on to production of The Taming of the dazzle audiences on Broadway and Shrew at Bard on the Beach. Anderson earn seven Tony nominations, among directed last year’s Lysistrata, a host of other honours. Target one of the most unhinged shows Audience: Proud Cancon supporters I’ve ever seen at Bard; if anyone can who got their tickets early. make the problematic sexual politics of Shrew both meaningful and entertaining GROSS MISCONDUCT (At in 2019, it’s her. Gateway Theatre from March 14 to

Ruby Slippers stages Marine Life,

Vancouver actor and playwright Meghan Gardiner’s new script explores revenge and redemption in a twisting story of two prisoners. The press materials promise #Metoo relevance. The Draw: Provocation. Producing company Speakeasy Theatre last got our attention with The Shipment, a formally daring and socially relevant production. The talent assembled for this show looks impressive as well. Target Audience: Fans of Gardiner’s acting who want to see what else she has up her sleeve.

MARINE LIFE

(At the Firehall Arts Centre from March 14 to 23) Globe and Mail critic J. Kelly Nestruck calls this play “a nice, light romantic comedy about the inevitability of environmental destruction”. Ruby Slippers Theatre gives us the Vancouver premiere of Rosa Labordé’s much-praised story of the unlikely romance between an environmental activist and a corporate lawyer. The Draw: If environmentalism and corporatism can find a harmonious relationship—even if it takes magic realism to make it happen—then maybe there’s hope for us. Target Audience: The hopeful.

MULTIPLE ORGANISM

(At the Vancity Culture Lab from March 19 to 30) My hands-down favourite show at the 2017 Fringe Festival was this wildly inventive adultsonly puppet show from Mind of a Snail, which won both the Georgia Straight Critics’ Choice Award and the Cultchivating the Fringe Award. It follows an artist’s model down a figurative rabbit hole that’s at once familiar and deliriously trippy. The Draw: Breathtaking originality— and naughty fun! You will never look at a toothbrush the same way again. Target Audience: The fearlessly adventurous. Adults only!

THE ORCHARD (AFTER CHEKHOV) (At the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage from March 27 to April 2) Playwright Sarena Parmar transplants Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard to the 1970s Okanagan Valley, where a Punjabi Sikh family faces financial pressure to sell its beloved orchard. The play’s premiere at the Shaw Festival last year earned strong reviews. The Draw: The creative team is loaded with talent. Jovanni Sy directs a 12-person cast that includes Laara Sadiq, Nadeem Phillip, and Adele Noronha. Target Audience: Locavores who appreciate a new twist on the classics.

REVOLVER FESTIVAL

(At the Cultch and various venues from May 22 to June 2) As the weather warms up and many local stages grow quieter, the revolver Festival explodes in and around the Cultch like a fizzy summer drink, showcasing unconventional, experimental work from mostly emerging artists, local and national. This year’s lineup includes two terrific shows from last year’s Fringe Festival—fake Ghost Tours and Surveil. The Draw: Variety. The festival promises storytelling, dance, sketch comedy, clown, puppetry, absurdism, and more. Bonus: there’s a barbecue. Target Audience: Want a hot dog and a beer with your existentialism? g

Many of the season’s best shows are photobased—not surprising given that the annual Capture Photography Festival (April 3 to 30) has so successfully come to signify springtime in Metro Vancouver’s visual-art world. Personal stories are reconstructed, cultural histories are illuminated, and changing viewpoints are processed through the lenses of local, national, and international artists.

NICOLAS SASSOON: LIQUID LANDSCAPES (At the Surrey Urbanscreen to April 28) Nighttime passengers on the Skytrain between Gateway and Surrey Central stations are graced with views of Nicolas Sassoon’s digital-animation ode to the natural landscapes of Surrey, playing across the façade of the Chuck Bailey Recreation Centre. Drawing on photographs found online, Sassoon translates natural colours and forms into pulsing and morphing abstractions— a different work for each night of the week. Each references a different site, such as Crescent Beach, Serpentine Fen, and the Nikomekl River, while also alluding to early computer graphics. The Draw: Sassoon asks us to reconsider the ways our understanding of the natural world is mediated by photographic and digital technologies. At the same time, Liquid Landscapes is visually mesmerizing—more than worth the Skytrain fare. Ride back and forth as often as you dare, or, hey, get out and stand gawking in the rec-centre parking lot. AFFINITIES: CANADIAN ARTISTS AND FRANCE (At the Vancouver Art Gallery from March 2 to May 20) While the main event at the VAG this spring is definitely French Moderns, touring from the Brooklyn Museum and featuring the likes of Paul Cézanne, Marc Chagall, Edgar Degas, and Henri Matisse, Affinities promises to tie this show to Canadian art from the gallery’s collection. Probing the influences of French modernist movements on Canadian artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Affinities gives us works by Emily Carr, Maurice Cullen, and J.W. Morrice. More recently, French cultural and feminist theory is reflected in the postmodernism of Rodney Graham, Lucy Hogg, and Mary Scott. The Draw: It’s fascinating to consider the ways in which French art and theory have spun outward, throwing long lines of inventiveness into our own backyard. JIM BREUKELMAN: ALTERED STATES (At the West Vancouver Museum from March 20 to May 11) This solo exhibition spotlights both early and recent work by one of our leading photographic artists. We are introduced to a body of images Breukelman shot in a diner in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, while he was a student at the famous Rhode Island School of Design. These works reflect on opposing views held by the counterculture of the artist’s generation and the older factory workers and truckers who patronized the diner. Also on view are selections from more recent photographic series, including unsettling images shot in a taxidermy shop and a mesocosm. The Draw: A major retrospective of Breukelman’s work is long overdue. In the meantime, the West Van Museum show gives us a gratifying glimpse into his career.

DEANNA BOWEN: A HARLEM NOCTURNE (At the Contemporary Art Gallery from April 5 to June 16) Vancouver-raised, Toronto-based artist Deanna Bowen researches and retells African-canadian histories, including those involving her own family, who immigrated to this country from the United States in the early 20th century. In the second of two related exhibitions (the first was at Toronto’s Mercer Union in 2017), the culmination of a multiyear research project, she uses film, photography, and other media to examine race relations in Vancouver. Focusing particularly on our city’s black entertainment community, she illuminates the story of Eleanor Collins, a jazz singer and variety-show host of the 1950s and ’60s—the first black host on TV in North America. The Draw: An internationally acclaimed multidisciplinary artist, Bowen unearths overlooked black histories, reminding the mainstream that it is not as squeaky clean and tolerant as it likes to believe.

KAREN TAM: WITH WINGS LIKE CLOUDS HUNG FROM THE SKY (At the Richmond Art Gallery from May 4 to June 30) Montreal artist Karen Tam characteristically works with mixed-media installations that re-create spaces claimed and shaped by Chinese immigrants. Her RAG work, originally created for the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, “reimagines” the painting studio of Lee Nam, an artist who migrated to British Columbia more than a century ago and settled in Victoria’s Chinatown. Tam’s installation includes flowers, goldfish, and photographs, as well as traditional brush paintings by contemporary Chinese-canadian artists. The Draw: Building on her extensive historical research, including that into the friendship between Lee and Emily Carr (who showed his work in her studio), Tam opens our eyes to the life and times of an artist who might otherwise have slipped into obscurity. g