Searching for wisdom at rEvolver Festival
Langara College production How Should You Be? delivers candid life advice for ‘ generation screwed’
rEvolver Festival
May 13- 25 | The Cultch
Tickets and info: From $ 10, tickets. thecultch. com or
604- 251- 1363
A nude souvlaki salesman, a former premier, a stripper, a psychic and a rock star share the secrets to life in How Should You Be?, which runs May 13 - 24 at Upintheair Theatre’s rEvolver Festival at the Cultch.
The premise: Students from Langara College’s Studio 58 theatre program were sent out to interview people about the best ways to live and then told to translate the answers into theatre.
“It’s sort of self- help by people who have no experience,” director Georgina Beaty told The Sun. “Twentysomethings answering huge life questions — which has an element of humour to it. It’s part docu- drama and part dance party.”
Beaty says the project, which was conceived by her company Architect Theatre, was sparked by Sheila Heti’s book How Should a Person Be? The Vancouver company specializes in shows crafted from interviews. Past productions include Highway 63: The Fort Mac Show and This Must be the Place: The CN Tower Show.
Since the student interviews aren’t presented verbatim, Beaty won’t reveal who was interviewed beyond listing their occupations.
“Instead of recording the interviews they went right into the rehearsal hall with what they remembered from the interviews and the person became a fictional version of themselves.”
The wisdom translated by the team of twenty- something creator- performers also came from a plastic surgeon, a bestselling author, a hairdresser, a doctor, a professor, a nutritionist and a Sikh priest.
“We were interested in the unique voice of this generation that has been called ‘ generation screwed’ — as they leave university with fewer job prospects — or ‘ generation me’ — stereotyped as being selfish and incapable of maturity,” Beaty says.
“All of this came from their own questions about what is the best route to life and how do you be a good person and how should you be in this world and very different approaches to that.”
Originally workshopped by 10 students at Studio 58 in front of several sold- out houses, the show has been revised and refined for rEvolver with a cast of seven newly- minted theatre school grads. While the production features a lot of comedy — and some dance — Beaty says it also has a lot of heart and even a bit of heartbreak.
“By the end it’s quite touching as these people come to grips with the compromises you have to make in life and how it’s not as easy as it might seem to choose a path and stay on it.”
Other shows at the rEvolver Festival — which evolved out of the Walking Fish and Neanderthal Arts Festivals — are also asking the big questions in unique ways. This year’s festival features a dozen shows as well as seven staged readings.
• In CAEZR: 33 Cuts, Vancouver’s Human Theatre Collective takes a scifi look at this city’s future in a cuttingedge production inspired by Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. It’s a world of power shortages and power plays. Their tag line — “we are nine meals away from anarchy.”
• Pan and Superman is a production guaranteed to raise your heart rate. Adam Bergquist will take his audience for a run around the Cultch and the surrounding area for his new show, which is billed as a combo history lesson and workout session. The show is produced by One2Theatre. BYO running shoes.
• Eight actors, four musicians and a quartet of lighting technicians are teaming up to present Lost Light Productions and Off Key’s instant musical comedy Off Key: An Improvised Musical.
• Female pirates invade the festival with Heroine. Billed as a “stage combat” play, the show is set in 1772 and inspired by the adventures of a pair of real female pirates — Ann Bonny and Mary Read. It’s written and performed by Francine Deschepper and professional fight choreographer Karen Basset and presented by Halifax’s Off the Leash Creative.
• Victoria’s Impulse Theatre presents Shattered, a very physical solo show about the pieces of a broken artist, created by Andrew Barrett and directed by Atomic Vaudeville’s artistic producer Britt Candid Small ( Ride the Cyclone).
• And the British comedy duo James & Jamesy presents their Fringe Festival hit 2 for Tea. Audiences are advised to bring a teacup to the madcap party.