I >artsseasonpreview I

The Vancouver East Cultural Centre will premiere
battery opera's tale of cockfights and sex,
Spektator (with Jennifer Murray and Billy
Marchenski, left), and the Stanley will present
Gabrielle Rose in Timothy Findley's Elizabeth Rex.

Getting Up to Some Theatrics This Season
The curtain will rise on everything from some tried-and-true musicals to a play set in an IKEA store
BY COLIN THOMAS

Y

ou might as well be readi n g y o u r h o r o s c o p e . If
y o u ' r e l o o k i n g for i n formed recommendations
about specific shows to catch in the
upcoming year, adjust your expec' tations: except for a remount or
two, I haven't seen the proposed
productions. That said, larger patterns—and contradictions—emerge
s
unambiguously from the stack of
good i n t e n t i o n s called season
brochures. Partly due to the Canada Council's preference for funding
homegrown works, the upcoming
year will feature more Canadian
content than ever. We will also see
more large-scale American musicals. There's convergence at the top
of the theatrical food chain as the
programming at the Arts Club and
the Playhouse becomes virtually
indistinguishable. And, most excitingly, Vancouver's experimental
theatre scene has finally achieved
critical mass.
For years, Vancouverites have
been treated to isolated adventures
in form, b u t those forays have
always felt like lonely monologues.
' ^Now, at last, a dialogue has begun.
This fall and winter, so many small
companies will be floating similar

concerns that their explorations The performers will wear radio • ^During its engagement at the wrights. It looks like Panych may be
will inevitably enrich one another.
transmitters and audience mem-, Fringe Festival (which runs until about to explore politics: The DishThe discussion is rooted partly in bers will get earphones so that we September 16), boca del lupo will washers (April 3 to April 27) features
concerns with site. As Vancouver can hear them voice their inner explore relationships based on the labourers who toil in the basecompanies invite audiences to leave thoughts. "IKEA is an iconic global absence. Inside will take place in a ment of a four-star restaurant.
Terrence McNally's Frankie and
the comfort of traditional theatres, entity," Laurenson says, "so I guess large Plexiglas cube on the mound
they link us to the international you could say that the show will beside Performance Works. In Johnny in the Clair de Lune mistakes
May,
the
company
will
offer
Hold
obsession for romance, but in proinvestigation into the relationship be a look inside the modern mind.
Besides, with IKEA, you get all of Your Head Tight, part two of its g r a m m i n g t h e s h o w , M i l l e r d
between place and identity.
doppelgSnger trilogy, at Perfor- d e m o n s t r a t e s a n o t h e r s e t of
, On October 21, for one perfor- these ready-made sets."
mance only, Radix Theatre will '
In March of 2002, the Electric m a n c e Work* as part of the-See .strengths: he keeps his ear to the
present The Sniffy the Rat Tenth Company will plunge into another : Seven series.
ground and he champions local talAnniversary Bus Tour. In 1990, Van- ready-made set, the indoor-pool
At the other end of the theatrical ent. Frankie and Johnny, which was
couverartist Rick Gibson threat- complex at Vancouver's Jewish ^spectrum, t h e most interesting originally mounted at the Firehall
ened to squash a feeder rat he Community Centre. That's where •thing about this year's season is just Arts Centre as an Equity co-op last
n a m e d Sniffy as a performance they'll m o u n t Kendra Fanconi's how savvy the Arts Club's artistic season, features two of Vancouver's
event. His a n n o u n c e m e n t pro- The One That Got Away, the story idirector, Bili Millerd, is. Millerd's most compelling actors, William
voked a hysterical public debate of a girl with a fish where her heart nimble responsiveness to his audi- MacDonald and Gina Chiarelli,
that made the papers as far away should be. On a more literal level, ence has sustained the company for and runs December 5 to January 5.
as Tasmania. The tour will include the spectacle will explore Fanconi's 29 of its 35 years. (This year, his
Millerd says he chose the final
video presentations on the bus, a relationship with her late Jewish choices for both his Stanley Theatre show in the Granville Island seaSniffy sing-along, c o m m e n t a r y grandfather, a millionaire scam and the Granville Island Stage are son, Dames at Sea, because Dames'
from actor Ian McDonald, and vis- artist who married nine times.
an instructive mix of financial prac- self-mocking stance fits the off-kilits to sites such as t h e Railway
ter sensibility that distinguishes
Architecture is the subject as ticality and artistic adventure.)
Club, where Gibson and his sup- opposed to the m e d i u m in t h e
The Granville Island season opens the venue this year.
porters were given free drinks after Electric Company's other show with the much-anticipated Flying
Millerd says t h a t t h e Stanley
escaping angry protesters.
this season. January 24 to February I Blind (October 31 to November 24), T h e a t r e , o n t h e o t h e r h a n d ,
d
e
m a n d s a whole other kind of
which
was
inspired
by
the
internaNext spring, Radix will present 2, they will present Flop at the
The Ikea Plays. Co-artistic director Vancouver East Cultural Centre. tional success of the physical come- p r o g r a m m i n g : "It's funny h o w
Andrew Laurenson says that Radix This celebration of failure concerns dy The Number 14. Once again, the venues tend to dictate things. The
has preliminary approval from three talented young architects at unassuming but tremendously cre- Stanley has a history, and the sense
IKEA to mount the performance in work on an unstable building. The | ative director Roy Surette will pilot of expectation that audiences bring
the Richmond IKEA store during show looks like it might be a kind the trip, and many of our finest to a building like that is helping to
weeknight business hours. "People of exorcism for a company that clowns, including Lois Anderson, stretch us as a company." In other
will travel in groups of four or five had enormous success early on. "If I Peter Anderson, Manon Beaudoin, words, his programming there is
and there will be three or four you experience success, you get set ; Colin Heath, and Wayne Specht, I getting more uptown.
actors," he explains. up to fail," co-artistic director will wreak havoc. The Granville
r The Stanley season opens with
David Hudgins comments. "People Island season also features a new Timothy Findley's Governor Generscript by Morris Panych, who is one al's Award-winning Elizabeth Rex
hope for disaster." rf
of Vancouver's—and Canada's— I (October 3 to 28), which will star
most original and prolific play- ..................
SEENDa'PAGE

PERFORMANCE ART
!E5 ABUVEGHOUKD

Mainstream arts like music and theatre;
have dozeris of nonprofit societies,rep-;
resenting their needs in this city/but
now performance art, one of the most
underground forms, is getting its own
new society. The move promises to
ensure i t a regular roster of biennial '
festivals and a long-term future in this
city. "Performance art goes on in the
city all the time, but very rarely
aboveground," explained the grunt
gallery's Glen Alteen, I t all started
with Live at the End of the Century,,
an event organised by the grunt two
years agoto mark 20 years of performance art in Vancouver. Alteen said i t
was never intended as anything but a
one-off festival but the galleries and
artists involved pushed for the event
to be held every two years. The result,

association organizes the literary pro- , •-.On the House project are holding a
October 13 to November 30, will be
by the time the festival ends, and t h a t ,
ject with TransLink, said all the pieces . •fundraiser at the North Vancouver play- v
the first LIVE biennial of performance : • group will lead i t into regular biennial
house for their productions this
art. "When you've got 15 galleries wiltevents, he said. LIVE kicks off October • t h a t will appear in the usual bus-ad for'Saturday night (September 8). Starting •;
ing to work on anything together, its
13 with a performance at the Vancouver. mat are ready to roll but the transit
last season, Presentation House offered
authority has been unable to organize i
worth pursuing," Alteen quipped. "We
Art Gallery; see its lineup detailed in
' up its space to three smalt venueits end due to backlogs caused by the
program performance art regularly [at
the Visual Arts Season Preview in this
Starved companies, and this year feaspring-and-summer strike. " I have a letissue. More schedule information will
;tures Stepping Stones' Faces of Love,
ter saying its going to happen this
soon be at www.livevancouver.bcca/, ••
the Out to Lunch Players' Much Ado
year," Reynolds said. "Normally we
and brochures are to appear at galleries
would launch in September, We're hop- £ lAbbut Nothing, and Rock-Paperat the end of this month.
ing it will be up in October." For more • < Scissors' Design for Living. Those three
; troupes will provide improv, music, and .)•
than five years, Poetry in Transit has ..
POETKY NOT IN MOTION.
:.shprt plays at the Make Me a Star
featured poems by writers from across
the gnint], but it was the excitement
Stimulation-starved commuters will \:i
fundraiser. In an added twist they'll
the province.
from these groups who don't do it reg- ' have to wait for the latest batch of
hold a contest, in which the. winning
ularly that made it happen." That, and
Poetry in Transit writings to appear on
character actor will get a walk-on part >
a $20,000 boost from the Vancouver
Greater Vancouver buses. "Because of ,
ON THE H0US2. The venue may come
in
RPS's April debut of Design for Living.
Foundation, support that allowed the
the transit strike, there was a delay," , . free, but they still have to raise money
grunt to fulfill its hopes of a six-week
Margaret Reynolds, executive director
for the show to go on. The three com- > •Phqne 604-990-3474 for tickets.
;
schedule with more than 30 events,
of the Association of Book Publishers o r : panics chosen to take'part in
•JAN sr SMITH
LIVE will have its own society set up
B.C., told XheStraightReynolds, whose
Presentation House's second annual ,:

THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT* SEPTEMBER 6 - 1 3 , 2 0 0 1 * I T