is-

brilliantly wrested out of forbid-

stuff — a mining camp
located near the small town of
Levack in northern Ontario. The
first act takes place above the pit, in
a pub, a grill called the Bluebird, a
‘bunkhouse and a house in town;
the second plunges us below, to a
dramatic cave-in and a surprise en-

It is a play about two buddies,
Shooter and Simon who drifted in-
to camp five months ago to makea
few bucks to blow in Toronto or
another city when they drift out~
again, and their relationship with
their stope boss, Guy, a long-time
Tesident and worker there.

Omen are scarce, and
therefore how these single men
Cope with their sexual frustrations
18 a motive force behind much of
the action of the play. .

In the opening scene, Shooter
Orris Panych) wants to go to
town with side-kick Simon (Ed
Astley) after shift, because a new
Stripper is featured at the pub.
What else is there to do?, the play
asks, suggesting that it is the same

- | for loggers, fishermen or construc-

tion workers in isolated camps who
Must travel to neighboring small
communities with limited social
outlets for a good time to relieve
their boredom.

_ Guy (Allan Gray) is uptight and
ittakes a lot of gentle persuasion by
Simon for him to join them.
Shooter couldn’t care less whether
hecomes or not, butas the play also

(Points out, when you are working

Tamahnous
strikes gold
with new

Canadian play

Some Kind of Savior is a play ‘SOME KIND OF SAVIOR. A new

thes

Canadian play Jeremy Long. Pro-
duced by Tamahnous Theatre Com-
pany. To Nov. 29 at the Vancouver
East Cultural Centre.

in remote areas, you don’t have too
much choice about the company
you keep, or, as it turns out, the
strippers who come to town.

While they are convincing Guy
to come, Shooter steals the show
with his disarmingly “
conversational patter, coarse and
witty by turns, full of wisecracks,
inters with “fucking” this
and that, and his colloq “eh’’ at
the end of most sentences. Sounds
like a lot of ians, eh?

It is uncanny how Panych takes
playwright Jeremy Long’s “typical
single transient Canadian male,” a
contradictory mixture of
machismo and self-deprecation,
and creates a thoroughly believable
character. Larry Lillo must be
commended for his ability to
realize these characters to their
fullest through his sure director-
ship.

From the pub where the drinking
begins, to their untimely exit and
their winding up at the grill where
they pick up two under-age, very
bored girls and go back home with
them for a continuation of a good
time, and their second untimely,
even funnier exit, the audience was
hooked into this play.

* Shooter and Simon are
characters that are immediately
recognizable, whereas Guy is less so
because of the unusual cir-
cumstances surrounding his situa-

—\

2481 E. 39th Ave., Vanco

) Painting

CONDOR’S

Building
Maintenance

uver, B.C. Phone 433-1145

PHOTO—DAVID COOPER

ED ASTLEY..
tion.

tion. His story of a bum rap for
rape charge and his thwarted
dreams to become a mountie is a
hokey plot line.

Both of them are drunk when
they find Guy crouching naked in
the open window of his
bunkhouse, and as Shooter
remarks, ‘‘this is the weirdest fuck-
in’ night I’ve spent since the elec-
tion.”

The scarcely veiled contempt
between Shooter and Guy in act
one, stemming in part from their
different positions in the mine,
comes into dramatic focus in the se-
cond act. Playwright Long seems
to suggest that certain characters
gravitate to particular worker-
roles, and when placed in an en-
vironment stripped of normal
social and sexual outlets, the result
is an explosive exaggeration of
those roles.

Central to their conflict is their
attitude towards women and one of
the many reasons why men and
women should check out this pro-
duction. :

The women they encounter who
are also victims of their environ-
ment, are strippers, or widows, or

\ cooks (all unseen in the play), or are

. as Simon in Tamahnous Theatre’s new produc: :

-the real context in which mining

worldly before their years, like Val
(Miriam Smith) and Celia (Wendy
Lewis) or unwordly yet practical
like Cloe (Sue Astley) who wants to
settle down with Guy.

They are all drawn from the
Canadian working class milieu,
and they are all trapped in various
emotional and economic bondage
and find escape through a variety
of easy stimulants, like dope, booze
and sex.

The imagery of being trapped in|
this kind of environment becom

disaster occurs. :

Some Kind of Savior, premier
by Tamahnous, at the Vancouv:
East Cultural Centre Nov. 7
take up the challenge of developing
Canadian theatre born of the liv
of working men and women, as
successfully as Touchstone’s
Highball did with its production
about B.C.’s logging history last

year.

Some Kind of Savior runs unti
November 29, Tuesday to Thurs-
day and on weekends with a pay-
what-you-can matinee on Saturday}
at 2:30 p.m. All evening perfor-
mances at 8:30 p.m.

—Janice Harris /

nyncaric cam
in one of

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City or Town ....-..2 eee erect

After you vote
November 15

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Celebrate th
anniversary of the
Canadian-Cuban
Friendship
_ Association.

Take a tour
to Cuba.
For more information
phone 872-2297 or 738-8416.

Or write Bob Jackson,
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4

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOV. 14, 1980—Page 11