Alexandra Wood's The Human Ear, directed by Jessica Aquila Cymerman and performed by Paige Louter and Éanna O'Dowd of Untold Wants Theatre, is the kind of show that makes me just want to list adjectives instead of make coherent sentences.

Sparse. Intense. Dark. Thought provoking. Confusing. Heavy. Quirky. Intriguing. Heartfelt. Challenging. Rewarding. Compelling. . .

The play starts off at merely intense and builds consistently from there, pounding at your need to understand until you surrender. Nothing is as it seems and nothing is spelled out for you. You are left to interpret events on your own. As an audience we often know less than the characters do, creating a suspenseful puzzle that I'm still not sure I've worked through to my satisfaction.

This piece is not for you if you go to the theatre for light hearted entertainment, but if you're up to the challenge of unravelling a complex, heartfelt and intriguing drama, then I think you will find it most rewarding.

​The Human Ear is playing at Pacific Theatre until 25 July.
​Don't  miss out.

~reviewed by Danielle Benzon

There’s a reason why small, tightly developed plays are so appealing to me. They leave the audience with nothing to do but see where the characters’ conflicts are going, with little or no fifth business to distract attention.

This can be challenging for actors, not to mention audiences who expect big set pieces.

This three-hander revolves around an errant, failed artist father and the chasm that keeps his aspiring actress daughter from building the bridge back to him. The daughter’s partner is a caterer struggling for the satisfying life her dream promised, and seems initially more connected to Pater Artisticus than her partner. These dynamics, with history and ghosts of missing characters cluttering up the claustrophobic set, and the clearly never finished business that surrounds this person, make for some deliciously tense moments. 

The Beauty Queen of Leenane is an intimate look at the dysfunctional balance between co-dependence and self-interest in the relationship between a daughter (in her 40s) and mother (just turned 70) who have lived together in an isolated Irish house for 20 years. The play’s events unfold over a short period of time and are sparked by a rare romantic opportunity for the daughter.

It is suggested that both of the characters have struggled with mental illness, although the credibility of this is questionable as it is something that each of the women says of the other, and the play proves both women are capable of lying.  Kirsten Slenning’s portrayal of the daughter and Tanja Dixon-Warren’s of the mother are masterful. Their characters have an ambiguous credibility when switching between displays of strength and vulnerability, that made it hard to read when the characters were affecting behaviours or being genuine with one another. It kept the audience guessing their true motives and true potential to great success.

The unchanging, well-used set pieces are the perfect backdrop for the familiar yet unstable relationship between the house’s inhabitants. The stage is full of furniture yet does not feel cluttered or crowded. It is only once the characters’ movements, emotions, and histories infuse the space that the house begins to feel stifling and unable to accommodate these two women. A sense of confinement became palpable in the second half, and the production had a tone of restlessness, which I found contagious; I knew I was waiting for something to happen next, but I just couldn’t foresee how the play would end.

Ensemble Theatre Company’s production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane runs at the Jericho Arts Centre until August 15.
 
Sonja’s Favourites:

• I cannot get over how well the set works for this production!
• I do like to see female characters and roles for women achieve their violent potential.
• The monologues.
• The chamber pot scene.
• The mother-daughter relationship contrasted with that of the brothers.

 
Missed the Mark for Sonja:

• The national/political undertone did not feel detailed enough for me to grasp its importance or relevance to the plot amidst the other relationship politics on stage.

~ reviewed by Sonja Cvoric

“Chekhov’s gun” 
A form of foreshadowing. If an object is introduced early on in the play, it will make a necessary (and usually dramatic) reappearance later in the play. The 19th Century playwright, Anton Chekhov used this technique to great effect in one of his plays where a gun is shown in the first act, and fired by the end, hence the name for this technique. ​

​Heroine, at the Pacific Theatre in the South Granville / Fairview area of Vancouver, was an enjoyable evening put on by a young energetic company of performers who call themselves Affair of Honor. The group is committed to the performance of “visually stunning fight and movement based theatre.” Find out more about the company at​ https://www.patreon.com/affairofhonor. 

It didn’t occur to me that stage, film, and performance combat was such a thing in Vancouver but it is and members of this company are ardent in their passion for the craft of stage and film fighting. For those wishing to indulge, they offer workshops.

The play was written by a Halifax playwright, Karen Bassett, who is dedicated to the discipline of stage fighting. An inability to find good roles for women in this genre led her to write Heroine which has been enthusiastically received and performed across the country. 

~ reviewed by Josh Cronkhite

​Timon of Athens is, to the admission of Bard on the Beach, a (probably) half-written Shakespearean play that is quite confounding. It does not sit terribly comfortably solely in the realms of comedy, tragedy, history… Nor does it have any romantic subplots or familial deceits and collusions. Despite these oddities, William Shakespeare, Thomas Middleton, and director Meg Roe have crafted a piece of theatre that poses some very topical questions indeed.

This production is a great showcase of the power of interdisciplinary artistic collaboration. Mara Gottler, the costume designer, deserves loud praise for her astute eye in choosing costumes that at once act as the charcoal character-study sketches on which the coming theatrical canvas is painted. This was particularly helpful due to this being a more obscure Shakespearean piece -- it significantly cut any possible learning curve launching the entire audience into the action right off the top. This economical, artistic pragmatism is also translated into the vision of the set designer Drew Facey’s versatile set. The design (without wanting to give too much away!) is surprising and is yet another element that clearly fuelled these actresses. . . 

Being only a ninety minute one-act play, the time flew by. There was a real buzz in the air, partly of course because it was opening night(!), but also, I believe, because of the general unfamiliarity the typical audience has with this slice of Shakespeare's oeuvre. There was a sense of people sitting forth on the very sterns of their chairs waiting to revel in the reveal of the language that would be the force through which the green fuse of the actresses drove the play. And Chief among those actresses is Colleen Wheeler​ as Timon​ who turned out a muscular, entertaining, and chilling performance. If the play ran for much longer you’d have had to scrape her off the floor at curtain for the sheer effort she exerted on stage. Other than a few moments where a couple of the actresses’ acting techniques were briefly visible (I suspect these will be ironed out promptly), the cast as a whole, full of its ‘glass-faced flatterers’, is very solid. In particular I found Quelemia Sparrow​ as Ventidius​ gloriously, hilariously vain and Moya O’Connell​ as Flavius​ has one of the less ‘meaty’ parts but yet I found to be compulsively watchable.

In the night’s program, director Meg Roe talks a little about the difficulties involved with staging and pinning down this play. She signs off by saying that she thinks of Timon of Athens as a parable and wants us to fill in its moral. I believe Roe did a great job of posing various questions with her staging of this piece. For me, without hopefully giving away too much, the play’s moral is this: when the tides of fortune finally come a-crashing, you best not have crafted your life on a foundation of sand. This play will leave you plenty to discuss after curtain call. You may find it speaks to you in a different way than it does me, that’s part of the beauty of Shakespeare.

Timon of Athens plays on the Howard Family Stage as part of of the Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival in Vanier Park from June 26 ​to September 9​… Don’t miss out! Let us know what you think, we always love a good discussion.

We'd love to hear from you:
Please comment on the review or pick from one of the following conversation starters.
1. Do you feel like social media and the way we communicate through technology has had an effect on the depth of your relationships?
2. Are we creating a world that is easier for "glass faced flatterers"?
3. In life, do you feel you can tell a lot about a person from looking at the way they dress? Or do you find that those first impressions can be misleading?
4. Do you attend Shakespearean productions regularly? If not, would you consider Timon after this review?
5. Please share your thoughts on other versions of Timon of Athens or this particular production if you see it.

~ reviewed by Josh Cronkhite

Broadway Across Canada has brought the most marvellous production of Les Miserables to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver.

Linda and Ian Harrison saw it on the opening night. 

The staging was dark and glowering in keeping with the theme.  It was an open stage flanked with what looked like cubes stacked on top of each other. The backdrop was a projection screen. While there is no turntable, the sets move into place seamlessly providing a sense of the locales through the story. The set itself twists and turns on itself to provide the various locations.

~ reviewed by Ian Harrison