This photo hints at the enduring, positive story of the 94th Academy Awards. (Photo of Ariana DeBose, Troy Kotsur, and Jessica Chastain by Mike Coppola/Getty Images)
1. THE OTHER OSCARS
Let’s do our best to re-establish some equilibrium, shall we? Other things happened at the Oscars Sunday night.
In what must have been the most inclusive Academy Awards ever in terms of representation, the stage of the Dolby Theatre was peopled with all sorts of Black, Latinx, Asian, female, Queer, and Deaf bodies.
Serena and Vanessa Williams opened the show by introducing Beyoncé in the evening’s biggest production number.
Winning the Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in West Side Story, Ariana DeBose declared herself an “openly queer woman of colour, an Afro Latina who found her strength in life through art,” and continued, “To anybody who’s ever questioned your identity … or found yourself living in the gray spaces, I promise you this: there is indeed a place for us.”
DeBose is the first openly queer woman of colour to win an acting Oscar and Troy Kotsur, who was celebrated as Best Supporting Actor for his work in CODA, is the first Deaf man to take home a performance award. In his signed speech, which made his interpreter choke with emotion and brought the crowd to their feet, he said, “I want to thank all of the Deaf theatre stages where I was allowed and given the opportunity to develop my craft as an actor.” And he thanked his father: “My dad, he was the best signer in our family, but he was in a car accident, and he became paralyzed from the neck down, and he no longer was able to sign. Dad, I learned so much from you. I’ll always love you. You are my hero.”
Kotsur dedicated his award to the Deaf community, the CODA community, and the disabled community: “This is our moment.”
CODA won for Best Picture and, in a night that saw significant triumphs for women, CODA’s writer/director Sian Hader took home the Adapted Screenplay prize. She’s also the third woman to have directed the Best Picture winner.
Jane Campion won her first directing Oscar for Power of the Dog, drawing attention to the still-slim total but accelerating rate of female directorial wins. It took 81 years for Kathryn Bigelow to become the first female winner for Hurt Locker, another 11 for Chloe Zhao to become the second for Nomadland, and just one more year for Campion to become the third.
Trans man Elliot Page took the stage as a presenter, queer folks casually thanked their partners, and there was no shortage of allyship. Honoured as Best Actress for her work in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Jessica Chastain noted that suicide “has touched many families”, including hers, "and especially members of the LGBTQ community, who oftentimes feel out of place with their peers."
"We're faced with discriminatory and bigoted legislation that is sweeping our country, with the only goal of further dividing us," she said. "And in times like this, I think of Tammy, and I'm inspired by her radical acts of love. I'm inspired by her passion. I see it as a guiding principle that leads us forward, and it connects us all in the desire that we want to be accepted for who we are, accepted for who we love, and to live a life without the fear of violence or terror."
Let’s hear it for progress and solidarity. ...
Bertie Carvel might play Trump with transforming make-up — or he might not. (Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian)
2. SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL
Compassion is the gift of acting. It’s also a pretty rigid requirement: if you can’t find emotional access to your character, your performance will be flat.
Bertie Carvel is about to play Donald Trump in the London Old Vic’s production of The 47TH, Mike Bartlett’s new play about 45’s possible re-election in 2024. Interviewed in The Guardian, Carvel says, “I don’t really believe in evil, as such. I think there are evil actions. Evil stuff happens, and people cause it. But I don’t believe in good people and bad people. I think people are a composite of their character’s circumstances or decisions. And your job as an actor is to sort of … walk in those shoes.”
Asked how that approach applies to the Trump of Bartlett’s play, Carvel answers, “Loneliness is there. Mortality is a big theme. There’s a sense of being motivated by his legacy. And audience is a big subject. Who are they, and what is his relationship with them?”
To a degree, Carvel’s openness extends to Trump’s politics. Remembering The Donald’s entrance onto the political stage, Carvel says the politician was giving voice to “anxieties and stark inequalities” that are “worth thinking about.” The interviewer quotes a speech from the play, which is written in blank verse, in which Trump talks to Kamala Harris about his supporters: “You speak to them like kids, and not just kids but poorer, less good-looking / Trashy kids, that you and your celebrities / All constant lecture, from your raised pile.”
The interviewer asks Carvel if the script’s level of sympathy for Trump, whose politics are terrifying on so many fronts, made him uncomfortable when he first read the script. The journalist writes, “There’s a very long pause, before his face assumes an expression of camped-up guilt.”
“To be honest,” Carvel replies, “I was thinking about how to do it. And I was like, ‘Oooh-hoo!’” And he rubs his hands with glee. ...
Image and text by A. Andrews
3. DRAWING ON EXPERIENCE
The conversation about gender is so fraught these days that it’s great to see The Washington Post is publishing comics about gender and identity every Sunday. You can jump into this inclusive format by following @thelilynews on Instagram.
In this week’s strip, A. Andrews sketches his journey: “As a disabled person, I’ve had to accept my body for what it is. But when my gender dysphoria sparked a desire for change, I learned a lesson in acceptance that I didn’t expect, and discovered a newfound love of my body and self.” ...
Seen here in How the World Began, Evan Rein is a young actor to watch. (That’s Meghan Gardiner in the foreground. The photo is by Diamond’s Edge.)
4. SEEING THINGS
New Theatre
How the World Began is like a horror movie that has an obvious out: watching it, I kept thinking the equivalent of “Why don’t they just call the cops?” In other words: “This problem would be so easy to fix!” Catherine Trieschmann’s script is about Susan, a New Yorker who takes a job teaching biochemistry at the high school in Plainview, Kansas — mostly because she’s pregnant and needs a job that comes with health insurance. In one of her first classes, she implicitly dismisses the literalist Christian view of the origins of life on Earth as “gobbledegook.” Micah, one of her students, demands that she apologize to the class, but she refuses and tensions in the rural community escalate. But Micah’s request is reasonable and Susan is being a bonehead: she could always just apologize. I appreciate that the script’s intention is to examine cultural intransigence from multiple angles, but the set-up is simplistic and the narrative development mechanical. Within the world created by Trieschmann, Meghan Gardiner (Susan), Ron Reed (Micah’s unofficial guardian, Gene), and Evan Rein (Micah) deliver emotionally resourceful performances; it’s moving to see three generations of actors sharing the stage so skilfully. And director Sarah Rodgers’s vision for the physical production is expertly realized by her designers: Jessica Oostergo (set), John Webber (lighting), Stephanie Kong (costumes), and Rick Colhoun (sound and composition).
This Pacific Theatre production is playing at Pacific Theatre until April 16. Here’s my full review and here’s where to get tickets.
Playwright Lucas Hnath’s A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay about the Death of Walt Disney is an innovative, ambitious script that’s well realized in some ways in this production — and undermined in others. As per Hnath’s direction, the actors sit at a table and read from their scripts. Disney himself is there, telling the story of his life, but this Disney is an allegorical rather than historical figure: the real-life animal cruelty of Disney Studio’s nature “documentaries” is accepted as fact, but so is the urban legend that Disney had his head cryonically frozen. The play’s central concerns — American individualism, capitalism, and tendency towards fascism — are explored through Disney’s megalomania. Because Hnath has conceived of the play as a reading, devoid of action or extraneous theatricality, it emphasizes words: structurally, it’s musical, composed as a series of spoken duets, trios, and quartets. In this production, Paul Herbert (Disney) distinguishes himself as a virtuoso. Chelsea MacDonald (Daughter) and Ryan Trieus (Disney’s son-in-law Ron) are also skilled musicians. But, playing Disney’s brother Roy, Brian Parkinson fails to grasp the musicality — and, when one member of a musical ensemble is off, that’s a problem. Director Adam Henderson also lathers on uncalled-for theatricality. We don’t need the decorativeness of Todd Parker’s admittedly handsome set. And Henderson introduces slides (by Julia Henderson) that provide distracting and unnecessary visual commentary. One audacious cue does work: at Disney’s death, projection designer Nico Dicecco allows us to travel through the synapses of the mythmaker’s brain. That passage is transcendent.
This United Players production is running at the Jericho Arts Centre until April 17. Here’s where to read my full reviewand here’s where to get tickets.
I hate feeling alone in a packed house, but that’s what happened with Made in Italy. Writer/actor Farren Timoteo’s solo show is based on his dad’s experience of growing up in Jasper in the '70s: Francesco, the protagonist, feels like an alien in the WASPish working-class town because his family is Italian. Timoteo is a talented and resourceful actor. Using distinctive gestures and attitudes, he flips through a gallery of characters at lightning speed. Every one of them is an Italian stereotype, but Timoteo’s work is precise and there’s a joy and affection in it; these figures are based on his family members after all. But the material is mindless. At the end of Act 1, Francesco achieves manhood — by having sex with a prostitute on his eighteenth birthday and beating a former tormenter to a bloody pulp. Both events are treated as triumphs of self-realization. I can’t tell you how depressing it was to leave the theatre in a flood of people who were all chattering about what a great time they had.
This Arts Club production, which is based on a Western Canada Theatre mounting, is playing at the Granville Island Stage until April 17. Here’s my full review and here’s where to get tickets.
Looking for the best show in town? Here you go: Men Express Their Feelings. (This photo of Munish Sharma, IshanSandhu, and Quinn Churchill is by Tina Krueger Kulic)
Ongoing Theatre
Being part of the audience for Men Express Their Feelings was the opposite of being stranded in the crowd for Made in Italy: it was such a joy to be with a bunch of people who were rolling with laughter — in appreciation of a genuinely witty and insightful play. Sunny Drake’s script is about two father/son pairs. Because Mr. Bacon punched Mr. Sharma in the nose after a hockey game, even though their teenage boys are on the same team, they’ve all been sentenced to a sharing circle — in a locker room — to work things out. Drake has structured his text like a hockey game, so we get three periods and, best of all, replays. That means we get flashbacks of an erotically tinged encounter between the two boys — both the innocence of the real thing and the full-on, faggy musical extravaganza one of the dads imagines. Directed by Cameron Mackenzie, the evening has the careening energy of a farce, and, as it explores the traps of racism, misogyny, and stereotypical masculinity, it’s also touching. All four players — Munish Sharma (Mr. Sharma), Ishan Sandhu (Raj), Jeff Gladstone (Mr. Bacon), and Quinn Churchill (Brad) — bring comic chops and emotional depth.
A Zee Zee Theatre production, Men Express Their Feelings is running at the Firehall Arts Centre until April 3. There’s an ASL-interpreted performance on March 24 and a relaxed matinee on March 26. Here’s my full review and here’s the link to tickets. This is my TOP VANCOUVER PICK and it's closing this weekend.
Neworld Theatre’s Clean/Espejos is still playing in Kamloops for the next couple of days. Written by Christine Quintana, with translation and adaptation by Paula Zelaya-Cervantes, Clean/Espejos is about two women. Vancouverite Sarah is at the Paradise resort in Cancun for her younger sister’s destination wedding. Adriana is a manager on the housekeeping staff. In their intertwined monologues, we can follow Adriana’s Spanish and Sarah’s English thanks to Andie Lloyd’s surtitling genius. These surtitles aren’t just functional, they’re expressive. When Adriana describes flickering candlelight, for instance, they waver. And Lloyd tosses the text all over the set in various scales and rhythms. This is all in service of a daring script. Unlike most plays, Clean/Espejos isn’t primarily driven by external events; because the characters are narrating their own experiences, we have access to their inner lives — like in a novel — so our satisfaction comes from our increasingly rich understanding of their perspectives. Under the direction of Chelsea Haberlin and Daniela Atiencia, Alexandra Lainfiesta (Adriana) and Genevieve Fleming (Sarah) deliver astonishingly nuanced performances that match the complexity of the script.
Produced by Neworld Theatre in association with Western Canada Theatre, Clean/Espejos is running at the Western Canada Theatre until April 2. Here’s my full review. Here's where to gettickets. It’s also streaming online from April 5 to 10. Here’s where to gettickets for the online run. If you’re in Kamloops, go see this one before it closes on Saturday.
Shows in new formats
Magic Hour 360is the VR version of The Magic Hour, the immersive experience that was presented at Presentation House last August. The Magic Hour repurposed almost the entire theatre building, turning it into the participant’s imaginary home. A huge part of the pleasure came from negotiating the building on one’s own, guided only by a narrative voice, and interacting with the spaces and contents of various rooms. The dislocating nature of the show allowed me to reposition myself in relation to its central concern, climate change — to appreciate both the preciousness of life on Earth and the relative insignificance of that experience in the solar system. And, because the show was so physical, I stayed grounded through all of it. I have no idea how this will translate to VR.
Produced by Electric Company Theatre and The Only Animal, Magic Hour 360 is being presented by Boca del Lupo at the Fishbowl until April 3. Here’s my review of The Magic Hour — last summer’s physical experience — and here’s where to get tickets to Magic Hour 360, this spring’s virtual version.
Jason Sherman’s Ominous Sounds at the River Crossing; or, Another Fucking Dinner Party Play, which played Performance Works mid-March, is now streaming. It’s almost two hours long without an intermission — although, if you’re streaming, you can create as many of those as you like. In the theatre, I found it torturously boring. The premise is that six actors are trying to figure out what kind of work they’re allowed to do in the current cultural climate. Translation: it’s a gigantic, privileged whinge. A female Asian character becomes the thought police. Older actors are discarded as she alone claims the stage. The possibility of sharing that space is never seriously entertained. Meaningful intergenerational dialogue? Doesn’t happen. For me, sitting through this show was physically painful.
Produced by Touchstone Theatre, Ominous Sounds at the River Crossing; or, Another Fucking Dinner Party Play is streaming until April 10. Here’s the rental link. And here’s my review of the in-person experience.
Upcoming theatre
So far, I’ve only booked myself into one show this week,Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls. Dave Deveau’s new script, which is designed primarily for seven- to twelve-year-olds, is about a child named Fin negotiating his trans identity.
Produced by Carousel Theatre for Young People, Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls is running at the Waterfront Theatre until April 23. I’ll be seeing it on Friday evening, so that review should be on my blog by late Saturday afternoon. Here’s where to get tickets. ...
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