Stage Review

Show: Visions of Vancouver

Company: Pi Theatre

Director: Richard Wolfe

Playwrights: Adrienne Wong, Michele Riml, Michael St. John Smith, Dennis Foon, Kevin Loring

Actors: Carmen Aguirre, Patrick Keating, Jennifer Mawhinney, Shaker Paleja

Venue: CBC Studio 700

Run: Oct 5-15 2011

Reviewed by: Tessa Perkins

As part of the 125^th birthday celebrations for the city of Vancouver, Visions of Vancouver is a show consisting of four short plays, each set in and inspired by the city. The format for this show is quite different because it is set up in the style of a for-broadcast radio play that has a live studio audience. Instead of actually being aired on the radio, the plays will be available as podcasts on the Pi Theatre website.

The format of the show meant that there was not a lot of action to actually see on stage, but the focus was instead on what they were saying. The content of the plays really shone through as the actors told dynamic stories while standing in front of a microphone. With no costume changes and very little to work with other than facial expression and the tone of their voice, I think these four actors did an exceptional job.

Adrienne Wong’s Elevate opened the show with a charming story about Sal (Mawhinney), a young woman who moves into a high rise apartment and finds everyone to be very cold and unfriendly. She is lonely and tries to make connections with the people in her building. She attempts small talk in the elevator, but is only greeted with annoyance and one-word responses, and when she accidentally opens the door to the apartment on the floor below thinking it is her own, she is greeted with hostility and a lecture about privacy. Her first “friend” is actually a dog, Muffie (Aguirre), that she can hear barking every night.

Throughout the piece, there are humorous explanations of “Strata Guidelines” (Keating) for everything from outdoor noise and pet ownership to the prohibition of accessing floors that you do not live on. I think anyone who has ever lived in this type of dwelling could relate to the difficulties of living in such close proximity to others and the bureaucracy of the management.    

The next play, The Bridge, by Michele Riml and Micheal St. John Smith, is set on the Iron Worker’s Memorial Bridge. It was a highly emotional piece about Frank, a 75 year old man who has decided to stand precariously on one of the bridge beams and contemplate his life and possibly jumping to his death. Frank (Keating) was one of the iron workers who built the bridge and he was involved in the bridge collapse June 17 1958, has chosen the anniversary of the tragedy to sit exactly where he was when it happened and eat a sandwich, just as he was doing that day when the bride tumbled into the inlet.

Through his conversation with Officer Virginia McLeod (Aguirre), we find out that Frank lost his brother that day and married his brother’s wife which he thinks was a horrible mistake. Also on the bridge are Ellen (Mawhinney) and Brad (Paleja), who are stuck in traffic due to the bridge closure and are on their way to a dinner potluck that Brad thinks is ridiculous: “For once I want to go to a dinner party where I get the whole dinner!” He was a cynical character that was funny at times, but also quite rude as he yelled “jump already” out the car window as he got sick of sitting in traffic.

A one-man play about a phone service to contact the dead, The Dead Line by Dennis Foon tells the story of Cory (Paleja), a lonely man who has just found out he has a terminal disease and will die in a couple weeks. He is not well liked by anyone and attempts to find out about the afterlife through talking to his dead relatives including his mother, ex-wife, father, and even his dog Gandhi, whose vocabulary in “universal” is limited to “I love you master” and “Master loves me.” It was quite a humorous piece, and it was a neat concept as it was set in the future and made reference to things like “Granville Sunken Island Lager” and the Olympic Village being underwater.

The last piece of the night, The Thin Veneer by Governor General Award winning playwright Kevin Loring, told the story of the recent Stanley Cup riot from the perspective of four different characters: A Vancouver Police Department Officer, a mother of two who had her kids with her in front of the big screen, a typical male fan, and a female “bandwagon” fan. It was a chilling account of the events as they unfolded and the way the dialogue quickly bounced from one character to another was very effective.  

The sets for each part of the show, laid out from right to left on the stage, were very minimal and understated as the focus was always on the narration and dialogue. By simply standing on stage and telling theses stories with almost no set or props, the four actors were able to create various visions of Vancouver in the minds of the audience. These four short plays, each dealing with their own aspect of what it is to be a Vancouverite, were extremely entertaining. I thoroughly enjoyed the show, and I think it did a wonderful job of trying to figure out what defines Vancouver and the people who live here.    

Written by :

tcp