Clark and I Somewhere in Connecticut

Kris Rothstein

OK, so there is a guy in a bunny suit. This is enough to drive some people into hysterics but it is much more than props and gimmicks that lend punch and power to Clark and I Somewhere in Connecticut. The show appeared at PuSh two years ago but is back again because it was one of the most talked about, provocative and popular pieces.

It all starts with a decrepit old suitcase found by actor James Long in his back alley. The suitcase was full of photo albums with extensive captions assembled by a woman he identifies as The Archivist. He then becomes obsessed with piecing together the family's history and imagining the stories and relationships that defined these people's lives. The story grows more personal when the whole endeavour is threatened by the question of who has the right to display and talk about these photographs which ended up in the trash.

The show is playful and inventive with physical comedy (bunny sets up mikes and screens), dramatic monologue, projections of video (each subject is also wearing the bunny suit, sans head) and photos and a narrative that jumps around before circling in on the heart of the matter.

The story is deeply involved with the question of memory and reality, how we construct stories and what is present and what is absent.  Most of the photos are shown with faces blurred out and we assume that this is for legal reasons. But late in the show Long reveals that he has used his own family photos to stand it for those that inspired the elaborate retelling of connections between parents and dogs and children and grandchildren and summers at the lake. I didn't know what to believe anymore and it felt great.

The Passion Project

Kris Rothstein

The action takes place is a smallish square 'cell' where one woman arranges framed canvasses on hooks and ropes or holds them on the floor or in the air. Projected on these empty rectangles are scenes from the famous silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc.  Reid Farrington created this astonishing and powerful installation by combining several versions of the film (it has quite a history, including a negative destroyed by fire, a new cut made from out-takes, another fire and an original print found in a Norwegian asylum), a later soundtrack and a conversation he had with the archivist at the Danish Film Institute while watching some of this rare footage.

Laura K. Nicoll is the performer. She executes a complex and intensely physical choreography for half an hour,  creating an emotional experience to rival the film. It is dark and tragic but also ecstatic, something like a martyrdom, I suppose. The film is known for its extensive use of close-ups and that is what we see on each canvas - faces arranged in physical space as the actual actors might have been. And while others appear and disappear, Renee Falconetti as Joan is ever-present. The audience is free to mill around and watch from every possible angle.

If you're interested in performance, film history or anything that pushes boundaries, then see this show. The Passion Project is at the Pacific Theatre until February 6th. And if you have the chance go see the whole film with a new mostly composed but partly improvised score and a vocal text at Christ Church Cathedral on Jan 28th.
 

Nevermore Revisited

Kris Rothstein

As you might have read already, Nevermore is a musical spectacle investigating the lifestory of Edgar Allan Poe - as he might have seen it or told it himself - so very inspired by Poe's particular aesthetic. It is fantastically odd and dreamlike but at times it is a little pedestrian and the singsongy musical numbers and constant exposition are not as strange as the staging might have us believe.

I  like the fact that creators Jonathan Christenson and Bretta Gerecke have tried to do something different and stylized with the musical format. I was willing to go along with the experiment, which aims to be be a bit dark and weird but also a crowd pleaser, but I kept waiting for something resembling a dramatic scene instead of just funny poses and recitations of biographical details. I did like the punky/goth sets, choreography and costumes which were inventive and darkly beautiful.

Poor old Poe does seem to have been dealt a rough hand and I felt a little bad for him that he had to endure his troubles and sing about them as well. "All our days are trances and all our nights are dreams."

So Percussion

Kris Rothstein

Last year Music on Main put on a performance of American composer Steve Reich's piece Drumming as part of PuSh fest. This year Brooklyn percussion quartet So Percussion came in to play selected works by Reich and another US composer, David Lang.

The four guys were enthusiastic and exciting and included the audience in an uncontrived way. Most of the pieces were rhythmically hypnotic and layered with many subtle tones which resonated in the lofty ceilings of Heritage Hall. During Clapping Music I thought I could hear a hum from the unplayed marimbas. I love Reich's minimalism and it was nice to hear some rarely performed works like Four Organs.

In the third part of the David Lang piece, the quartet played on flowerpots and teacups and the quality of sound was somehow charming and reassuring like the objects themselves.

 

The Edward Curtis Project

Kris Rothstein

PuSh Festival Looms

Kris Rothstein

Arts and culture lovers, it's a good time of year. PuSH festival goes on for more than two weeks and if you venture out you will see some of the most innovative and interesting theatre, dance, performance art, music and weird undefinable stuff. It's entertaining and challenging and totally not pretentious. It's one of the only times you might mistake Vancouver for New York.

I'm excited about So Percussion performing works by Steve Reich and David Lang. I'm also looking forward to seeing The Passion Project, one of two shows which reimagine the classic silent film, The Passion of Joan of Arc. If you want to know how they turn out check back here!

Buzz also surrounds Before Before, which promises to "pull the multi-player video game out of the virtual realm" and adapt it for a theatre setting. I don't know quite what to expect but whatever it is it will be worth seeing. The Show Must Go On seems to include a group of locals integreated into some kind of theatre/dance performance. Some of the cast are describing the rehearsals in the PuSH blog. It starts Wednesday and a bunch more stuff starts Thursday.

Why you should like mumblecore

Kris Rothstein

Beeswax is the latest film from Andrew Bujalski, the godfather of mumblecore. You know about mumblecore, right? Maybe you read about this latest US indie filmmaking style in the New Yorker earlier this year. Maybe you got in on the ground floor. Anyway these films are usually super low-budget, often with improvised scripts and non-professional actors. They usually focus on a new generation of slacker types and their relationships. Bujalski’s characters aren’t usually that young (they usually seem to have been out of school for a while), but they are people who don’t have ‘accomplished’ lives – or if they do there is still something shambolic about their circumstances. Beeswax is pretty pro compared to earlier films – it’s in colour and it even kind of has a plot.

Jeannie and Lauren are twin sisters living in Austin, Texas. Most of the action stems from the friction between Jeannie and her business partner in the vintage clothing store she runs. Will the bitchy Amanda really come through with a lawsuit? Jeannie has to turn to her ex Merrill, who is almost a lawyer, for advice. This is probably the first time I have even seen a character/actor in a wheelchair where absolutely nothing about the plot has to do with them being in a wheelchair. That was cool.

This was my very last film festival movie and I wasn’t sure that I had the energy to power through. But I’m so glad I made the effort to get to Beeswax. It is charming and funny and a real pleasure to see the nuances and humdrum details of life through Bujalski’s lens.

Soul Birds - a film about life and dying

Kris Rothstein

Thomas Riedelsheimer is the director whose extraordinary eye for detail and beauty brought us Rivers and Tides, about the Scottish environmental artists Andy Goldsworthy (one of my favourite films) and Touch the Sound, about the vibrant deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie. Both documentaries go places most films don’t, illuminating art and creativity and taking our breath away. Soul Birds is a much different film, and it arose when the director met medical personnel who work with terminally ill children. These people had a special energy, he said at the screening, and he wondered if this was a gift from the children themselves.

The film was several years in the making because it was a challenge to find families who were able to allow a director into their lives at such a difficult time. The children of Soul Birds are fifteen year old Pauline, ten year old Richard and six year old Lenni, all afflicted with leukemia. Lenni has been ill most of his life, born with Down’s Syndrome and dealing with heart trouble. Despite his pain he knows nothing but love for his parents and his siblings. Richard is a new patient and in isolation during intensive treatment. With so much time alone he develops a sophisticated understanding of the thin line between life and death. And beautiful, vivacious Pauline who has relapsed twice has decided not to endure another round of treatment. She meditates and does qi gong, acts in plays with her sister and laughs like any teenager. Her diary is wise and heartbreaking as she wonders about the soul and what may or may not be scary about death. She is serene but she wants so badly to live. Riedelsheimer’s approach is intensely cinematic, exploring the internal light of each character rather than conducting informational interviews or providing backstory. His camera knows when to linger on grass or a fence or a face. It is difficult not to be affected by this powerful film.

Prom Night in Mississippi

Kris Rothstein

Another great feel-good American documentary with a story that is inspiring and uplifting but also sad and disturbing. In the small town of Charleston, Mississippi a few hundred kids have attended the local high school together since it was desegregated in the 1970s. But a segregated prom has persisted even though it’s not what most of the kids want. Actor Morgan Freeman calls this town home and he made an offer to the school to sponsor an integrated prom; his offer wasn’t accepted until 2008, perhaps because he showed up with a film crew (with Canadian filmmaker Paul Saltzman at the helm).

In some ways the project is unsuccessful. Yes, most of the members of the senior class share a party together, given this chance to socialize and see that nothing “dangerous” will happen (this seems to be the main concern of staff and parents – like what dangerous thing is going to happen?). But a small group of parents organize their own white prom, for white kids only, even the ones they don’t particularly like. One boy talks from behind a screen, telling the camera that his parents will disown him if they know he does not support their racism and is perfectly comfortable with both white and black classmates. Jessica (kind of the star of the show) describes transcending her abusive home situation where her stepfather threatened to beat her if she had black friends. The sweetest characters are Heather and Jeremy, the school’s only interracial couple, who are inseparable but do not date in public because they do not have the support of the town. Prom Night celebrates the hope and energy of young people but also focuses on the complex nature of race relations in the rural South to this day.

Karelian Cowgirls - the best short

Kris Rothstein

Karelian Cowgirls was by far the best short I saw at the film fest. In 1939 Finnish girls received orders to move their family cattle away from the Russian troops and off into the deep snow they went. Now the ladies gather to talk about those extraordinary past days. Here's the cool trailer.

The film festival is official over and done for 2009 - here's a list of the films that won awards. Also the Vancity theatre is playing some favourites until Tuesday the 20th. You have another chance to see 65_RedRoses, Nora's Will and Only When I Dance. Also Queen to Play which I really wanted to see but didn't have the chance.