1. Not to be negative. But if you failed to catch The Soul Collector from Catalyst or Snout, from Catch The Keys before they ended this past weekend in two different theatres in the ATB Financial Arts Barns, you’ve lost out, at least short-term. You’ve missed a chance to see what creative, experimental artists can do to reinvent space, and re-orient you, immerse you, in a story world.
In the case of The Soul Collector, we found ourselves on either side of a toboggan hill, in a winter dream world where memory seemed to be frozen. Bretta Gerecke’s design stunningly transformed the Westbury, a clunker of a space which normally feels about as theatrical or intimate as a chunk of track-and-field bleachers. Just down the hall in the PCL Studio Theatre, we went camping with Catch The Keys. Snout, a cool and captivating multi-disciplinary experience, had us, along with the characters, hanging out in a translucent tent made of sheets. I didn’t get everything about Snout, in truth, with its experimental blend of poetry, sound and light, and physical movement. In performance style,the movement is very expressive, but the production seems to me to call out for a verbal style to match the stylization of Megan Dart’s poetic language. In any case, though, you couldn’t help but savour the inventiveness of the experience. The magical play of light and sound, the ominous sense of a predator circling outside, the Wolf who undermines our capacity for happiness … the design was an intrinsic part of the storytelling.
2. The Northern Light Theatre season finale, An Accident by American playwright Lydia Stryk, opens in the PCL Studio Friday. And speaking of accidents, I am responsible for a couple, in my piece on Michael Peng, the smart and insightful actor/director/designer who co-stars with Melissa Thingelstad. In our conversation, Peng talked about his theatrical upbringing in the mentorship tradition in the east, and I screwed up the name of his mentor: Ted Follows (who’s also dad to Canadian actor Megan). Screwing up the name of someone’s mentor is a sin.
There’s a startling coincidence attached to Peng’s role in a two-hander set entirely in a hospital room. Peng has had medical issues of his own. In fact he’s been in hospital three times in the past year or so for “brain bleeds,” and most recently for (successful) brain surgery last fall. (It’s a good thing I gave up my promising career in neurology since I blithely flung the term “aneurism” about. And that’s not it at all).
3. A charmer of a musical is the ELOPE production opening Thursday at La Cite francophone (8627 91 St.). It’s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, a William Finn/ Rachel Sheinkin musical that builds its story from fragmentary vignettes starring six overachiever misfit nerds, teenagers whose claims on being extraordinary involve spelling “Weltanschauung” correctly, out loud, first time, in the finals.
Veteran actor/director Kristen Finlay directs the production from Edmonton’s venerable community musical theatre troupe, now three decades old. Musical direction is by Sally Hunt, with choreography by Jake Hastey.
The show runs Thursday through Sunday, and May 29 through June 1. Tickets: TIX on the Square (780-420-1757, tixonthesquare.ca).
4. Also opening Thursday, Simon Bloom’s Studio Theatre production of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, a courtroom drama by the dexterous American playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis. It revisits one of the splashier, more influential betrayals in world literature. The witnesses called to the stand include Judas’s mom, Satan, and Sigmund Freud. It runs at the Timms Centre for the Arts on the U of A campus (112th St. and 87th Ave.) through May 25. Tickets: TIX on the Square.
