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…and then it’s gone!

October 22, 2025 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost – it’s there and then it’s gone”.

Maggie Smith

This post brings up to date my recent communication regarding the theatrical events that we were lucky enough to attend this year.

Back in the day – a goodly period before The Girl and I finally relocated to Victoria – we had, nonetheless, commenced a series of visits to British Columbia as part of what one might consider a softening up process prior to actually getting down to the business of emigrating.

On one of these expeditions we spent a few nights in Vancouver and took advantage of the opportunity to attend a performance at the annual Shakespeare event – ‘Bard on the Beach‘ – which takes place in Vanier Park overlooking English Bay.

On a few select nights of the year the performances co-incide with the spectacular “Festival of Light” firework displays over English Bay – and one may so order things that the performance of the play (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in this instance) might be book-ended by a thoroughly decent repast and the joyous release of pyrotechnics.

This we duly did…

In the ten years since we moved to Canada, however, we had not – until this year – repeated any part of that experience.

The reasons for this come down largely to logistics and the expense of the trip. Vancouver is close enough to us as the raven flies (or as the orca swims) but when one factors in the show itself and eating and the time it takes for everything to happen one usually ends up booking a hotel room for a night or two and making a proper junket of it…

…which all costs money!

This year our attention was drawn to a production of “Two Gentlemen of Verona”  re-set in the 1980s. Reviews were good and – even though we could not make any of the firework evenings work – we decided that we wanted to see the show. The Girl being who she is she immediately applied herself – and came up with a cunning plan!

It worked like this:

We would drive to Swartz Bay (10 minutes) and park the car. We would then sail to Tsawwassen on the mainland (90 minutes) – as foot passengers on the ferry. Having arranged for an Uber to pick us up at the terminal we would be whisked to Vanier Park in time for a quick lunch at the festival site and a matinee of the show. Afterwards it was a simple matter of reversing the process (eating on the ferry home) and turning a major expedition into a mere day out.

Well – everything worked out exactly as planned and we found ourselves still pleasantly fresh upon our arrival home.

“But what of the show?” – I hear you cry…

The show was a lot of fun and, as I say, the reviews were positive. These extracts are from from Julie Hammonds (author of ‘Blue Mountain Rose‘):

  • The Play: The Two Gentlemen of Verona
  • Hot Quote: “They do not love that do not show their love.”  ~Julia
  • The Company: Bard on the Beach, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
  • The Stage: An elaborate set in a walled circus tent, with a view of distant mountains and sky. The audience sits comfortably in padded chairs on risers, with excellent sightlines.
  • Memorable for: The ending, which I won’t spoil. I want to! But I won’t.
  • With apologies to all the excellent human actors, the Scene-stealer Award goes to Mason the Dog (playing Crab), who yawned during Launce’s first long speech and brought the house down. I suspect dogs have been stealing this show since the first performance.

With a set splashed in bubblegum colors, costumes straight from the Jane Fonda Workout, and visual references to movies like Say Anything (1989), Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach delivers a joyful, nontraditional take on The Two Gentlemen of Verona. A 1980s aesthetic infuses the production. Boom boxes pound out the Billboard Hot 100 circa 1985. The female leads, Julia and Sylvia, wear long, curly side ponytails that would make Madonna proud. The hilarious Scott Bellis plays Launce as Doc from Back to the Future.

The male leads, Proteus and Valentine, are teenagers on their first trip away from home. Love and loss, friendship and jealousy are in play, but the stakes seem low because unlike in other Shakespeare plays, these aren’t kings and queens. They’re just kids taking risks, disobeying their parents, and learning that we can hurt people we love with our words and actions.

Angie Rico of ‘Stir‘ adds this with regard to the play’s troublesome ending:

One of the queasier legacies of vintage teen movies is how often they brushed past consent for the sake of comedy. The original ending of the The Two Gentlemen of Verona carries a similar kind of whiplash: a near-assault, quickly forgiven, and everyone paired off like nothing happened. This production, without adding a single line to the ending, shifts the whole tone subtly but decisively, and to more satisfying effect. 

So – good show all round!

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It’s there…

October 15, 2025 in Life in BC | Permalink

“I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost – it’s there and then it’s gone”.

Maggie Smith

As promised but a few posts back – herewith a brief disquisition (please forgive the contradiction in terms – it feels longer than it is!) on our theatrical experiences thus far this year.

Regular attendees to this forum will be well aware that The Girl and I have always been avid theatre goers. Indeed, one of the things that we really do miss from the Old Country is the sheer extent, variety and boldness of the theatrical fare on offer in London and elsewhere in the UK.

With a considerably smaller oeuvre upon which to call it is perhaps inevitable that, on occasion, we find ourselves a little disappointed by the quality and vision of the offerings here in Victoria. We are enthusiasts for The Belfry Theatre and continue to hold season tickets there, but we find the programming to be, on occasion, uneven and the theatre’s perhaps understandable emphasis on contemporary Canadian writing to feel somewhat parochial.

We did, however, enjoy Anosh Irani’s “Behind the Moon” back at the start of the year and, even more so, the most recent production; Michael Healey’s clever political comedy, “1979“. This brilliantly written and acted piece would have been entertaining regardless, but to one such as I – a neophyte when it comes to Canadian political history – this examination of the political career of Canada’s youngest prime minister, Joe Clark, was fascinating and inevitably prescient. As a theatrical device I particularly enjoyed the manner in which the projected captions had a voice all of their own.

Arguably, the best production that we have seen at the Belfry thus far this year was not one of their own at all. Two Victoria companies – Puente Theatre and Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre – joined forces to launch the ‘Great Works Theatre Festival‘. Of this venture they say:

“The Great Works Theatre Festival is a ground-breaking new initiative dedicated to bold interpretations and adaptations of the world’s great theatrical works. By joining forces, both companies aim to enrich Victoria’s cultural landscape and foster artistic collaboration through fresh takes on timeless classics“.

The festival’s inaugural season featured two works, staged at The Belfry; Federico García Lorca’s ‘Blood Wedding‘ (in a new version by Mercedes Bátiz-Benét) and David Hirson’s 1991 comedy, ‘La Bête‘ (‘The Beast‘). We saw the latter back in August and were mightily impressed. Of the production Christine van Reeuwyk wrote in the Peninsula News Review:

“David Hirson’s 1992 Olivier Award-winning comedy is set on the estate of Princess Conti in 1654 Languedoc, France. The play is an homage to the man who is considered France’s greatest playwright and satirist Jean-Baptiste Poquelin – better known by his stage name, Moliere. Revolving around the attempt by a royal patron to introduce a megalomaniac street performer and playwright into one of France’s most respected theatre ensembles, La Bete is a contemporary comic masterpiece that skewers a world that has gone mad with the thrall of ego“.

“Audiences attending La Bête will experience a virtual hurricane of words,” director Brian Richmond said in a news release. “Thoughtful words, complex words but, mostly, hysterically funny words placed in a structure of perfectly rhymed couplets that mirror the form and practice of the French theatre of the 17th century. Although utilizing the lush scenery and costumes present in France at the height of its power, we could have just as easily set the production in the City of Babel or modern day Washington, DC, so timeless is its satirical focus.”

The street performer – Valere – was played in this production by the extraordinary Britt Candide Small, who won a well deserved ovation for her delivery of the stunning 30 minute monologue in iambic pentameter which is the centrepiece of the first part of the show.

The blog – ‘Haska’s Haunt‘ – says of the production:

“Where audiences have so often seen pared down, two-hander, black box shows, the richness of this production feels almost surprising, but every detail included was utilized. Every bit of stage magic, every piece of costuming, every character was there with purpose, and it all contributed to a work that can easily be revisited and has so much to enjoy”.

“Hear, hear” – say I!

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Every exit

December 5, 2022 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.”

Tom Stoppard, ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’

This weekend just passed The Girl and I finally got to see a play again at The Belfry here in Victoria (for the previous failed attempts – see here).

Actually – that should more accurately be: ‘Half a play’!…

Oh dear!

In all of my (and latterly, our) many years of theatre going I can count the number of performances out of which I have walked on the fingers of one hand… and still have had spares! It is not something that I like to do and nor is it something that I feel comfortable about doing. As a thespist myself I think it is jolly bad form to give up on any creative performance at the interval (it is no co-incidence that a fair amount of theatre for and by young people has no interval – thus reducing the opportunity for audience members so to do).

I have very occasionally ducked out of a school production – usually because the whole thing has been a huge error of judgement on somebody’s part and well beyond the capabilities of those involved. I have equally occasionally removed myself from adult (and professional) productions when the piece itself has turned out to be deeply disappointing – though this has happened but extremely rarely.

In this case we found ourselves at a loss to know what to make of the play – which is an even more rare occurrence. I would feel guilty that we had not prepared ourselves adequately in advance to know what we might expect, except that our frantic visits to the InterWebNet at the interval did not really turn up any rationale for boycotting the piece.

I am not going to name the play – or the author (though he is Canadian). It is not a new play; having been around for several decades. Previous reviews from elsewhere in the world seemed reasonable. The work is billed as a Black Comedy, though it seemed to us to lack a basic requirement of a comedy – namely the delivery of laughter. The first act seemed to me to essentially consist of the same ‘humourous’ twist repeated over and over.

We found it impossible to empathise with, or to believe in, either of the characters presented to us, or indeed with their situation. Even once we realised that the second act must contain some sort of plot/character twist that would somehow justify the inertia of the first act – we did not feel that the piece (or the characters involved in it) had done anywhere near enough to have earned our continued engagement.

We thus absented ourselves for the second half, went across the road for a coffee and struck up a fascinating conversation with someone whom we had not previously met…

Much more entertaining!

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