Titus Andronicus / Art Gallery

I saw Titus Andronicus at Bard on the Beach this weekend. it was pretty fab, probably the best executed of the plays in terms of visual spectacle - The Tempest had some sweet strobe lights and bubbles but Titus had guts, neck stabs, and slit throats, and it all looked pretty dang good. If it's not sold out, perhaps go see it if you like revenge and some good old fashioned gore. Both Titus and Tamora were beautifully acted! Tamora is pretty hot for a villian. Actually, her lewd sons are pretty fine too, and don't wear their shirts very often. You just have to put up with rape and murder if you want to check out their abs, but it was worth it.

Also, if you're a full time student, it's only $35 for an annual Vancouver Art Gallery membership. If you're not a student, it's $60, which still isn't bad because if you go three times a year then you've gotten your money's worth... but totally a steal for students. I just bought mine online, so if you think this is as fantastic as I do, the Art Gallery link is in that little favorites menu on my right toolbar/menu-ish thing.

Besides that, life is completely opposite of the summer. The summer was poo. I worked with stupid people and I disliked that very much. But now it's Autumn (almost) and it's sort of nice to be back in pants and scarves, even though I haven't gotten used to wearing shoes instead of sandals yet. I'm taking pre-1945 film and it's a pretty sweet class so far. I'll probably gab about it another time.


Oh, also, this winter at the Carousel Theatre, they're putting on "Seussical the Musical" which is a Dr Suess musical. I'm all over this one like jam on toast.

The Tempest!

I went to see The Tempest for my birthday this weekend - it's the third Bard on the Beach installement I've gone to see so far. It's one of my favorite of Shakespeare's plays to read because it's very poetic and whimsical (Romeo and Juliet is still the best though, and Richard III was awesome because he was so conniving). It's the only play Shakespeare wrote with no inspiration from a previous source as well - usually he took an idea or a play and wrote it different to make it more "blockbuster" - for example, King Lear was originally a comedy and he made it tragic for shock factor. The Tempest was solely from his imagination, and it shows. When he wrote, even if his ideas weren't really his, he transformed them into something so complex and beautiful because of the language, and in this play all of those complex and beautiful lines were embodied in the show itself.

The basic premise of the play is that Prospero used to be a Duke, but his brother usurped his title so Prospero and his daughter Miranda live on an island with Ariel, a sprite, and Caliban, a sort of half beast-half human. Prospero has magic powers so he causes a shipwreck, stranding the usurping brother, some friends, and his son Ferdinand on different parts of the island. It's a comedy, and it was comedic for sure.

Two comedic relief characters were changed to girls for the production, which I actually really liked because it created a lot of awesome sexual tension and humour which wouldn't have existed otherwise. Also, the play was full of whimsy and fantasy - masks and bubbles and strobe lights and acrobatic fairy dancers. If you're a boy, you'll still like it - I went with a very manly friend and he liked it, so never fear.

What was super cool about it was the creativity that was used. In King Lear, the tragic elements were really pumped up, in Twelfth Night, the comedy was amazingly enhanced, and in The Tempest, the fantasty is embodied really nicely. You'll see what I mean if you go, but the stage management was awesome, and the way humans were used to create boats and storms was really neat.


Plus, the play is full of sweet lines - my favorite is:

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep." (Act 4, Scene 1)

Twelfth Night

This past week I went to see the second play I have tickets for for Bard on the Beach: Twelfth Night. When I read it earlier this year, I found it funny and loved the wit between some of the minor characters, but I didn't think much else about it and put it back on the shelf when I was finished. Seeing the play brought the text alive because of how well they pulled off the comedy. The play is set in the 1920's with an old Hollywood feel - the costumes for this one were amazing. The entire show was bright and lively, but the performances of Ryan Beil as Sir Andrew Augecheek and Andrew Wheeler as Malvolio stole the night. I don't have time to say much else, but it was better than Lear, and that's saying a lot.

King Lear at Bard on the Beach

The line up for Bard on the Beach this year is fantastic, and because I read all of the plays this year, I bought season tickets. The plays are King Lear and Twelfth Night on the main stages, as well as Titus Andronicus and The Tempest on the studio stages.

Yesterday I went to King Lear, which was the first of my tickets and to be honest, the one that I was least excited for. King Lear is probably the most tragic of Shakespeare's plays for a couple of reasons. For one, the plot is unreal - King Lear banishes his favorite daughter (the only one who isn't evil), goes insane, watches his corrupt daughters turn on each other, watches all three of his daughters die, and then dies of a broken heart himself. Sorry for spoiling that, but if you haven't read it after 400 years, I'm not going to tip-toe around it. Secondly, when Shakespeare wrote the play, he adapted it from a similar storyline - but in the original, things look like they're going to fall apart but work out in the end. Original audiences went into the Globe expecting reconciliation and were slapped in the face with disaster - they weren't prepared for it at all. I guess it would sort of be like watching Forest Gump and instead of the great ending, some serial killer comes out of the woods and bludgeons everyone to death.

Last night's rendition was a pleasant suprise. I didn't read anything about the production before I got to Vanier Park, and I'm glad I didn't. For one, the play was set in modern times with a very minimalistic stage - the only props were Lear's wheelchair and a vacuum cleaner. I thought that was great because one of the main themes of the play is "nothing," or "no thing" - yes, it's symbolism for how women have no "things." Cute, Shakespeare. So needless to say, I loved the way they played with the theme in a material way. Also, they emphasized the comedic elements of the play - Shakespeare is famous for combining comedy with his tragedy, tragedy with his comedy, etc., and because the original production seemed like it was going to end well until it didn't, I thought it was cool that they put in so much humour last night.

One of the highlights for me was the music - there was a girl who did percussion (a funny xylophone, cymbals, bongo drums, etc.), a guy who played upright bass, and on occasion, members of the cast rocked out with their accoustic guitars when everyone on stage sang. When I read Lear, I never really focused on the funny little ditties, but the production brought them to life and gave everything a very tropical feel. That was really awesome considering behind the set, the tent curtains were drawn, giving everyone an amazing view of the bay and Sunset Beach across the water. Let me tell you, watching Shakespeare, the ocean, and the sun go down as you listen to sweet beachy music will remove all doubt in your mind as to why you're living in Vancouver.

What really pulled the play together, however, was the performance of Christopher Gaze as King Lear. He's also the Artisitc Director of Bard, and his talent totally shines - everything from his posture to his speech to the way he conveyed emotions even if it was only through his eyes was perfectly done, especially considering Gaze is probably in his 40s or 50s, and Lear is elderly.



So, hopefully after all of my gushing, you're frantically looking for ways to get your hands on tickets. They're $33 and you can buy them from bardonthebeach.org.

King Lear was probably the best play I've seen in my whole life (which is actually saying a lot. I've seen about a dozen in the past couple of years, and they included Jesus Christ Superstar and The Diary of Anne Frank) and considering it was my least favorite of the four to read, I am now almost ecstatic to see Twelfth Night (set in the 1920s with a Hollywood feel), The Tempest (my favorite play ever! I'm going for my birthday, and it's set in the seventeenth century with a string quartet), and Titus Andronicus (which also has a modern setting, as well as a parental advisory. It's awesome).


Please go. I'll love you more.