Following your dreams takes guts, hard work and perseverance. You have to admire someone who goes for it, whether or not they succeed. And if they succeed, it’s all the more impressive – and inspiring.
Two books came across my desk this summer via local connections. Emiliano’s Discovery is a first novel by Toronto-based Paula Hurwitz, whose uncle lives in Vancouver. Finding Home is a collection of non-fiction essays by Danita Dubinsky Aziza, whose mother lived here until recently moving to be closer to the family in Winnipeg. Both books were self-published with FriesenPress: Hurwitz’s in 2014, Aziza’s this year.
It might be an exaggeration to say that writing a novel was a dream of Hurwitz’s but she went to lengths to make it happen, a fact that can be seen from her acknowledgements. A lawyer by profession, she thanks a University of Toronto introduction to the novel course for giving her “the foundation to write this book,” as well as the Humber School for Writers, and several individuals. The end result is something of which to be proud.
Emiliano’s Discovery begins in Russia in 1903. The prologue in which Duvid, Malka and their family in Kishinev encounter the violent pogroms of the time sets the stage for Emiliano’s eventual search for family. It also reminds readers of the precarious world in which Jews seem to continually live. Chapter 1 takes us to Buenos Aires in 1994 and the terrorist bombing of the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA).
Emiliano – about to graduate university and in need of employment – heads to the AMIA with his girlfriend, Lia. With the lineup barely moving, he suggests they go and grab a coffee, but she chooses to stay behind. “Just as Emiliano steps out [of the elevator] an enormous blast knocks him from his feet. He hears people yelling and feels debris falling around him. Then he loses consciousness.”
While Emiliano is directly affected by the attack, both physically and mentally, more than 10,000 kilometres away, in Winnipeg, Naomi’s “lazy summer day” – she doesn’t start Grade 12 for six weeks – is interrupted by a newscast about the tragedy. Long after she turns off the television, “she can’t shut out the horrific images replaying in her mind. If only she could figure out how to help. Doing something might calm her down.”
The novel alternates between Emiliano and Naomi, until their paths combine. They do so in Winnipeg, and that is one of the most interesting aspects of this story because the Winnipeg Jewish community actually did encourage Argentine Jews to immigrate to their city, and it’s kind of like getting a peek behind the scenes. Another compelling aspect of the story is the concept of how two families – one in Buenos Aires, the other in Winnipeg – could have ancestors from the same village who ended up in such completely different places. While the novel may wrap up its narratives a little too neatly for some readers, it doesn’t detract from their value.
Not quite so neat – in fact, quite chaotic at times, perhaps because it is an account of her real-life experiences – is the story told through essays by Aziza of her family’s decision to make aliya, their years in Israel and their ultimate return to Canada.
Aziza has done a commendable job in compiling the almost 40 essays that were initially written as stand-alone articles or blog-type pieces. Rhonda Spivak, editor of the Winnipeg Jewish Review, asked Aziza to write about her experiences for the online publication, and she did. The Jewish Federation of Winnipeg also asked her to share some of her stories on its website.
Written over four years (2008-2012), each article – and now, each chapter – conveys a lesson Aziza learned, and not always the hard way. From “start slowly” (“leh-at, leh-at” in Hebrew) as a way of coping with all the changes one faces as an immigrant, to “your children are not your children” and, therefore, you need to let them make their own choices, even if it’s to enlist, to the title lesson, “finding home,” which may not be where you think it should be, Aziza takes readers on her journey. She writes with humor and with honesty, and without embellishment, a style I like very much.
The impetus to make aliya – Aziza, her husband, Michel, their three kids and their dog – came 23 years prior to when the family arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport in 2008. Aziza, living in Toronto in 1985, reluctantly headed to the gym. There, she met “the cute guy with curly black hair” and, after a couple of weeks, “with gym bags flung casually over our shoulders, Michel and I collided at the end of the cement walkway that led to the overcrowded parking lot of the JCC.” Regular meetings followed and, in one of those early encounters, Michel asked her, “Danita, would you ever consider living in Israel?” To which she replied, “Oh, for sure, I would love to live in Israel! I have visited three times and it is such an amazing place!”
As she would find out, visiting and living somewhere are two very different things. Learning a new language, negotiating a foreign culture, being far from your aging parent, seeing your son enter the army and facing the prospect of your daughters following suit, building a new home (in their case, literally constructing a house) and many other factors are challenging aspects of any immigration experience. There are also many new discoveries and joys. But sometimes leaving a place – in this instance, Winnipeg – makes you realize that you might have been home all along.
And, as Aziza writes about her response to a friend who was curious whether she “had failed at living in Israel. With an air of confidence I acquired only after living in Israel, I told her, ‘I didn’t fail. I think that our family did more in four years there than most. I believe the failure would have been for us not to have gone to Israel in the first place.’”
Sim Shalom founder Rabbi Steven Blane leads the services and the band on the online synagogue’s new CD. (photo from Sim Shalom)
Google “Canada synagogue live streaming” and a handful of choices come up, including Vancouver’s Temple Sholom. There are many more options out of the United States, but it appears that there is only one completely online synagogue – Sim Shalom. Though if you’re in New York at the right time, you could attend Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services. This year, they will take place at the club Bitter End. But, if you can’t make it or watch them online, you can hear a sampling of the congregation’s interpretation of the prayers on their new CD, Sim Shalom’s Live Jazz High Holidays.
Sim Shalom founder Rabbi Steven Blane leads the services and the band. The CD comprises some of music from the services last year and was recorded live at Zebulon Sound and Light (aka ZEB’S) with jazz guitarist Saul Rubin. It features Carol Sudhalter (sax and flute), Tai Ronen (bass), Jack Glottman (piano), Frank Levitano (drums) and Itai Kris (flute). Sudhalter, Ronen, Glottman and Levitano will once again join Blane for this year’s High Holiday services – Sim Shalom’s fourth – which will be live streamed, and include live chat.
For those who are not willing or able to bring themselves to participate in – or even watch – Shabbat or holiday services online, the CD is a nice compromise. That is, if you like jazz. With the exception of a mostly traditional rendition of Kol Nidre and Ashamnu, the prayers are full-on jazz, though many regular attendees at a non-Orthodox synagogue that has a cantor and/or choir will recognize most of the main melodies and be able to sing along.
Given that Sim Shalom’s vision “is to become the principle online worship, spiritual and learning resource for the Jewish unaffiliated and the interfaith,” it is appropriate that Sim Shalom’s Live Jazz High Holidays begins with Hine Ma Tov, a hymn expressing how good it would be if people could sit together in unity.
The Barchu and Sh’ma that follows will be familiar to anyone who has heard White Rock South Surrey Jewish Community Centre Cantor Steve Levin lead a service (sans instruments), as will at least a couple of others. Rounding out the CD are Halleluyah, Amidah, M’chalkayl, Untanef Tokef, B’rosh Hashana (which will become a favorite of listeners), Ochilah L’el, Sh’ma Koleynu, Shofar Service (the blowing of the shofar followed by a rousing Areshet Sefataynu), Avinu Malkeynu and Hayom.
“During the High Holidays, members of the Jewish community reflect upon life and the year that has passed. They pray that the year ahead will bring blessings and peace,” reads the CD’s promotional material. “Jazz is thoughtful music, improvisation within a structured form that can be filled with many emotions. Playing jazz in many ways is a metaphor for experiencing life. The new CD reflects the juxtaposition of emotions where jazz and the High Holidays intertwine.”
In reality, the range of emotions this CD evokes most likely will be limited to the happier, less introspective end of the spectrum, but that’s not a bad thing. SimShalom’s Live Jazz High Holidays is a well-produced live recording that captures the positive energy in ZEB’S at last year’s services. It is an enjoyable and uplifting CD.
A downloadable version is available at cdbaby.com/cd/rabbistevenblane for $9.99 US, or 99 cents US per song. For more information about Sim Shalom, including how to join its services online, visit simshalom.com.
Left to right: Playwright Vern Thiessen, composers Anton Lipovetsky and Ben Elliott and novelist Terry Fallis, whose The Best Laid Plans will see its musical première at York Theatre on Sept. 19. (photo from terryfallis.com)
It’s going to be a busy fall for author Terry Fallis. Already working on his sixth novel, his fifth is due in bookstores this October. And his first novel – which saw a CBC television adaptation in 2014 – will have its première as a musical at Vancouver’s York Theatre Sept. 19-Oct. 3.
For anyone who has dreams of being a successful author, Fallis is a beacon of hope. While the best laid plans of mice and men may often go awry, or “gang aft a-gley,” as wrote Scottish poet Robert Burns, Fallis’ rise in publishing is a tale about the good places to which awry can lead you. Many in the industry point to the internet as the main cause of publishing’s demise, yet that’s where Fallis’ The Best Laid Plans (McLelland and Stewart Ltd., 2007) – and his novelist career – got started.
A public relations professional, Fallis and a colleague created a podcast in 2006 called Inside PR. It occurred to him, he said in a phone interview from his office in Toronto, that, “in this emerging world of social media, where we are our own program managers … I would try that in the publishing world. When I couldn’t find anyone to take an interest in my first novel – I didn’t even get rejection letters, I was greeted with a deafening silence, perhaps because I’d written a satirical novel of Canadian politics – I decided to try and build an audience for it on my own. That’s when I decided to podcast the whole thing for free and give it away on iTunes and on my blog, just as a way to gather some kind of a following and to see whether or not I had written a novel because I honestly didn’t know whether I’d written a novel, so I was looking for objective feedback from anybody I could interest in listening to it.”
McLelland and Stewart Ltd. have since published every one of Fallis’ novels, all bestsellers, critically acclaimed and award nominees or winners. He remains loyal, he said, “to the podcast listeners and blog readers who were there right at the very beginning, who gave me that feedback and were encouraging. Without that support, it’s an open question of whether or not I would have self-published the novel. And, if I hadn’t self-published the novel, none of the rest of these wonderful things would have happened.”
In his continued appreciation, Fallis still shares content for free and listens to what people think of it. “Now, generally the book is finished by the time I podcast it,” he said, “so, to be clear, when I’m looking for feedback, it’s not so much that I want advice on how to change the novel, it’s more that I think it’s important for authors to be accessible to their readers. When the reader’s interested, you can actually have a contact, and I find that an important part of being a writer.”
Fallis said he loves both the “isolated solitude that comes when you’re in writing mode” and also gets “a charge out of traveling around and meeting readers and talking about the books, and talking to other writers. And I teach as well,” he added, “at the University of Toronto, in the writing program, and I like all of that stuff and I feel lucky that I happen to have both sides of that working for me.”
With more people reading these days than ever before, Fallis has hope in the publishing industry’s future. Acknowledging that people are “finding their content in many more places than were available 20 years ago,” he said, “I think this new world opens up a whole bunch of opportunities for writers and for publisher alike, and the ones who are surviving have embraced that which is new…. So, I think there are real opportunities, and writers can get their work in front of more eyes than ever before, even if they’re not published. There are websites and apps available, and communities online that will welcome new writers, and it’s sometimes a route to traditional publishing as, in a way, it was for me.”
When Touchstone Theatre’s Katrina Dunn contacted him and his agent about the possibility of adapting The Best Laid Plans into a musical, Fallis said, “We were really quite impressed with Katrina and Touchstone and Patrick Street Productions and what they had done in the past, and their vision for the musical, so it seemed like the right way to go – and we’ve been thrilled ever since.”
While he has yet to see the show, he has heard a few of the songs and read a portion of the script. Last fall, at the Vancouver Writers Festival, Fallis participated in a session with Dunn, playwright Vern Thiessen, composers Anton Lipovetksy (a member of the Jewish community) and Ben Elliott and director Peter Jorgensen of Patrick Street Productions. “They had a singer as well, and Anton and Ben both sing,” said Fallis. “And, for the first time ever, while I’m sitting on stage in front of this packed hall, I was hearing the songs for the first time, at least a few of them, and that was strange. I was very conscious of – people are watching you now as you’re reacting to the song, make sure that you’re polite, and I loved the songs, there was no need to be concerned, they were terrific. It was a great experience, and quite surreal to hear someone singing about characters I had created and carted around in my brainpan for so many years.”
While many of Fallis’ characters do indeed face challenges that arise from plans gone wrong, his novels are humor-filled and uplifting. He said that he is, by nature, an optimistic person.
“I think I see the world through relatively clear eyes,” he said, “but, I figure, if we have some choice in the matter, of crying or trying to find the thin, little sliver of goodwill somewhere in the story, I will go there. I don’t usually have much trouble finding humor in it. I grew up in a family where humor was just a daily staple.
“I think there’s a certain engineer’s logic in how I think about things, as well,” added Fallis, who got a degree in engineering before being lured into politics, where he worked in various capacities before entering the PR world, eventually co-founding Thornley Fallis. “If something happens and it can’t be changed, and we have no control over it, I don’t spend a lot of time wondering why it happened. You just move on, and I try not to dwell on it.”
Fallis credits growing up with an identical twin for helping form this positive attitude. He also has a younger sister – “We all get along wonderfully,” he said, “It’s rather an idyllic little family” – but “having someone you’re exactly the same age as and [who is] exactly like you, there is always someone to goof around with … having a twin brother to trigger that at every moment of every day was part of that, for sure.”
As is his innate curiosity. “I’m fascinated by so many things,” he said. When he was interested in something as a boy, he “would read every book around” on it and his mother would say, “’Terry’s on one of his kicks’ … you can’t imagine how many things I was interested in for short bursts of time, and I’ve maintained an interest in most of them, but not with the same intensity. The library became my friend and I find it stimulating and fulfilling.”
Curiosity is something, he said, that he and his wife have encouraged in their sons, now 23 and 20, who will be joining them on the trip to Vancouver for the première. “Curiosity is a wonderful gift,” said Fallis, “and I feel sorry for those who don’t have it in the same amount that I do.”
Now in the midst of plotting out his next book, which is going to be about twins – though the protagonist “doesn’t know he’s an identical twin until some ways into the book” – Fallis explained his creative process. Describing himself as “a heavy outliner,” he said, “The last thing I ever do is write the manuscript, and that’s right at the tail end of the process. The last four months I spend writing the manuscript, the previous year I spend thinking about it, mapping out the story, plotting it, developing the characters, and then doing a chapter by chapter outline. That’s the engineer in me – I need a blueprint for my novel before I can build it.”
For tickets and more information about The Best Laid Plans: A Musical, visit tickets.thecultch.com or call 604-251-1363.
On Sept. 20, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and SUCCESS are co-hosting Election 2015 Townhall. The Conservative, Liberal, New Democrat and Green parties have been invited to have a representative answer community members’ questions.
“Although the parties are well aware of the broad topics to be covered at the forum, neither the parties nor their candidates will be told the questions beforehand,” Jason Murray, chair of CIJA Pacific Region Local Partners Council, told the Independent. “It’s important to note that the townhall is not a debate, but an important opportunity to hear candidates address issues important to the communities served by SUCCESS and CIJA. The event will be open to the press.”
The selection of the representatives has been left up to the parties, said Murray, “with the only requirement being that the candidate is nominated in a Metro Vancouver riding.”
The broad topics – immigration, employment, seniors’ care, security and the economy – are just some of the issues in which CIJA and SUCCESS share an interest, said Murray. The partnership in organizing the townhall, he said, “allows us to gain strength with greater numbers, bringing together our communities to advocate with candidates seeking office. Working together allows us opportunities to view these issues from each other’s perspectives.”
This is not the first time that SUCCESS has worked with the Jewish community.
“SUCCESS and CIJA’s predecessor, the Canadian Jewish Congress, have a long history of collaborating on civic engagement programs, including townhall-style events around municipal, provincial and federal elections,” said Murray. “Professional and volunteer leaders from SUCCESS and CIJA have continued to collaborate between elections, particularly in helping each other nurture advocacy efforts. We hope to continue to build on what we see as a solid foundation and to continue to bring together SUCCESS and our Federation and Federation’s partner agencies.”
“Both CIJA and SUCCESS are nonprofit and non-partisan organizations that are dedicated to improving the quality of life of newcomers in Canada by advancing the public policy interests of Canada’s communities,” Queenie Choo, chief executive officer of SUCCESS, told the Independent. “We have commonalities and strong values in these areas. Hence, it is a perfect fit as partners in this event.”
SUCCESS has sponsored other townhalls and information sessions, said Choo. “We have done it in the past for provincial and municipal pre-election forums. At this point, we are focusing on this townhall opportunity to ensure people are informed of the party positions on our topics, such as immigrants, seniors, housing, employment and security. It is also part of our mandates on promoting civil education and responsibility.”
Choo explained, “SUCCESS is one of the largest nonprofit social service agencies in B.C. that provide services for immigrants, seniors and people who need affordable housing. The topics of focus at this townhall really support our mission – one that builds bridges, harvests diversity and fosters integration through service and advocacy. Through this event, we hope to gain a better understanding of each party’s position on these subject matters, advancing our mission in these three key areas going forward.”
She added, “It is important that people are well informed of the positions and platform represented by each party in order to vote for what they believe in. People are encouraged to vote and be able to elect the party that can best represent them and their community.”
“In advocacy,” said Murray, “there is no substitute for in-person engagement. The Jewish community is a relatively small community in Canada and, particularly, in British Columbia. Through more intensive involvement in the political world – whether volunteering, serving as party activists, or running for office – Canadian Jews can make a disproportionate impact beyond the ballot box.
Community members must send their questions in advance to [email protected]. The Election 2015 Townhall takes place Sept. 20, 2:30 p.m., at Choi Hall (SUCCESS main offices), 28 Pender St.
Itamar Erez will perform together with Liron Man and François Houle on Sept. 11 at VCC Music Auditorium. (photo from CWR)
On Sept. 11, Itamar Erez takes to the stage with two of his “favorite musicians on earth”: Liron Man and François Houle.
Presented by Caravan World Rhythms, World Trio will take place at Vancouver Community College Music Auditorium. Just last month, Erez returned from Germany and Tunisia; he leaves for Colombia about a week and a half after the VCC concert.
“It has been busy and not always easy touring,” Erez admitted to the Independent, “but the thing is that I really enjoy sharing my music with new audiences around the world and it gives me more energy and enthusiasm to continue in my way and to create and perform.
“This year, I have played in Germany, Austria, Cyprus, India, the U.S.A., Canada, Tunisia, to name a few places. Tunisia was definitely a highlight. I played with Omar Faruk Tekbilek, the great sufi musician, in front of 6,000 people, got to visit the old city of Carthage and Sousse, and enjoyed the good Tunisian food and their warm hospitality. This summer, I also performed (with my percussionist, Yshai Afterman) at the Jewish Museum in Berlin, which was great. And, a few days later in Freiburg, we collaborated with Iranian musicians from Isfahan in a program called Face to Face – Music from Iran and Israel. It was really an amazing experience.”
Last year was also a remarkable one for Israel-born Erez, and not just for his many performances. Adding to the honors he has received over the years for his work, he garnered the 2014 ACUM and Landau prizes for special achievement in jazz.
Erez has two CDs with the Adama Ensemble – Desert Song (2006) and Hommage (2010) – and one with Afterman, New Dawn (2013). About his work with Afterman, a fellow Israeli, he said, “This duet has been working since 2011 and is touring extensively in Europe and Asia. We are very proud of this CD – in a duet setting, there is a lot of freedom to each musician, but at the same time you cannot hide behind other musicians. There is a lot more responsibility to each of us, so it is very challenging.
“Antonio Serrano, master of the harmonica, who collaborated for a long time with Paco De Lucía, until his [De Lucía’s] recent death, is a special guest on this album and can be heard in two tracks,” added Erez, who is currently working on new material for an upcoming CD.
Erez (piano and guitar) will be joined by Man (handpan and percussion) and Houle (clarinet) at VCC.
“I have known François for a long time,” said Erez. “He premièred some of my music when I lived in Vancouver at the end of the ’90s. I was always impressed by his creativity and musical skills but we never got to collaborate together until now. François is a musician who can play anything, in any style, and always keep his own unique voice.
“Liron is a good friend and a brilliant musician,” he continued. “We started together the Lavo Ensemble in Israel about two years ago and toured there. Liron is one of the best handpan (known also as Pantam or Hang) player in the world, and a great flamenco guitarist. His energy for making music is really contagious.”
Since this past July, Erez once again calls Vancouver home. When he returns from Colombia, where he will play with the Lavo Ensemble, he will have a solo guitar set at West Coast Guitar Night on Oct. 17 at the Cultch. “I will also be teaching at the VSO School of Music starting this fall,” he noted.
Now that he has moved back, there will hopefully be many more opportunities to hear him play.
VCC Music Auditorium is at 1155 East Broadway St. Tickets for the Sept. 11, 8 p.m., concert are $20/$30 in advance from caravanbc.com or 1-800-838-3006, and $25/$35 at the door (students receive a $5 discount).
Susan Freedman was inspired by her parents’ love letters. (photo from Susan Freedman)
Among this year’s Vancouver Fringe Festival offerings are several one- person shows, including Spilling Family Secrets by Susan Freedman and The Inventor of All Things by Jem Rolls – both of which have had soldout performances and received high praise on the Fringe circuit. The Independent spoke with each artist about their creation.
Spilling Family Secrets is Susan Freedman’s fourth one-woman Fringe show. Its basis is love letters that her parents wrote to each other between 1927 and 1937, which she melds with stories of her own “marital misadventures.”
JI: You’ve performed Spilling Family Secrets at other Fringes. What has some of the audience feedback been?
SF: I’ve had terrific audience feedback on this show – and a lot of it! People talk to me about the letters themselves. They are very touched by them. People tell me about how they have seen/found their parents’ or great-grandparents’ love letters. Sometimes the letters have been burned! Sometimes people tell me they’re going to go back and look at them again.
I’ve had many people talk to me after the show about their marital and family issues. It’s an intimate show and people sometimes feel that because I’ve shared my stories, they are comfortable sharing theirs. There is lots of laughter in the show and often some teary-eyed audience members at the end. Yesterday, I had a woman (in Edmonton) run up and give me a huge hug. I’d never seen her before but she was very emotional and positive about the show and felt comfortable coming up to me like that. Pretty lovely!
JI: Sometimes in performing a role more than once, different understandings develop along the way. Have new revelations about your parents, your “marital misadventures” or other parts of the material arisen over the last year-plus?
SF: I am struck by how patient my parents were and how impetuous I was in my love life. More and more, as I do the show, I realize the great benefit in really getting to know the person you are going to marry – before you marry them! I’m more grateful than ever that my parents had such great values, and I realize my good fortune in having had them as parents. I love doing this show and when I mentioned that to my daughter, she said: “Of course you do. You get to spend time with your parents at their best.” It’s true. In their letters, they were young and hopeful and, as my father said in a letter written to Brownie in 1929: “I don’t think we will ever grow old.”
JI: Could you give a brief overview of your creative process, taking the letters from, well, letters, to a performance?
SF: [In the program, it explains:] “My parents’ love letters filled 75 pages – single-spaced – when I transcribed them in 2012. I did it because Brownie and Sam’s 80-year-old letters were too fragile to pass around and I wanted a record of their love story for the family. The letters were long, intimate and wonderful to read. But I do Fringe shows, so I wanted to use the letters in a show. Reading letters on stage is a challenge, so I edited – a lot. I hope what’s left gives you a flavor of Brownie and Sam’s personalities and their relationship….”
That’s what happened. And then I started to combine and add the events from my own life (and my daughter’s) that related to love, the letters and the milestones in the letters. I worked with a wonderful dramaturg-playwright, Lucia Frangione, and she pushed me, asked the right questions and helped so much. Everyone needs a great editor, right? She is mine. I worked with her until I had a good “rehearsal script,” a year ago April.
By now, I’ve done 18 drafts … and I’m pretty pleased with it. It’s just 45 minutes (including time for laughs) and it seems to be a very simple show. It took me a very long time to make it look simple!
I have continued to make small changes and, if I do it again next year (I’d still like to do Montreal and Ottawa Fringes), who knows, maybe more changes.
* * *
Jem Rolls’ The Inventor of All Things is based on the life of Hungarian Jew Leo Szilard (1898-1964): “peacemaker, physicist, refugee, celebrity, Martian, and more. And very funny. Hated by generals, first to think of the atom bomb, and too good to flush his own toilet.”
JI: When did you first “discover” Szilard? What went into creating Inventor?
JR: I was stuck in Dauphin, Man., one Christmas with nothing to read but a cheesy book on Nazi science, which led me to [Austrian Jewish physicist] Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Frisch, who have a bunch of great stories I could imagine telling, most notably the famous walk in the snow on Christmas eve of 1938 at Kungälv, where she’s just escaped the Nazis by the skin of her teeth, and Auntie Lise and Nephew Otto discuss the strange results in Berlin and suddenly realize that they have all already been splitting the atom in their labs for years – a massive realization which opened everything up.
And that looked like a great story, but then it led me to the funniest, craziest guy of them all – Leo Szilard … he’d thought of the nuclear chain reaction and, so, the bomb, five years before, when he escaped the Nazis in 1933 and was stateless in London.
If he wasn’t so funny, and so preposterously eccentric, I wouldn’t have a show – it would be too dry and hefty. And the fact he’s forgotten just made it all the better to do, especially as the chief reason he’s forgotten is an antisemitic American general deliberately deleting him from history and the fact it’s such a big story of real historical reach. It’s like Frankenstein’s monster: he is the man who forced the atomic bomb genie out of the bottle – because of his fear of the Nazis – and then desperately tried to get it back in again when the German defeat was certain.
I have been thinking about the show for years, and I would explain my ideas to loads of people on the Fringe tour and they all said, “You should do a show about this,” so, in the end, I have.
I’m a performance poet by trade and, though I’m loath to leave that for awhile, the change has been great and, as it’s storytelling, I’ve had to make myself coherent and completely understandable, which has never quite been a priority before. Plus, performance poetry is a very good place to venture into storytelling from. I have all manner of vocal and physical and linguistic tricks I am thoroughly enjoying deploying in a tight historical narrative.
JI: When and where did you first perform Inventor? What are some of the ways in which you have adapted your performance or the content, if at all, as you’ve performed it?
JR: I wrote the show in Cyprus … having been thinking about it for years, and I edited it and learnt it up the Rio Negro in the Brazilian Amazon, in a lovely small town no one goes to called Barcelos and on the front of the slow boats which ply the reaches of the Amazon…. The journeys take days and I would sit on the front all day watching the unchanging jungle go by and muttering the script to myself as the sun arced the unchanging sky.
The process is a long one: years of thinking and reading/researching, a quick first draft and then a long four-month process of learning and editing to get the story in shape, which involves months of agonizing times, throwing bits out of the show that I really like till I have a tight, coherent thing which still has to be performed.
I always open in Montreal, and only then do I find what the show really is, and then there’s weeks of battle to get a show I am happy with and which my performance is doing justice to. It’s also a struggle to make oneself physically and mentally tough enough to give the show what it needs day in and day out.
Doing the show has forced the horrible realities of the times upon me. I know all the history, of course, but to follow the life of this guy who escaped the antisemitic reaction in Hungary in 1919, then the Nazis, who did so much to help his fellow Jews, who never finished any work because he’d always already had another brilliant idea … I really like the guy. I tell the audience I think he’s a hero, that I’m going to prove he’s a hero. Everyone likes their forgotten heroes and, when I show the audience that he was the chief wrecker of the Nazi bomb, I get a huge round of applause for the guy. One can make the claim that a Jew doomed Hitler – and that man is Szilard. And the forgotten-ness of the story is shocking – why hasn’t [Steven] Spielberg made a movie out of him?
I’ve had some very nice times with the show. I’ve been blessed in Hebrew by an old singer. I’ve had very respectable, well-dressed young men come up to me and shake my hand and say, “Well, I’m a Hungarian Jew and no one ever told me that story,” and I had a professor emeritus of physics from Toronto literally bouncing up and down in glee after show, Bob Logan, a Brooklyn Jewish guy who actually met Leo in ’57 and loved the show. I’ve had an Einstein scholar who had to go back and check his research and see that, yes, I was right, and he’d never realized certain things about Einstein because I am putting together Szilard’s story in a way that no one ever has – I am going for the drama, for the cliffhangers, for the big moments, and there a number of very big moments from 1933-1945.
***
Among the one-person shows at this year’s Vancouver Fringe Festival, which runs from Sept. 10-20, are also:
UnCouth (14+), created by Windy Wynazz with Dan Griffiths, and performed by Wynazz. The show is “a bawdy, campy, comedy cabaret, drawing for inspiration on real-life experiences of being teased in school, falling in with a ‘bad crowd,’ and heteronormative gender expectations,” Wynazz told the JI. The 2014 San Francisco Comedienne of the Year “uses contemporary clowning to dig deeper into the underbelly of humanity, all while providing subversive comic relief on the human condition.” UnCouth is also at the Victoria Fringe Festival till Sept. 4.
Roy Horovitz brings the English version of Benny Barbash’s play My First Sony (which is based on Barbash’s 1994 novel of the same name) to this year’s Fringe. The play is told from the perspective of Yotam, an 11-year-old who records everything on his tape recorder, “my first Sony,” including some of the painful moments in his life, such as his parents’ separation.
Erika Babins, choreographer, and Zach Wolfman, actor, in Awkward Stage Productions’ Titus, written by Andrew Wade and Jenny Andersen. (photo by Corwin Ferguson)
In its sixth appearance at the Vancouver Fringe Festival, Awkward Stage Productions is presenting its first original work: Titus: The Light and Delightful Musical Comedy of Titus Andronicus, written by Andrew Wade and Jenny Andersen.
“Young William Shakespeare wants a hit,” reads the musical’s description. “After cutesy romances and sweeping histories, the young bard is attempting to fold together another blockbuster. He bemoans that no one seems to care for his Titus Andronicus! It seems the violence is not what people want – or at least they won’t admit it. Perhaps it just needs to be presented a little more lightly and delightfully?” Enter Wade and Andersen.
The idea came to Wade when he was acting in a fundraiser production of Titus Andronicus at the University of Victoria.
“I was playing Aemilius and Quintus, and it struck me as so ridiculous how there is a scene where people around him are deciding his fate – accusing him of murder and then sentencing him to be beheaded – and he doesn’t have a single line in his own defence,” Wade told the Independent. “The original play is full of strange, silly moments like that…. During the closing night gathering for that show, I sketched out a one-page brainstorm of ideas if the silly elements to this deeply tragic play were to be highlighted and set to music. I then put that page in a folder and left it alone for four years. And then I pitched the show to Awkward Stage.
“Titus Andronicus has been an excellent vehicle for lampooning [or] sending-up musicals, Shakespeare and our society’s selective obsession with violence as entertainment. The Shakespearean play is so riddled with issues, plot holes and strange character choices, and yet it is also so very, very compelling and touching and human. And what a strange and wonderful musical comedy it turns out to be.”
This is the first writing collaboration between Wade and Andersen, though they have acted together previously.
“While a part of that show,” said Wade, “she mentioned how she might want to write music for a musical at some point.” He made a note to follow up on that discussion and, when he started the first draft of Titus with a different composer and it wasn’t working out, Andersen came aboard, “and our styles clicked.”
“For most of the music, I started by writing some lyrics and sent them her way,” he explained. “Some songs, I added a little voice recording of what it ‘could’ sound like. For others, I included little taglines like ‘sounds like an instructional song from The Sound of Music, but sexier.’ A few of the songs, all I sent her were the words, and Jenny created musical masterpieces from those words, which blew me away.
“And then we would massage the lyrics back and forth for musicality and staging purposes, her telling me I need to cut or add a stanza here or there, me realizing the character needs to elaborate more here and there – a solid, near-egoless workshopping experience. We both dearly treasure what we have created, but we are also both willing to get rid of whatever isn’t working, or fix whatever needs tweaking. I am super-happy with how the collaborative process has gone thus far.”
When Andersen came on board, she said, “a first draft of the book/lyrics had already been written, and I was asked to set it musically.” So, she had no input into the musical’s topic and, she admitted, “a work from the Shakespearean canon would not have been the text I’d have settled on for my first foray into musical theatre composition.”
However, as she has worked with the story, she said, “I’m increasingly realizing the genius in picking this specific play. I think if we had made a musical comedy out of any other Shakespearean work, we would have received polite nods and moderate interest. When we say we’re setting Titus Andronicus as a musical, however, the (nearly universal) response is, ‘That play? How do you make a musical comedy out of that play?!’
“The fact that it’s widely recognized as Shakespeare’s darkest tragedy gives us a few advantages. Of course, people are curious to see how the original text is turned on its ear. More importantly, I think it serves as a statement of what we as a society find funny, what we find acceptable and what we still find as gruesome as we did in Shakespearean times. Why can we often find ourselves laughing at violence, mutilation, murder as comedic tropes, when other issues are still off limits as comedic fodder? Why should any of it be funny, really? What does that say about ourselves as a society?”
Since Andersen came later into the creative process, she said, “For the most part, in my first musical draft, I took Andrew’s lyrics, edited them slightly for smoother musical form/phrasing/syllabic purposes and tried to capture the overall mood of plot and character. We then sat down and parsed out the lyrics to make them universally relevant, to clean up the form and to make sure they were saying what we needed them to say about each situation. For the music, that meant everything from small lyrical tweaks to brand new sections and complete rewrites of certain songs. We went back and forth after that point (often electronically; I think we were in the same room a total of three or four days!) to finesse the flow of the piece. (We literally wrote one of the songs two days before rehearsal started for Fringe!)”
Awkward Stage was created in 2010 “to fill a perceived void of real-life performance and production opportunities for youth in that awkward transition from play acting to professional employment.” As with all its productions, Titus features a cast, crew and creative team “aged 15 to 30ish.”
“Titus has a wide range of ages and experience levels in the show and it’s great to be able to watch them all come together as a cast,” said Awkward artistic associate Erika Babins, who choreographed the musical. “The teenagers in the show are fearless and dive right into the comedic and dramatic high points in the text. During any down time in the rehearsal hall, you’ll find cast members lending their strengths to each other to bring up the overall level of the show.”
When asked about any highlights she could share, she said, “It’s hard to describe some of the funniest moments of choreography without giving away a whole bunch of spoilers but there is a super-serious rhythmic gymnastic dance (as serious as you can be while flitting about with a ribbon), communication through tap dancing, and both life-size and miniature deer prancing around the forest.”
Zach Wolfman plays Bassianus, the late emperor Caesar’s son, younger brother to Saturninus. For the role, he said, “I definitely draw inspiration from my relationship to my brother Jake, who is two years younger than me, and into everything that I’m not – he’s the athlete, sport guy, and I’m the theatrical one. We are both kind of fighting for attention from our parents: my parents divide their time between watching him and my sister in sports games, and me in theatre.
“Professionally, I had a fair amount of Shakespeare training at UBC and through Canada’s National Voice Intensive. It’s fun to examine the Shakespearean qualities that permeate through Andrew Wade’s script, and then go back and look at Shakespeare’s original play.
“I’ve played a lot of wimpy, ineffective princes, who are fighting to prove themselves in some manner or another, and that helps,” he added. “The idealism of Bassianus and the fantasy world that he lives in remind me of a lot of other roles I’ve played – characters falling in love for the first time, young love in a really tender, awkward stage. That kind of new romance seems to breed a certain over-optimistic viewpoint, or rose-tinted perspective in people. Things are new and fresh and awesome, so it’s easy to forget that everyone around you wants to kill you.
“The most challenging aspect of this show is finding the balance between truth and comedy. The show is so fast and funny that you have to fight hard to keep up while you’re laughing. It helps a lot that Andy Toth, our director, is on the side of finding the real heart and truth in this show. Andy opened a rehearsal one day by showing us a great TED Talk by Peter McGraw called What Makes Things Funny. McGraw basically says that, for something to stand out as funny, it needs to step outside of the norm, or background of normal, everyday reality. This show is a roller coaster that goes far off the rails, but is still grounded in characters with real wants, desires and ambitions. Although the show is very dark, at the core, it is a delightful comedy.”
About the most fun aspect of the show, Wolfman said, it “lies in the people I get to work with. Working on this show with three other classmates from UBC is a treat. I feel lucky to be learning so much from Jenny Anderson and Andy Toth every day in rehearsal. Andy drops wisdom bombs left, right and centre and is the perfect person to be directing new work because he asks the tough questions. Andy, Jenny and Erika Babins really bring Andrew Wade’s script to life. Everyone is crazy talented, and I am often in flux between laughter and utter shock.”
Titus is at the Firehall Arts Centre Sept. 10-20. For times, tickets ($14 plus one-time $5 Fringe membership) and the full Fringe schedule, visit vancouverfringe.com.
Left to right, Talia Martz-Oberlander, Stephanie Glanzmann, Erin Fitz, Mike Houliston and Frances Ramsey wait in Wai Young’s office for a meeting with the MP on July 3, as part of a cross-Canada call for action on climate change. (photo by Sam Harrison)
On July 3, students across Canada visited the offices of seven members of Parliament. “Our asks on that day were twofold,” local participant Talia Martz-Oberlander told the Independent. “Firstly, to have a meeting with our MP and, secondly, to discuss climate policy that would keep Canada’s fossil fuel involvement below seriously harmful levels. To have those two demands met, we were willing to formally sit-in and occupy the offices. Some groups risked arrest, others chose not to.”
Martz-Oberlander was one of the students who waited in Conservative MP Wai Young’s Vancouver South office for a meeting, to no avail. Actions that day also took place in Victoria (Murray Rankin, NDP MP), Toronto (Joe Oliver, minister of finance and MP for Eglington-Lawrence), Montreal (Thomas Mulcair, leader of the opposition and NDP MP for Outrement), Shédiac, N.B. (Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal MP for Beauséjour), Calgary (Prime Minister Stephen Harper, MP for Calgary-Southwest) and Halifax (Megan Leslie, NDP MP).
Mainly organized by 350.org as part of their We Are Greater than the Tar Sands campaign, cities across Canada held rallies on July 4 “in solidarity with climate-related struggles across Canada, such as the poisoning of water from industries like fracking or open-top mining in rural Canada, the fight for a living wage for Canadian workers, or the continued breach of indigenous territory for extractive purposes,” explained Martz-Oberlander. On July 5, she said, “around 10,000 people gathered in Toronto to march for jobs, social and climate justice, headed by indigenous groups, Canadians living on the frontlines of fossil fuel projects like pipelines, students, workers, elders and every other demographic imaginable.”
Martz-Oberlander said, “The weekend was planned to send a clear message that Canadians want strong climate policy. We are asking for policy that will safely transition Canada’s socioeconomic fabric away from the one-track-minded fossil fuel industry with its large government subsidies towards industry that supports long-term economic prosperity and ecological health, both at home in Canada and globally by being less carbon intensive.”
Entering her third year at Quest University, Martz-Oberlander told the Independent that she has been involved in climate-action work since she was 15 years old. “At that age,” she said, “I didn’t understand the ‘justice’ part of climate change. Through more careful examination of human rights and oppressive social hierarchies like race or gender, I started to realize how closely all social issues are tied with climate change. It is this web of injustice that establishes how most carbon emissions are controlled and released by the richest few and the first stages of the effects of climate change hit the poorest few hardest.”
Homeschooled by her mother until Grade 9, Martz-Oberlander then attended Lord Byng Secondary, initially part-time but then full-time, graduating in 2012. Towards the end of high school, knowing that leaving home to live on her own meant “my religious practice would have to be more intentionally sought out on my part,” she started thinking about how to actively maintain a Jewish lifestyle.
“From a gap year in Boston and a summer learning Yiddish in NYC, I made strong connections in different Jewish circles, including some that identify Judaism with strong social activism,” said Martz-Oberlander. This link “tied together two previously disparate values of mine: Jewish life and supporting long-term life on earth as we know it.”
Before starting university, Martz-Oberlander said she knew she wanted to focus on environmental studies. “However, I’ve always been interested in solar energy alternatives to fossil fuels. This, coupled with a newfound love of physics I found in first year, led me to focus my undergrad research on how we can use electromagnetic radiation, or light, in our design of materials on very small scales. So, my passion for climate justice is fairly macro but I’m asking micro-scale academic questions.
“There is a tiny Jewish community at Quest, although we’re quite active. I and a few others make a point of organizing Shabbatons, celebrations of other Jewish holidays and Jewish discussion group sessions with the belief that existing in the world with a Jewish lens can enrich our lives through finding deeper meaning and practising cultural preservation.
“Of course, I can work on making the world more socially just without acting in a Jewish way, and I often do,” she acknowledged. “However, I strongly believe that living Jewishly is a way of experiencing life that no gentile can truly understand. Outside of religious practices that specifically involve community, such as a minyan or simply having people to spend Shabbos with, there truly is a difference to leading a Jewish life that can impact how one conducts business, studies science, or forms social beliefs and values.”
While her academic studies aren’t currently tied to her climate work, Martz-Oberlander believes that “everyone in any field should be advocating for policy to keep fossil fuels in the ground. After all, it doesn’t matter who burns it – if we keep using known and prospective reserves at our current rate, we won’t be able to sustain ourselves. Internationally recognized scientific findings on these changes can be found in the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] 2014 report on climate change,” she said, before returning to the topic of justice.
“Climate change follows the same cause and effect that social hierarchies implement, so if you keep the ‘justice’ in climate justice, we can make strides in income gaps, which improves society for people of all demographics. With a Jewish lens, one can clearly see the relationship between texts like Deuteronomy or Mishna Bava Batra, which discuss the need to ensure financial holdings are not contrary to others’ well-being, and that industrial toxins are safely managed. A common theme is acting towards tzedeck, justice, when we know what is right and wrong.
“Within issues of fossil fuel use lie many avenues for positive change,” she continued. “These include policy to move subsidies from the industry towards others, such as renewable energies, tourism industries, etc. Another avenue is to input moratoriums on known harmful practices like natural gas fracturing, like Quebec has. Another is divestment from fossil fuels.
“Divestment is by no means a goal, but only a path towards a climate-just future. Currently, we’re caught in this backwards world where we’re investing with the goal of amassing money for the future but we’re doing so by supporting an industry that inherently undermines life to come as we know it.”
One way in which we are doing this is through our mutual funds, said Martz-Oberlander. “Until a few weeks ago, when Vancity released Canada’s first mutual fund that excludes fossil fuel companies, all investment portfolios depended largely upon Canadian fossil fuel companies for their success. This college [or other] fund may grow for a few years but, first of all, finite resources will always eventually be used up and, more importantly, this bank account created to support a child’s future success is ultimately harming this younger generation’s ability to live in an environmentally, economically and socially stable world.”
For Martz-Oberlander, “The science is clear – current, widely accepted climate models dictate that 85% of the Canadian tar sands have to be left in the ground if we are to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius (the target agreed upon by the UN and other international bodies).”
She added that “the divest fossil fuels movement is not meant to financially harm companies. Its success lies in taking away social licence from the fossil fuel industry by waking the public up to the absurdity of investing in something that undermines future human success.”
Martz-Oberlander is one of 10 youth fellows at Fossil Free Faith Canada, an organization that looks at climate justice work from a religious perspective. She found out about the fellowship from a post on the Young Adult Club of Or Shalom Facebook page, she said.
“The post advertised applications for their new Youth Fellowship program, launching late spring of 2015,” she explained. “After the applications closed, the 10 fellows started our work through a weekend of training…. Our mission is to work with faith communities and institutions to support them in divesting from fossil fuels. In this way, our current project is similar to any divestment work, only that we are specifically targeting faith institutions, predominantly larger national or international groups that have endowments or offer pension plans for their members. Without careful financial planning, these investment portfolios almost always include stocks in fossil fuel companies.
“Working in this interfaith setting is quite inspiring because I get to witness how folks of many religions connect to social justice,” she said. “We have diverse approaches to religion and spirituality, but we all share our love of the role faith plays in our lives, coupled with a dedication to what can be really tough climate activism work.
“From my work with Fossil Free Faith, I got in touch with some folks in the U.S. working on divestment from a specifically Jewish perspective…. We’re currently working on forming a supportive network across North America for Jews looking to ask their community institutions to divest from fossil fuel holdings. A brief on Jewish divestment work has been published by a few religious and climate leaders from the U.S. … and, via the use of Skype, a few folks have started a network to support fellow Jews around North America on helping their communities divest.”
In the video that encapsulates the highlights of the 350.org July 3-5 weekend of events, one of the clips has a speaker mentioning the need for “just, rational and difficult choices.” Martz-Oberlander explained that the difficult choices aren’t the ones about “the design or engineering of alternatives. We have used and continue to further refine techniques for using energy from renewable sources, such as the sun, wind or water currents, for many generations. What’s difficult with the energy sector is transferring social and political licences from fossil fuel industries – which, at the rate at which we consume them, are highly destructive not to mention finite – towards energy sources that provide long-term, enjoyable work. That is where divestment comes in.
“Transitioning Canada to a renewable energy nation will mean a change in our economy. Right now, we’re still a raw materials economy, much like we were when this area was first colonized by Europeans, which means we inherently get the short end of the stick – economically and socially. Financially, depending on finite resources is always a losing battle, and Canada needs to get out now. Instead of worrying about changes in global oil supply, we can create financially profitable industries around training engineers to design and run high-tech renewable industries. Which would you rather work – on an oilrig or at a wind farm?”
Martz-Oberlander believes that, “by creating an economy that functions on local industries, such as the service industry, we strengthen communities by keeping jobs where people live and emphasize enjoyable work that provides trickle-down opportunities for multi-generational employment and provision of essential services. One tactic towards this is creating livable cities where life essentials, such as groceries and jobs, can be found close by. This decentralized model is known to increase total employment, which is one of the greatest concerns individuals bring up when I address the issue of reducing fossil fuel industry jobs.”
For anyone wanting to become involved in the type of climate action in which Martz-Oberlander is engaged, she suggested visiting the Fossil Free Faith Canada website (fossilfreefaith.org) for more information. “One great place to start,” she added, “is to get in touch with the board of their synagogue to find out the state of finances there, whether there is an endowment, how finances are handled, etc. There is a growing trend of banks offering socially responsible investment options, so divesting from fossil fuels doesn’t mean reducing profit. I also encourage people in the upcoming federal election to vote for the candidate in their riding whose platform will move Canada away from its dependence on fossil fuels.”
The election on Oct. 19 will be the first in which Martz-Oberlander can vote. “Needless to say, I am very excited,” she said. “However, the novelty of this privilege reminds me of the responsibility that comes with having a say. It is my duty as a Canadian to stand up for the country I want to see all the other 364 days of the year, as well.”
Dustin Freeland as Link Larkin, Erin E. Walker as Tracy Turnblad, Hannah Williams as Penny Pingleton and ensemble members in Hairspray. (photo by Tim Matheson)
When Theatre Under the Stars announced its lineup earlier this year, I was excited. I’d enjoyed the movie Hairspray, but not seen the stage version, and the last (and only) time I had seen Oliver! was at Winnipeg’s Rainbow Stage when I was just shy of 9 years old. The brutality in that production, in particular Nancy’s death at the hands of Bill Sykes, stayed with me, and I was curious to see how TUTS would handle it.
But first, Hairspray. “Good Morning, Baltimore” is one of the greatest songs. So cheerful and optimistic, its driving beat setting the tone and pace of the entire musical. If only we could all carry such confidence and positive energy out into the world. But I digress. The broad expanse of the movie, in which heroine Tracy Turnblad, sings and dances her way to school through the city that she loves is, of course, not possible on stage, and the added sparseness of Brian Ball’s TUTS set – basically tiered, multi-colored stages with the odd extra prop or flourish – took a little adjustment in perspective. But once I scaled my expectations, I came to appreciate the room his choices made for the dancers. And what dancing! Julie Tomaino’s choreography was not only fabulous, but it was professionally executed by the mainly amateur cast.
Many of the cast members are at least triple threats. Starting with the lead, Erin E. Walker does a commendable job as the boundless Tracy, who, in 1962 Baltimore, sets out to be a dancer on The Corny Collins Show despite her relative largesse, and ends up not only winning a spot on the show but getting its Elvis-like heartthrob Link Larkin (perfectly played by Dustin Freeland) to fall in love with her. Oh, and she also inspires significant social change along the way, succeeding in racially integrating her favorite show. And, she convinces her mother – a pleasantly understated performance by Andy Toth – to come out of the house after a decades-long, self-imposed imprisonment out of shame over her weight.
On her mission(s), Tracy is supported by her best friend, Penny Pingleton, played by the obviously talented Hannah Williams, though the accent she chooses for the role makes her sound incredibly stupid. Thankfully, she sings more than talks. I also had a problem with a couple of the other accent choices – Ryan Purdy as Tracy’s dad sounds like a complete moron, rather than the tenderhearted, somewhat nerdy guy he is; and I’m still trying to figure out how a German prison matron made it to 1962 Baltimore.
For the most part, however, director Sarah Rodgers’ pacing and style are spot on; the costumes by Chris Sinosich are colorful and suit the characters and period; and music director Chris D. King, whose orchestra is fantastic, does an excellent job as Corny Collins. And three other standouts cannot go without mention: Cecilly Day as Motormouth Maybelle and, as Maybelle’s children, David Lindo-Reid as Seaweed J. Stubbs and Marisa Gold as Little Inez.
Oliver! is a much more uneven performance. TUTS valiantly tries to evoke 1843 England beyond the stage and, by the time the show starts, kids (and older folk) have had the chance to see a Punch and Judy show, compete in a 20-yard dash, show their strength in a bell-ringer contest and watch some comedic but able strongmen. While the “village fair” is a lot of fun and a great idea in concept, it sets the wrong tone for the musical – poor orphan Oliver, after all, left in a workhouse after his mother dies giving birth to him, does not get to have much fun.
The first few musical numbers also struggle to respect the darkness of the story. At the workhouse, the main “problem” is the portrayal of Mr. Bumble, who is played much too loudly and vulgarly by Damon Calderwood. At the undertaker’s (to whom Oliver is sold), dancing zombies and more overacting detract one’s attention from Oliver’s plight. A rushed rendition of the beautiful ballad “Where is Love” is a lost opportunity to latch on and care for Oliver, who is well-played by Carly Ronning.
It is only when Oliver manages to walk himself to London and find a home with Fagin’s gang of thieves that director Shel Piercy’s vision becomes more uniform and appropriate to the subject matter.
The young Nathan Piasecki as the Artful Dodger is one of the highlights of this production, as is his boss, Fagin, played by Jewish community member Stephen Aberle. The connection I felt some 36 years ago to Nancy just wasn’t there, however. Calderwood fares better as the evil Bill Sykes than Mr. Bumble, but again without any refinement, so it is hard to understand why Nancy, played ably by Elizabeth Marie West, would love him. She also was dressed quite fancily and seemed like a lady, so it was a wonder that she would be involved with him and Fagin in the first place. I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes during her rendition of “As Long As He Needs Me,” when I should have been sympathizing with her predicament – to be loyal to her (dangerous) man or risk her life to save Oliver. While the character’s death may have semi-traumatized me as a child, I can say this – it was both moving and memorable, neither of which applies as much to this version.
All that said, it is worth repeating that, from the moment Oliver meets the Artful Dodger just over halfway through Act 1, and is encouraged to consider himself part of Fagin’s “family,” TUTS’s Oliver! is a solid, enjoyable production. The ensemble – which includes community members Kat Palmer and Julian Lokash – are an incredibly talented and energetic group well worth seeing and hearing in action. They land the choreography of Keri Minty and Shelley Stewart Hunt and are in perfect tune with the orchestra, led by music director Kerry O’Donovan.
Theatre Under the Stars presents Hairspray and Oliver! on alternate evenings at Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park until Aug. 22 (tuts.ca or 1-877-840-0457).
The multiple-award-winning singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer is well-known to many in the Jewish community, having performed at Rothstein Theatre and in the Chutzpah! Festival a number of times, including opening for Idan Raichel last year. Her most recent CD is Hearts Up to the Sun, which has earned deserved praise. On her website, Capilano University’s Gary Cristall – who, among many other career milestones, was a co-founder of the Vancouver Folk Music Festival – describes Hearts: “Musically, it is as hot as Louisiana hot sauce and the horn arrangements sound like they might well have come from there. Babe’s voice is sounding as good or better than ever. The band is great. But the songs … wow! The songs mark a step forward. They are even better than the ones she won awards for with her last release, SideDish.”
The Jewish Independent recently interviewed Gurr about her work and its beginnings.’
JI: I understand that it wasn’t until you were in your 20s that you joined a band and set off on a musical path. How did you end up joining a band, and what type of band was it? What were you doing (or planning on doing) as a job/career at the time?
BG: I joined my first band when I was 25 and it was a jazz/pop band, which was very stupid and daring of me as I knew nothing of jazz music other than what I heard of my parents’ album collection. I was living in Victoria at the time and working as a dental assistant, which never really fit as a job for me, but when I graduated high school, my parents didn’t think music could or would ever be an option and so steered me toward something respectable like working with teeth. Nothing against teeth – we all have and need them but, ugh, not for me. I really wanted to be involved with music and so I auditioned for this jazz/pop band and, amazingly, they took me under their wing and taught me the ropes of being in a band and, on the side, the lead guitar player, Dave English, would give me lessons on how to play the jazz chords on the guitar. Later on, I also started to sing and joined various bands over the years, playing rock, jazz, folk and top 40, before I started to write my own music.
JI: What was it about music that made you so passionate about it that you wanted to create it and try to make a living at it?
BG: That is a hard thing to put a finger on. I knew from a very young age I liked music and would lay on the floor with my head near my parents’ stereo speakers listening intently to the music. But I guess the pivotal point was seeing the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show when I was a little girl – I just was completely wowed!
JI: You released Hearts Up to the Sun earlier this year, your fifth CD, I believe. How would you say your music/style has changed/evolved since your first recording?
BG: My music is a mash up of so many genres these days, pop, roots, blues, rock, world and a hint of jazz. I guess that is the result of the freedom one has when you are an independent artist and you have been around awhile, you just stop worrying about fitting in and create what you like, and then hope that you still have an audience for it.
JI: Do you have a specific creative process? If so, could you share how, in general, an idea becomes a song?
BG: I am fascinated by how a song will come to me – not that they are brilliant or complex but, still, it is a strange process, creativity. The music comes as a result of noodling on my guitar until I find something I like and the lyrics can be inspired by so many sources, some personal and others influenced by all that is happening around me.
JI: Could you tell me a bit about your band, how you guys got together, how long you’ve been playing together?
BG: I love the guys I play with, whether it is my three-piece or eight-piece band, they are all such talented players and so fun to work with. I have been playing with Nick Apivor, percussion/piano, for many years – I think we started to play in a duo in the late 1800s; actually, we met in our 20s. Then, I guess, violinist Tom Neville has been with me for about 10 or 12 years. The newer additions to the band are sax player Steve Hilliam, Malcolm Aiken on trumpet, Liam MacDonald on drums, Adam Popowitz on lead guitar and Darren Parris on bass.
JI: Are there any projects on which you’re currently working that you’d like to share with readers?
BG: There is a really interesting project that I will be involved with and we will be starting to workshop this summer, that puts together various dancers with a variety of musicians, but I am not able to talk about it yet – mum’s the word, for now.
JI: If there is anything else you’d like to add, please do.
BG: Another hat I like to wear is that of a record producer and I have been lucky enough to have produced a number of talented singers’ CDs along with my own. It probably is my favorite thing to do in the music business. I compare it to a painter who sits with a blank canvas with an idea and then takes that idea and expands and enhances it with colors and strokes or, in the musical sense, arrangements and various instruments and sounds. It is so exciting to hear a song come to life in the studio.
For information on Babe Gurr’s upcoming shows, visit babegurr.com.