Arts & Culture – Page 145

One play, two opinions

Left to right: Andrew McNee as Francis and Martin Happer as Stanley Stubbers in One Man, Two Guvnors at the Arts Club Stanley Theatre. (photo by David Cooper)

It’s always disconcerting when sitting in a theatre listening to everyone laughing while thinking, “What’s so funny?”

That was my experience at the media opening of One Man, Two Guvnors Jan. 28. I’m thinking, therefore, that this review is going to be controversial. Judging by the audience response to the play, I was, with the dozen or so others who left at intermission, clearly in the minority.

Perhaps the problem was that reading the name of the play and about its background, and having been to British period comedies in the past, I had high expectations. I anticipated caustic wit and clever verbal jousting; instead, I was witness to very lame jokes and antiquated slapstick comedy.

Slapstick? Really?

For much of Guvnors, I felt as though I was in a studio audience watching a bad sitcom. It hearkened back to when, as a child, I watched my parents roll in laughter at the likes of Wayne and Schuster’s antics – certainly performances that would draw yawns today.

Now, just in case I’m coming across as a humorless Scrooge who wouldn’t release a guffaw unless I was on laughing gas, let me remind readers of previous reviews. I have snickered at the wit in The Philanderer, joined the multitudes who guffawed to The Producers and fell off my seat convulsing in laughter during Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. But those plays were smart. Witty.

Guvnors seems to play to the lowest common denominator of predictable, parochial humor at the level of arm-pit noises and fart jokes. The main character Francis is compared by the director to Will Ferrell. ‘Nuf said.

Now, before I continue on my rant, let me delve into the plot for some context. The play takes place in 1963 in England, starting in London where Pauline and Allan are preparing for a marriage that looks like it’s going to be thwarted: Pauline’s former fiancé, Roscoe, appears to have come back from the dead. It turns out that Roscoe is, in fact, Rachel, Roscoe’s twin sister, who must keep up the sham that Roscoe is alive until she can collect on the 6,000 pounds Pauline’s father is supposed to give him/her, at which point Rachel plans to run away to Australia with her lover Stanley, who is actually Roscoe’s murderer. Rachel and Stanley become the two “guvnors” to Francis, a poor sod who’s either starving for food or starving for love.

The story picks up in Brighton where the farce of mistaken identities really takes off. Francis, who is the consistent backbone to the plot, finds himself serving both guvnors in one hotel, trying to keep them apart, not knowing their hidden connections. In the end, there is a “happy” ending, with two avoided suicides and three marriages.

In an unusual twist, the performance is introduced by a quartet of musicians, a guitarist, a banjo player, stand-up bass and washboard – the first I’ve seen at the Stanley – that introduces the first and second acts and intersperses the play with fun tunes and singing.

As well, during the show, a few audience members are coerced to come on stage and be part of the performance. (Don’t worry, it’s all part of the act.)

At intermission, I was told by friends enjoying the performance that it is supposed to be silly. Indeed, the director’s notes state that it pays tribute to the vaudeville era of entertainment, the play itself being an adaptation of the beloved 18th-century Italian playwright Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni’s A Servant of Two Masters, which itself is based on the commedia dell’arte of the 16th century.

But so what? In a play where the comedy is predictable, does it really matter if it’s due to bad actors doing a bad job versus good actors intentionally doing a bad job? What’s the difference between a show that recreates outdated theatrics well and one that is simply outdated?

In fact, the play itself suggests there is no difference. In one conversation one character asks, “Does he smell of horses or does he smell like horses?” Suggesting the difference is that a man who smells of horses might have been riding them and, therefore, comes from good stock; whereas a man who smells like horses just smells bad.

His counterpart responds, “Well, it’s all the same in the end, isn’t it?”

Quite so.

Guvnors runs until Feb. 22 at the Stanley Theatre. The Jewish community’s multitalented Anton Lipovetsky is not only the musical director and lead-guitar player in the quartet but also has a small part in the play. Another bright community talent, Ryan Beil, plays the love-struck Allan Dangle. Israeli Vancouverite Amir Ofek designed the sets that hearken back to the Stanley’s original life as a vaudeville house.

Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer, painter and photographer. Her work can be seen at orchiddesigns.net.

Instilling a survival instinct

Jeanne Beker reads from her parents’ (Bronia and Joseph Beker) Holocaust memoir on Feb. 19. (photo from Jeanne Beker via vhec.org)

Some survivors of the Holocaust choose never to speak of the horrors they endured. My parents talked. They were adamant about telling us every detail of their war experience, time and time again. I remember hiding under the bed as a small child – I didn’t want to hear any more of their “war stories.” Now, I realize it was precisely their storytelling that made me who I am, coloring my personal philosophies, imparting a sense of resiliency and instilling in me a precious instinct for survival.

What they endured and all they have given me [was] on my mind a great deal over Toronto’s Holocaust Education Week [Nov. 2-9, 2014], with the recent publication of their memoirs, Joy Runs Deeper. With the last generation of eyewitnesses to the Holocaust slowly slipping away, my parents’ stories have taken on more value and urgency. As a child of survivors, I’m keenly aware that I have been left with a legacy that’s as powerfully daunting as it is inspiring.

My parents, Bronia and Joseph Beker, both grew up in Kozowa – a small town in eastern Poland that is now part of Ukraine. They paint a colorful prewar picture of life in their idyllic shtetl, where they met and fell in love. But when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, their lives became a living hell. By 1941, all the Kozowa Jews were confined to a ghetto.

Nazis would regularly come into town and randomly shoot any Jew in sight.

After these horrific shootings, the Germans would command the Jews to make their ghetto even smaller. Many people lived in one room, and with little food, people grew weak and prone to disease. My grandmother and mother both came down with typhus, and it killed my grandmother. In the meantime, my grandfather built a bunker in the basement of the family home where they would hide whenever the Nazis came to town.

In April 1943, my mother and nine members of her family went down to their bunker. After about six hours, they could hear digging: the Nazis were looking for them.

“We held our breath and didn’t move for about half an hour,” writes my mother. “They left without finding our bunker, but the pipes through which we got air must have been covered during their digging. We couldn’t breathe,” she recalls.

“I remember seeing my father, sitting on the floor in his prayer shawl, praying, and my brother with a hammer in his hand, trying to open the entrance to the bunker. Then I fell down and everything went black.”

My mom’s entire family perished that day: all of them suffocated, except, miraculously, for her. Like a knight in shining armor, my dad came to her rescue, scooped her up and, for many months until their liberation, my parents were on the run, hiding in barns and bunkers, depending on the kindness of strangers for their very existence.

It was these stories of survival that were relentlessly recounted to my sister and me throughout our childhood. “Don’t be afraid and never give up” was my father’s famous saying, the mindset that saw him through the war, and the sage edict he raised us on.

My mother’s modus operandi, which tended to chip away any potential optimism, was even more pragmatic: “Expect the worst and you won’t be disappointed.” It certainly wasn’t an upbeat way of viewing the world, but it was her motherly attempt at protecting us and sparing us pain.

While my mother’s influence certainly affects me even to this day, it was my father’s motto that I especially took to heart – an order that still carries me through all my trials.

Ultimately, both my parents taught me the meaning of fearlessness and tenacity, courage and dignity.

As my mother always says, “If you live long enough, you’ll live to see everything.” And her words rang true as I sat by her side at her book launch, watching in wonder as she proudly signed countless books bearing her name. On the verge of turning 94, suffering the ravages of Parkinson’s, but as radiant and stylish as ever, my mom was realizing one of her greatest dreams: she could now share her personal story with the world.

Her memoir, which she’d written more than 30 years ago, along with my father’s memoir, which he’d written, longhand, in Yiddish, just before he died in 1988, has been published by the Azrieli Foundation’s Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program.

Established in 1989 by the late Montreal philanthropist David J. Azrieli, himself a Holocaust survivor, this Canadian organization collects, archives and publishes inspirational accounts of courage and strength in the light of horrifying adversity, and distributes them free of charge to libraries and educational institutions across the country. (The books are also available at bookstores, with all revenues going back into this extraordinary memoirs program.)

My mother and so many others had their youth nipped in the bud, endured unspeakable pain and suffered profound loss. Yet still, they managed to soldier on, pick up the broken pieces and stoically rebuild their shattered lives.

Their tales of toughness and tenacity light our paths, and teach us the kind of fearlessness it takes to survive. These lessons learned from survivors, like my parents, inspire and challenge us to shoot for the moon, work hard, be successful and live out not just our dreams, but their unrealized ones as well.

Their heroism drives me relentlessly.

Jeanne Beker is a Canadian television personality, fashion designer, author and newspaper columnist. This article was originally published in the Globe and Mail and is reprinted here from Zachor, the magazine of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, with permission.

***

Jeanne Beker reads from her parents’ (Bronia and Joseph Beker) Holocaust memoir Joy Runs Deeper (Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs) on Feb. 19, 7 p.m., at the Museum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestnut St., to open the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre’s Shafran Teachers’ Conference. Those in attendance receive a complimentary copy of the memoir, and a reception follows. The event is open to the public and is free of charge but space is limited. RSVP to 604-264-0499 or [email protected].

An accord for the ages

Here’s a scenario to consider: What if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu came to the Knesset with a peace accord, approved by all its neighbors, that provided for the cessation of war, the recognition of the state of Israel, land swaps to create coherent borders and the dismantling of settlements?

What if Netanyahu said the final decision on the agreement would be up to the Knesset and he would remain on the sidelines, campaigning neither for nor against the agreement? Would the Knesset endorse the deal?

At first blush, such a scenario sounds farfetched, it could never happen. But, 35 years ago, that is exactly what occurred.

Former prime minister Menachem Begin came to the Knesset with a peace agreement with Egypt. He was reluctant to abandon settlements in the Sinai, but he let members of the Knesset vote on the agreement and did not campaign against it. They endorsed the deal.

The 1979 Camp David Accords proved to be more durable than many expected, surviving the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, the Lebanon war, the Gaza conflicts and the Arab Spring. Also, the accord laid the foundation for an agreement with Jordan that is now marking its 20th anniversary.

In Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin and Sadat at Camp David (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), New Yorker staff writer and Pulitzer Prize-winner Lawrence Wright goes back to the difficult negotiations in September 1978 that led to the reluctant handshake between Sadat and Begin, and the signing of the accord on the White House lawn in March 1979.

U.S. president Jimmy Carter brought the Egyptian president and the Israeli prime minister together after Sadat took the first courageous step toward peace – a visit to Jerusalem in 1977. The three leaders and some of their most senior aides met at Camp David, a secluded country retreat about 100 kilometres outside Washington, D.C. They stayed for almost two weeks, stepping away from the whirlwind of day-to-day events to focus exclusively on a framework for peace.

A playwright and screenwriter, Wright effectively recreates the moments of high drama during the talks, weaving personal histories, sacred mythologies and past events into a detailed account of the bare-knuckle bargaining session. He also fleshes out the secondary characters, the members of the Israeli, Egyptian and U.S. bargaining teams who played a role in reaching an agreement. In the acknowledgements, Wright says he initially wrote a play about the negotiation, but he could not squeeze all the interesting characters into a 90-minute play.

The evocative portrayal of Moshe Dayan – the Israeli-born warrior who came to personify the country’s most spectacular military accomplishment in 1967 as well as its most significant loss in 1973 – is especially memorable. Dayan is described alternately as a cold-blooded, calculating fighter and the government’s most creative thinker in pursuit of peace.

The book offers a rare glimpse inside the world of high-pressure international negotiations and sheds light on the difficult relationship that Carter continues to have with Israel. That alone would make the book worthwhile. Yet Thirteen Days is more than just an historical account. Delving into how the Camp David Accords were reached inevitably fires up the imagination to think about what is possible.

Could these achievements ever be repeated again?

Wright shines a spotlight on some extraordinary aspects of the negotiations. The U.S. president, who was prepared to dedicate an inordinate amount of time to grappling with the competing interests in the Middle East, had come to the table with little more than a biblical understanding of the issues and virtually no experience in foreign policy. Yet, he shared with the Egyptian president a similar upbringing, religious devotion and commitment to service in the military. An easy rapport evolved between the two men.

Carter had a more difficult time finding a personal connection with Begin, who was scarred by the Holocaust and hardened by his experiences fighting British authorities in Palestine before the establishment of the state.

The isolation of Camp David allowed negotiators to work creatively and take risks that might not have been ventured in the public eye, Wright writes. But being forced together also had negative consequences. The intimacy at times fed hostility, rather than creating trust, and almost torpedoed the talks.

The process of negotiating, ridded with cultural misunderstandings and political miscalculations, was particularly challenging. Sadat and Begin had significantly different approaches to the talks. Sadat came with an agenda of unrealistic demands, but was willing to compromise. Begin came to listen and react. For several days, he adamantly refused to concede anything.

In his naïveté, Carter expected the two warring sides to reach an accord on their own. His opening gambit was to just bring the two sides together and step back. He assumed they would resolve their historic differences once they met and shared their history, their suffering and their dreams. How wrong he was.

Their response at critical moments was a study in contrasts. Where Sadat, a visionary, would become emotional when his idealism was challenged, Begin would become colder and more analytical. Begin kept his eye on details, meticulously dissecting every nuance in anticipation of what could be lurking around the corner. “Both desired peace,” recalled Ezer Weizman, who was Israel’s defence minister at the time. “But Sadat wanted to take it by storm and Begin preferred to creep forward inch by inch.”

Carter eventually realized he had to take the lead. But it was not until the sixth day of negotiations that he introduced a framework for peace that was to be the springboard for negotiated compromises and a final deal.

Despite the hurdles, somewhere there was magic. They reached an agreement.

Wright suggests that domestic political considerations played a significant role. The political cost for all three leaders increased as the negotiations stretched on. Carter, who staked his reputation on bringing the conflict to an end, threatened to break relations with Sadat or Begin if either leader walked away. The threats kept the two wily politicians at the table, despite their personal animosities.

Another pivotal issue was how the three leaders responded to matters related to the Palestinians. Sadat was their self-appointed representative at the talks. But, at a crucial moment, he pushed their interests aside. It was a decision that cost him his life. At the time, however, the prospect of regaining full sovereignty over the Sinai Peninsula was just too tantalizing; leaving the Palestinians on the sidelines enabled the accords to be signed.

Wright observes that there has not been a single violation of the terms of agreement, but he leaves the impression that the Camp David Accords offer little to guide those now searching for more peace. The accords have saved lives and defused tensions in a volatile neighborhood, but the agreement appears to be a unique set of circumstances in history at a time of powerful personalities that probably will not be replicated in our times.

Media consultant Robert Matas, a former Globe and Mail journalist, still reads books. Thirteen Days in September is available at the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library. To reserve it, or any other book, call 604-257-5181 or email [email protected]. To view the catalogue, visit jccgv.com and click on Isaac Waldman Library.

Azrieli music prizes

The Azrieli Music Project (AMP), established to celebrate, foster and create opportunities for the performance of high-quality new orchestral music on a Jewish theme or subject, is launching two new prizes: the Azrieli Prize in Jewish Music, an international prize for a recently composed or performed work by a living composer, and the Azrieli Commissioning Competition, for a Canadian composer of any age. Each prize is for a new work of Jewish orchestral music and carries a value of $50,000.

The Azrieli Prize in Jewish Music is an international prize, awarded to the living composer of a recently composed and/or performed work of orchestral Jewish music of between 15 and 25 minutes duration. The work must have been written in the last 10 years (after Jan. 1, 2005) and have never been commercially recorded. Composers may be of any age, experience level, nationality, faith, background or affiliation. This prize is limited to Canadian citizens or permanent residents. The deadline for submissions by open nomination is Jan. 1, 2016. A written proposal of the work to be composed, plus two excerpts of three-minutes each from previously completed works (score and recording) must be submitted by March 15, 2015. The deadline for the completed composition will be July 1, 2016.

The AMP is delighted to confirm its partnership with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and maestro Kent Nagano, who will perform the winning works at the Azrieli Music Project Gala Concert at Maison symphonique on Oct. 19, 2016, in Montreal.

Dr. Sharon Azrieli Perez, noted operatic soprano and scholar in Jewish and cantorial music, spearheaded the creation of the new prize. “Music has always played an important role in the development of cultural identities,” she said. “Whether through folk traditions, in liturgical settings or in the concert hall, music reflects history and soul. In creating this extraordinary opportunity for composers of Jewish orchestral music, we hope to sustain music’s vital continuity through the long and rich history of Jewish people and culture. The Azrieli Music Project will become the medium for innovation, creation and risk-taking by today’s most inspired orchestral composers.”

The question “What is Jewish Music?” is at the heart of a constantly evolving cultural dialogue. Taking into account the rich and diverse history of Jewish musical traditions, the AMP defines “Jewish music” as music that incorporates a Jewish thematic or Jewish musical influence. Jewish themes may include biblical, historical, liturgical, secular or folk elements. Defining Jewish music as both deeply rooted in history and tradition and forward-moving and dynamic, the AMP encourages themes and content drawn from contemporary Jewish life and experience. The AMP challenges orchestral composers of all faiths, backgrounds and affiliations to engage creatively and critically with this question in submitting their work.

Joseph Rouleau, one of the world’s foremost operatic basses and honorary president of Jeunesses Musicales Canada, will serve as chair of the AMP advisory council. He said, “It is a tremendous pleasure to help launch this significant new prize, which offers such extraordinary opportunities – for the two composers who will have their work performed by Maestro Nagano and the OSM, and for the public, who will benefit from the creation of two new works of art on the fascinating theme of Jewish music.”

Rouleau is joined on the advisory council by Azrieli Perez, Canadian composer Ana Sokolović, Judge Barbara Seal, CM, and classical music philanthropist David Sela. The AMP jury will be announced at a later date.

For details, score guidelines, deadlines and the online application form, visit azrielifoundation.org/music.

Contribute to Legacies

PK Press is now accepting submissions for the fifth volume of Living Legacies: A Collection of Writing by Contemporary Canadian Jewish Women. Edited by Liz Pearl – a Toronto-based educator and therapist specializing in psychogeriatrics and the expressive art therapies – the collection includes personal narratives, mini-memoirs and legacy writing from women across the country.

image - Living Legacies Vol. 4 cover — PK Press is now accepting submissions for the fifth volume of *Living Legacies*.

“What Living Legacies clearly indicates is that, in fact, we do not need to open our TV sets or buy glossy magazines to find inspiration. It is truly in our midst and we seem to have forgotten that our most profound life lessons can come from our mothers, sisters, girlfriends, children and, yes, ourselves. Liz has brought new meaning to the word legacy by making it so contemporary and alive. Her notion that we need to celebrate the legacies in our midst is unique; we all need to look around ourselves and rejoice in this wisdom,” writes Ina Fichman, president/producer of Intuitive Pictures Montreal, in the foreword to the fourth volume, which was published last year. One of the contributors to that collection is Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, with a story called “Sacrifice.”

Each volume of Living Legacies is available for purchase at a cost of $20 per copy plus shipping, and there is an order form online (at.yorku.ca/pk/ll-order.htm). PK Press updates are on Facebook, facebook.com/PKPress. For submission guidelines, email Pearl at [email protected].

Barry Sisters recordings now available

Left to right: Yiddish music icons, Merna and Claire Barry, entertained generations of Jewish Americans with their jazzy versions of Yiddish songs. (photo from rsa.fau.edu)

For more than 40 years, the Bagelman Sisters, later known as the Barry Sisters, were the darlings of Jewish entertainment. Their recordings could be found in almost every Jewish household in the 1950s and ’60s. The younger of the two sisters, Merna, passed away in 1976. The older sister, Claire, died on Nov. 22, 2014, in Hollywood, Fla., at 94.

Who were the Barry Sisters?

On the surface, they were two beautiful girls, dressed in the latest fashion, hair perfectly coiffed, singing with sultry voices that could make your heart leap. But their impact was great.

Born in New York, the two sisters were originally known as the Bagelman Sisters. Many saw them as the Yiddish answer to the popular Andrews Sisters in the 1940s. They combined Jewish folk songs and Yiddish theatre ditties with swing arrangements and perfect harmony. When Clara and Minnie changed their names to Claire and Merna, the Bagelman Sisters became the Barry Sisters. The duo has often been credited with creating Yiddish swing, a music genre that did not exist previously.

The glamorous Barry Sisters were regular guests on Yiddish radio programs like Yiddish Melodies in Swing. They toured with The Ed Sullivan Show to the Soviet Union and performed in Israel in October 1962. The popularity of their catchy and jazzy tunes may have paved the way for the Broadway hit Fiddler on the Roof and the klezmer revival of the late 1970s.

The Judaica Sound Archives at the Recorded Song Archives at Florida Atlantic University has 41 recordings by this dynamic duo of Yiddish music, including: “Abi Gezunt,” “In Meine Oigen Bistie Shain,” “Channah from Havannah,” “Bublitchki,” “Dem Neyem Sher” and many others.

For more Barry Sisters recordings, visit rsa.fau.edu/barry-sisters. Due to copyright concerns, only snippets can be heard on the public website, however, full versions are available to users of the RSA Research Station, rsa.fau.edu.

Niels Falch is a PhD candidate at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and is currently writing a dissertation on the influence of Jewish music in American popular songs. This article appears courtesy of the Recorded Sound Archives at Florida Atlantic University, rsa.fau.edu.

Brodie lands Beckett role

Leanna Brodie plays spinster Ms. Fitt (and the boy Jerry) in Blackbird Theatre’s Canadian première of Samuel Beckett’s All That Fall, at the Cultch until Jan. 24. (photo from Leanna Brodie)

She is an actor, playwright, librettist, feminist, social activist – bilingual on top of all that – and just landed a coveted role in Blackbird Theatre’s Canadian première of Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett’s All That Fall, running at the Cultch until Jan. 24. Leanna Brodie is one talented person.

On a rainy Saturday afternoon, she sat down with the JI to talk shop during a rehearsal break.

Born and raised in rural Ontario, Brodie said, “I am a bit of an odd duck as far as Judaism goes, my father was Jewish but my mother was not. She came from rural Ontario. My upbringing was secular but I have a Jewish soul. My family always communicated through jokes, something that I see as being steeped in Jewish culture. I also see curiosity as part of my Jewish heritage, which is a good thing because you understand thought processes better, which I think I bring to my work.”

She went to drama school at the University of Guelph and was able to support herself as an actor in her first years at the job. As she got older, however, there were fewer roles available and she reconsidered her future. She had never before pictured herself as a playwright. “I was chatting with a bunch of girlfriends one day and we were complaining that there were no acting parts for women in their 30s and 40s. So, I thought, I am not going to sit around, wait by the phone until I get called for a part, I am going to write something for women. I finished my first play in five weeks. Since that time, I have written over 50 roles for women.”

Brodie now has three successful plays and one opera to her credit. Her topics are often motivated by contemporary social issues – homophobia, fundamentalism, the environment, to name a few. In The Book of Esther, she explores some of these issues through the eyes of a young country girl coming to the big city. “I think that play was the most autobiographical for me even though there is a little bit of you in everything you write. Here I was coming from rural Ontario to Toronto and I had a phobia of subways.”

She actually took on one of the roles in The Book of Esther. “That was like an out-of-body experience for me. Once you are in a scene, then it is like any other gig and you do your bit and walk on and off, but, when not in a scene, I could not resist the temptation to be in the wings and listen to the audience reaction to my play.”

As an actor, she has appeared across Canada and, in one of her first jobs in Vancouver – a role in Pi Theatre’s Terminus – she was nominated for a Jessie award.

Her writing is done in her down time from being on stage. “Acting is all-consuming, all your antennae are out for anything that will help your performance, any creative juice. During rehearsal, you are entirely focused. You can act in more than one show at a time but you cannot write at the same time.”

Brodie is on a temporary hiatus from writing as she hones her thespian skills with All That Fall, a bucolic play – a perverse combination of comedy and tragedy – that Beckett wrote for radio audiences. He wanted the words to come “out of the dark,” to be an auditory experience, not a visual one. He resisted attempts to have the play transformed into a stage production (even Sir Laurence Olivier and Ingmar Bergman could not get his permission to produce the play on stage). It was only recently that his estate, at the urging of British director Trevor Nunn, allowed a London production, which played to critical acclaim and ultimately crossed the pond to Broadway. Now, Canadian audiences are in for a treat from this Irish wordsmith.

The story is as follows. A 70ish, garrulous, overweight Mrs. Rooney trudges the Irish country roads to meet her blind husband’s train at the station. On the way, she encounters an assortment of quirky characters who are using various modes of transportation – a cart, a bicycle, an automobile – to go about their daily business. Against this backdrop, they pass the time exchanging droll comments that border on the absurd, reflective of Beckett’s existential angst. The train is late. On the walk back home, as the old couple verbally spar, the audience begins to sense that there is a mystery lurking behind the dialogue.

This is the first Beckett work that has a woman as the main character. That, along with the radio format, drew Brodie to the play. “Beckett is on every actor’s bucket list,” she said. “There are so very few opportunities in his repertoire to land a female role.”

Brodie actually plays two characters: a religious spinster, Miss Fitt, and a young boy, Jerry. “This play is fresh and interesting and full of Irish humor. Usually with Beckett you have those unforgettable stark images, like two trashcans or a dead tree. Here, the dynamics are different. There is more lushness than in any [other] Beckett play because of the demands of radio, and there is more of a sense of a real place. You get the impression that Beckett sees the traditional Irish life dying around him and he uses very black humor to protect himself from this perceived dark abyss.”

She added, “Unlike Beckett’s iconic Waiting for Godot, where they say nothing happens twice, in All That Fall, something is always happening and what the person, the protagonist, is waiting for actually appears.”

“Part of the allure of the format is the fact that the audience becomes the collaborator with you and creates the world, it becomes a cooperative venture between the actors and the audience.”

Brodie has the radio bug in her blood. Her father had a morning show called Breakfast with Brodie and was a voice artist. She has worked in radio drama for the CBC. “I was wistful about losing the radio show format in Canada and was atoning for the fact that I feel like I killed radio drama in this country, as one show I worked on, The Seeds of Our Destruction, was the last stand-alone radio show CBC aired. So, I really wanted to do this show to sort of redeem myself. Part of the allure of the format is the fact that the audience becomes the collaborator with you and creates the world, it becomes a cooperative venture between the actors and the audience.”

About why Vancouver audiences should see this play, Brodie said, “Beckett is arguably the greatest writer of the 20th century and this play is done from an aspect never seen or heard before and who knows if we will ever have this chance again. Also, you get to see an extremely talented professional cast [William Samples, Lee Van Paassen, Adam Henderson and Gerard Plunkett], who get it right.”

This writer had the good fortune to sit in on the first read-through of the play. Director Duncan Fraser put the five actors through their paces, scripts in hand at separate microphones on the stage. The actors also are responsible for all of the sound effects, the rattling wind, a bothersome wasp, the opening and closing of doors, the crunching of feet on gravelly roads, the whistle of the train. Just watching the props used to create the noises was an experience. However, the real experience is being immersed in this lost world of radio drama where for 75 uninterrupted minutes you can let your imagination soar.

For tickets, visit thecultch.com or call 604-251-1363.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

Interpreting time and place

Derek Gillingham at the opening of New Work from the Road. (photo from Derek Gillingham)

Derek Gillingham’s solo show New Work from the Road at the Zack Gallery looks like a travelogue, where the artist’s moments and memories have been captured by a paint brush. The show consists of his abstract paintings of the last few years. “Abstract painting is much more challenging than figurative,” Gillingham said recently in an interview with the Independent. “Such a painting is its own world. I can’t refer to an object, an image when I paint. But shapes and colors fascinate me.”

He explained that his latest artistic trend emerged with the drawings he made in California a few years ago. “Because of my job for the movie industry, I was constantly on the move, never staying in one place for long. I couldn’t paint as I did before – like landscapes of British Columbia. I couldn’t get familiar with any area. No recognizable landmarks. So I went with what I heard and saw: not objects, but colors and music, the sounds of cars and subway tickets, candy wrappers and moss-covered walls. I’d walk from work along a street and see posters, hear songs teenagers play on their phones.

I’d come home and sketch. I made piles of sketches, just scribbles, swirls and smudges, shapes and colors.”

His California sketches gave birth to paintings that reflected the green and gold and warmth of the Pacific coast. There is always the ocean and profusion of greenery. Colors interact and morph into each other, nurturing the whole. Although there is no sense of location, the artist’s inner meditations manifest through the looking glass of his perception.

When he then moved to London, England, his creative tune changed, echoing his surroundings.

“London was cooler and harder. It’s a very energetic, brash, intense city. California is a much softer place. London is also much more urban. Even music is different.”

His sketches changed, too, and the paintings from London don’t have the flowing quality of his California pictures. No bubbles or waves. The canvases sport sharper angles and longer bands. The shapes are leaner, less lush, and the lines dart across the images at full speed, like the rhythms of hard rock.

“I would pass a restaurant on a street, see its red sign and think: I should remember this color. Then I would come home and slash such a red on the painting. My paintings are not chaos. There is balance and order there.”

One of his London paintings resembles a bunch of seaweed. “We were in a Japanese restaurant,” he recalled. “I looked at seaweed, its vivid color. It was so beautiful. I kept the colors and shapes in my head for this painting.”

Another London painting has an unusual name: “Two Women at the St. Paul Colony.” Gillingham explained its etymology. “We were in London during the Occupy movement. There was a camp of those people beside St. Paul’s Cathedral. One day, my wife went there to take some photos, just as I was finishing this painting. Then I checked the internet and learned that one of our friends, another woman, went there at the same time. The painting is not political, but the title seemed appropriate.”

Gillingham said he doesn’t consider his art to be political. “I don’t want to push any agenda. I have opinions, like everyone else, but I don’t transfer them into my paintings. Art shouldn’t be divisive. When I paint, I don’t set up to make someone believe or tell him what to think. It’s more about esthetics. If a piece of my art is going to hang in someone’s home, it’s going to affect people, and I’d rather it inspired something positive.”

His London period produced several large and beautiful paintings, upbeat and positive; as soon as he moved back to Canada, to Montreal, his art changed again.

“I never look back at a location, never revisit. A new place inspires a new theme, a new atmosphere. It always reflects the place.”

In Montreal, he and his wife lived in a small, furnished apartment, with no extra space and, unlike the London paintings (he had a studio in London), the Montreal series consists of very small multimedia pieces.

“Montreal is frenetic, everything is going on,” he said. “The city really has strong street art. There are posters everywhere, posters on top of posters, going back for years. Sometimes someone would try to remove them, and the slice would be a couple fingers deep, revealing layers of letters and colors and zig-zaggy forms. I fell in love with these accidental images. I wanted to incorporate them into my art. I started cutting off the slabs of posters and painted on top.”

His Montreal collages are angular and aggressive, despite their small size. The colors and shapes vibrate and overlap, fighting with each other for space domination.

Only two paintings of the show belong to Vancouver, but Gillingham has only been back in this city for a few months. A Vancouver series is still in development.

New Work from the Road opened on Jan. 8 and will continue until Feb. 8. To learn more, visit derekgillingham.net.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

E-books for deaf kids

A person – as opposed to an avatar – signs American Sign Language in the eMotion Stories app.

It is hard to beat the pleasure of sitting down with your children or grandchildren and reading them a bedtime story, whether that story is a classic like Goldilocks, a Yiddish folktale or even a book written by someone you know. This simple pleasure was not even an option until recently for families with deaf kids, as Israeli American, Eyal Rosenthal, 34, discovered.

While visiting family in New York, Rosenthal had a chance to read a bedtime story to his nephew before heading out to visit with a friend over coffee. Rosenthal told his friend about his nephew, and she told him about her niece, who was born deaf.

“I asked her how she reads to her niece,” said Rosenthal. “She said, ‘We don’t…. We can go to Barnes and Noble across the street and you can find some books with baby sign language or whatever, but you won’t find any actual story to read to a deaf child.’”

Learning of this inspired Rosenthal to look for a solution. “Being an Israeli, we tend to think we can solve everything,” he noted. And, in this case, he could – he created an app called eMotion Stories.

Coming from a high-tech background and being an investor/developer of apps, Rosenthal initially mulled over the idea of creating an avatar to sign the books for eMotion Stories, but found that it was much simpler and less costly to have a live person do it.

“It’s the placement of a sign, the body language within that,” said Rosenthal. “To try to get an avatar to do that is incredibly difficult and costly, and probably something that’s 10 years down the road.”

The other problem Rosenthal encountered was that sign language varies from country to country. “It’s not a universal language,” he said. “Each country, each region, actually develops on its own.”

While Rosenthal was able to overcome most obstacles by himself, there were two that stumped him – the sign language itself, as noted, and the development work of the videos. “One of the good things about being in Israel, especially in Tel Aviv, is there are developers everywhere,” he said.

Rosenthal found Go UFO, a company that was just getting started at that time. On connecting with the Go UFO team, Rosenthal said, “It was like two minds meeting. The moment they heard the idea, they were like, we love this, we love your passion for it, we want to help you create it.”

Choosing the stories to feature was the next challenge. Rosenthal decided to start with the Brothers Grimm.

Since the whole concept began with Rosenthal wanting to enable his friend to share a story with her niece, he opted to do the stories in American Sign Language (ASL). And, to find a signer for the e-books, he went to New York Deaf Theatre. As for the illustrations, a Go UFO team member’s father was an illustrator, and he offered to have some of his friends help out (making it possible for Rosenthal to afford the illustrations).

“It was interesting convincing people to help when you don’t have the money to pay them what they want and you have to successfully convince them to do it anyway,” said Rosenthal. “That took some learning.”

As of now, five e-stories have been created for the iPad. When downloading the free app, the e-book of The Ugly Duckling is included. Each additional story is $4.59. The stories available are The Ugly Duckling and Goldilocks and the Three Bears so far, with Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and The Three Little Pigs coming soon.

Rosenthal would like to produce five more books.

“The classic stories are ones that a parent can relate to because he/she read that story as a child and they can read it to their child,” he said. “One of the unfortunate facts I uncovered in the research is that the level of comprehension for deaf children is several levels below that of [hearing] children. This is a gap that widens through the years. One thing I was hoping was, at least, to be able to bridge that gap. When you’re 6 years old and you’re one year behind, it’s not the same as when you’re in high school and you’re … behind.”

One of the goals Rosenthal has for this coming year is to create a version in another language, one similar to ASL, the simplest example of which would be Canadian Sign Language.

“The guys at Go UFO are trying to create more of a platform where any country can simply add its sign language videos or an individual can add videos to a particular story and modify the text, since the illustrations already exist, to make it more broad,” said Rosenthal.

So far, the app has been downloaded 3,000 times.

“I’ve gotten emails from parents saying that they love it and when are more stories going to come out,” said Rosenthal. “Some were asking when an android version would come out.”

Rosenthal would like to create an android version, but that will require more funding, which he hopes to raise with a Kickstarter or Indigogo campaign.

Many people have been helping move the project along, such as members of the Israeli Society for the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing. Rosenthal has also been recently approached by a deaf Israeli actor who asked Rosenthal to let him know when things proceed on the Israeli front because he would like to help.

Rosenthal said that without the Go UFO programmers eMotion Stories would never have come to fruition. “I’m incredibly indebted to those guys,” he said.

For more information about the app, visit emotionstories.com.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Music is the poetry of life

Local jazz musician Ayelet Rose Gottlieb happily juggles music and babies. “You have to have music, right? Music is life. It’s a necessity. And you have to have kids.” Gottlieb just released her fourth album, Roadsides, and her adorable six-month-old twins, a boy and a girl, don’t slow her down one bit.

photo - Ayelet Rose Gottlieb plays songs from her new album Jan. 16 — Ayelet Rose Gottlieb plays songs from her new album Jan. 16. *(photo from Ayelet Rose Gottlieb)*

The music for all the songs on Roadsides was written by Gottlieb, with lyrics from work by various Israeli and Palestinian poets. “This project accumulated for a long time,” she told the Independent. “There’s lots of pain in Israel now, and nationalism is growing. It’s hard for me. Israel is my country. My mother’s family has lived there for 20 generations. All that time, there was a cultural interchange between Palestinians and Jews. It’s almost gone now.”

She feels that Israel today is missing a bridge between cultures, the connection that was flourishing even in her grandfather’s days. “People of all backgrounds love this land. I believe that it is possible to elevate beyond the hurts of the past decades. We should try to restart the intercultural conversation. The poets I chose for the songs on this album represent such diversity: Israeli and Palestinian, young and old, male and female, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi. In a way, my album is a political statement, that of humanity. We can all coexist in Israel and the more we learn about each other, the more we talk, the better people we are.”

She recalled being a student in Jerusalem at a high school for the arts. “I started writing songs and performing when I was 17. For 10 years, I performed with Arnie Lawrence, the famous American jazz saxophone player. He lived in Israel in the last years of his life, and he became my teacher of jazz. He shaped my thinking. We often performed with Palestinian musicians, both in Israel and Palestine. Music is an international language. With music, you can communicate with anyone. But it was easier then – there was no wall.”

Some of the songs on Roadsides are light and quirky, while others are poignant, driven by emotions. All of them are in Hebrew, either originals or translations from Arabic. “When I compose songs, the text should trigger something inside me,” she explained of her approach. “It doesn’t have to be poetry. It could be a piece of prose, as long as it says something important. The quality of the text is paramount.”

Occasionally, she uses her own lyrics, though not often. She has songs set to passages of artist Wassily Kandinsky’s book on art and Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech. Kandinsky, in particular, fascinated her as a subject, as she used to paint as well as compose. “I don’t do it anymore,” she confessed. “But I hear colors. Certain colors resonate with certain notes. It’s a personal interpretation, of course, when you set music to painting or paint to the music.”

Gottlieb’s songs are multifaceted, flowing around their listeners in audio waves, implying pictures and palettes, even if one doesn’t understand the Hebrew. No surprise then that she has fans all over North America. But her heart belongs to Israel, she said. “I fly to Israel a couple times each year, to perform and to connect with my family.” She also records in a New York studio, as a solo performer and as part of the quartet Mycale.

Musical collaborations increase her audience but also broaden her expressive facilities and add to her musical toolbox. She recorded one of the songs on Roadsides as a duet with Israeli pop star Alon Olearchik. Others, she wrote with particular musicians in mind.

Gottlieb also teaches composition, vocals and improvisation. In Israel, she taught at colleges. Here, she gives private lessons and workshops. “I enjoy working with children and adults, but I prefer adults, mature people who know what they want…. I learn a lot when I teach. Sometimes, I would explain a point to my students, and it would clarify the concept for me too. Students often surprise me. They do something unexpected, and I’d see a new perspective, realize a new way of doing things.”

Moving every few years has also helped to keep her creativity fresh. “We lived in New Zealand for a while, in New York and in the U.K.,” she explained. “Compared with New York, where there are many different cultures, Vancouver has a smaller music scene, fewer people to play for, fewer opportunities and venues. I’m still looking for my language here. Resonating with the place and the community is important, but it’s an interesting exploration and a wonderful place to raise babies.”

As for any parent, her children are an integral part of her life, and she plans to incorporate her music into their upbringing. “I dream of having house concerts at our place when the kids are a bit older. They should be exposed to music and art early. Art is playful. To be an artist, you have to keep some of the child in you alive.”

Gottlieb’s Roadsides CD release is Jan. 16 at the China Cloud on Main Street. To learn more, visit ayeletrose.com.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].