{"id":32455,"date":"2019-05-03T03:55:23","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T10:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=32455"},"modified":"2019-05-01T14:30:28","modified_gmt":"2019-05-01T21:30:28","slug":"complex-funny-beautiful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2019\/05\/03\/complex-funny-beautiful\/","title":{"rendered":"Complex, funny, beautiful"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dylan Floyde (Willy), left, and Stephen Aberle (Evens) rehearse for Slamming Door Artist Collective\u2019s production of The Sea<\/em>, which opened May 2 at Jericho Arts Centre. (photo by Michelle Morris)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPublished in 1973, The Sea<\/em> is fiercely, presciently relevant. [Edward] Bond seems to anticipate David Icke\u2019s mad, xenophobic alien conspiracy fantasies, flat earthers\u2019 denial of gravity, \u2018fake news,\u2019 societal upheaval and the potential for devastation \u2013 and, through it all, glimmers of hope through stoic resilience, change and growth,\u201d said Jewish community member Stephen Aberle, describing Bond\u2019s play, The Sea<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Slamming Door Artist Collective presents The Sea<\/em> at Jericho Arts Centre until May 19. It opened last night, May 2.<\/p>\n

Director Tamara McCarthy told the Independent<\/em> that she had seen a production of The Sea<\/em> at the Shaw Festival in 2014 \u201cand was deeply struck by the complex poetry and stitch-ripping humour, all playing out within a beautiful tragedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many current resonances, from Trump to Brexit,\u201d she said. \u201cInterestingly, The Sea<\/em> debuted in 1973, the same year Britain joined the European Union.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a more solemn note, she added, \u201cEventually, the sea will sweep us all away. Until then, we choose to live in hope or despair. Or both. This play intricately explores these themes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The synopsis reads: \u201cA wild storm shakes a small East Anglian seaside village, and Willy is unable to save his friend from drowning. The raving coast guard is too drunk to do anything, Hatch the draper is passing by but he believes that hovering alien spaceships are slowly replacing people\u2019s brains and he refuses to help, while the grande dame, Mrs. Rafi, bastion of respectability, amateur theatricals and velvet curtains from Birmingham, sets her face against the chaos.\u201d The play is set in 1907.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are big time echoes of [Shakespeare\u2019s] The Tempest<\/em>, for sure,\u201d said Aberle. \u201cStorm, shipwreck, collision of worlds and societies, innocence blossoming into love, monsters and a kind of shimmering magic. I would say there\u2019s a strong parallel with the Book of Jonah as well: shipwreck again, and the struggle to find meaning in an often apparently unkind and unfair world. Ecclesiastes, too: \u2018the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Aberle plays the character of Evens, who he described as \u201cthe grizzled, weathered, often drunken \u2018wise fool.\u2019 A bit of the Prospero type, if we want to look at The Tempest<\/em> connections, with aspects of both Jonah and the big fish, as well. He has withdrawn from society and lives (and drinks, \u2018to stay sane\u2019) in a little hut on the beach. It\u2019s said of him in the village that he \u2018knows the water round here,\u2019 though, as he points out, \u2018… luck and chance come into it. It doesn\u2019t matter how clear the main currents are, you have to live through the details. It\u2019s always the details that make the tragedy….\u2019 The young hero, Willy, comes to him, looking for answers. Whether he finds what he seeks is a question whose outcome you\u2019ll have to watch for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSlamming Door Artist Collective presents classic contemporary works that aren\u2019t otherwise being produced in Vancouver,\u201d said McCarthy. \u201cWe provide not only opportunities for our audience to see these plays, but for established and emerging actors and designers to play with us on material they likely wouldn\u2019t have the chance to otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joining Aberle on stage will be Raes Calvert, Genevieve Fleming, Dylan Floyde, Jessica Hood, Elizabeth Kirkland, Cheyenne Mabberley, Michelle Morris, Melissa Oei and Mason Temple. The collective\u2019s members \u201cwork professionally in film, television and theatre throughout the Lower Mainland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aberle said he is \u201coverjoyed to be introduced to this play and this playwright.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my experience,\u201d he said,<\/p>\n

\u201cEdward Bond is sadly unsung and underproduced \u2013 I\u2019d never seen or read any of his work before and it\u2019s delicious. My sense is that, when he came on the scene, he alienated the powers-that-be in British theatre. He\u2019s from the working class and he writes about class alienation, struggle and societal transformation, with sometimes brutal clarity of vision. Apparently, there was nearly a riot when one of his early plays, Saved<\/em>, was first performed \u2013 shouting from the audience and fisticuffs in the lobby.\u201d<\/p>\n

For tickets to The Sea<\/em>, visit theatrewire.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dylan Floyde (Willy), left, and Stephen Aberle (Evens) rehearse for Slamming Door Artist Collective\u2019s production of The Sea, which opened May 2 at Jericho Arts Centre. (photo by Michelle Morris) \u201cPublished in 1973, The Sea is fiercely, presciently relevant. [Edward] Bond seems to anticipate David Icke\u2019s mad, xenophobic alien conspiracy fantasies, flat earthers\u2019 denial of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[8942,1544,3597,1555,8943,6208],"class_list":["post-32455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-edward-bond","tag-jericho-arts-centre","tag-politics","tag-stephen-aberle","tag-tamara-mccarthy","tag-theatre"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}