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"The Basketball Game" is a graphic novel adaptation of the award-winning National Film Board of Canada animated short of the same name – intended for audiences aged 12 years and up. It's a poignant tale of the power of community as a means to rise above hatred and bigotry. In the end, as is recognized by the kids playing the basketball game, we're all in this together.

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Tag: Italian Cultural Centre

Broca’s latest mosaics

Broca’s latest mosaics

Lilian Broca stands with “Mary Magdalene, The Sacred Union,” which is one of seven panels comprising her current exhibit, Mary Magdalene Resurrected. (photo from Lilian Broca)

Lilian Broca’s artistic canon includes four series on biblical women. The latest, Mary Magdalene Resurrected, is at Il Museo at the Italian Cultural Centre until Aug. 15.

“Each series is an interpretation of a different concern,” Broca told the Independent. “Lilith is the rebel signifying hope for human courage and gender equality. Queen Esther, also courageous and wise, her story addressing the theme of sacrifice and self-empowerment, is actively involved in politics; in her time, known as an almost exclusive masculine realm. Judith, a warrior at heart who single-handedly saves her town from total annihilation, speaks of female effectiveness in the military world – a masculine tradition that she breaks, proving women don’t necessarily excel only in the domestic sphere.

“Unlike Esther and Judith, both actively involved in the masculine domain, Mariam [Mary] is a much more complex figure,” said Broca. “Her story has been greatly redacted in the first couple of centuries CE, leaving us various versions, which offer divergent perspectives of her importance and placement in the life of Yeshua Ben Yosef [Jesus]. One of the concerns in this series is about women’s place, or lack thereof, in institutions – which even in our 21st century – are restrictively based on gender.”

While it may seem odd that Mary Magdalene is included in Broca’s body of work, she reminded the Independent that Mary was “also Jewish until she died, as Christianity did not appear as such until the Edict of Milan in 313 CE and, universally, only at the Council of Nicea in 325 CE.”

A painter for many years, Broca’s Lilith series was created and exhibited in that medium, while Esther, Judith and Mariam are portrayed in mosaics.

“In 2000, I attended The Creation of the World in Jewish and Christian Art with Discussion on Illuminated Manuscripts at the Vancouver Public Library with speakers/presenters Bezalel Narkiss and Dr. Aliza Cohen-Mushlin, both of Israel,” explained Broca. “There, I saw a slide show Bezalel presented on ancient synagogues in the Levant. The Dura Europos in Syria had a beautiful fresco illustrating the Queen Esther story. I was mesmerized and, once home, I started to do some serious research on the Esther stories (more than one version)…. It was during the research that I found out that the palace in which Esther lived with her Persian king, Hashayarshah/Xerxes, had floors ‘encrusted with rubies and porphyry in pleasing designs.’ These were mosaics and, for me, a good omen. I knew I should return to creating mosaics one day, something I experimented with as a student (at 19) but stopped soon after. So, I decided to create the whole Esther series in mosaic glass.”

More than 10 years ago, Broca’s interest in Mary Magdalene was piqued by something she read on the discovery in the 1940s of the Gnostic Gospels, but various circumstances delayed further study, including a visit to her studio by Dr. Adolfo Roitman, curator of the Dead Sea Scrolls, who was in town to give a lecture. He loved the Esther series and suggested she do one on Judith, which she did.

Only in 2016 did Broca return her attention to Mariam. Over eight months, she read dozens of books and essays, and drew and painted the cartoons (drawings for mosaics) for the series now on display. In making the panels, Broca had the help of Adeline Benhammouda, who used to work for Mosaika Studio in Montreal. When Broca was diagnosed with cancer, she asked the studio to make the last two mosaics in the series.

“In the meantime,” said Broca, “the pandemic slowed down activities in all institutions, especially art galleries, and I didn’t know what would happen to my future exhibition.”

The pandemic also temporarily reduced the supply of N95 masks that protected Broca – who suffered a lung infection after her radiation treatment was complete – from the silica dust that results from grinding the glass mosaic tesserae.

One of Broca’s projects as a Shadbolt Independent Scholar at Simon Fraser University was to write a letter describing her activities during the self-isolation months of COVID. All the scholars’ letters were published and Broca’s can be found at the bcreview.ca/2021/02/14/broca-pandemic-magdalene. It is addressed to Mariam and, in it, Broca explains why she chose large (79-by-48-inch) panels for this series.

“In the past, women artists, their works and their stories were mostly associated with the intimate and the small, as though they dared not take up valuable space and time,” she wrote. “As you know from my past art works, I resent that timid notion. My heroines insist and demand the space and importance that long ago was offered to masculine achievements in the military, politics and commerce.

“And, finally, Mariam, after reading so many diverse accusations, betrayals, and the vilification you were subjected to over the centuries, I have decided to express the existence of disparate accounts of your story with text in each mosaic panel, hence the illuminated manuscript composition and unifying motif. Each panel displays three to four lines in an ancient language spoken during your time on earth.”

The languages featured are Aramaic, Hebrew, Ancient Greek, Armenian, Latin, Amharic and Coptic. Broca chose to make seven panels because seven “is a sacred number in the Jewish tradition.”

“Symbolism plays an important part in my artworks and this series is no exception,” Broca told the Independent. “Each drawing includes symbols that are meaningful in both Judaic and Christian traditions. Whether they are flowers, fruit, boats, pottery or textile patterns, these symbols speak of the distant past, yet most of them are recognizable today. Just like an illuminated manuscript page, I sought to illuminate what lies hidden or repressed through the symbols on the borders of each ‘page.’ Hopefully, through them, new ideas can be brought to life.”

photo - Lilian Broca working on the panel “Mary Magdalene, Defiled and Defamed.” Her exhibit, Mary Magdalene Resurrected, is at Il Museo until Aug. 15
Lilian Broca working on the panel “Mary Magdalene, Defiled and Defamed.” Her exhibit, Mary Magdalene Resurrected, is at Il Museo until Aug. 15. (photo from Lilian Broca)

While the Esther and Judith stories have a beginning and an end, Broca said, “Mariam unfortunately is a figure that appears suddenly in Yeshua’s (arguably) 33rd year and disappears right after the Crucifixion that same year. The Gnostic Gospels and other historical documentation that refer to her following the crucifixion are interwoven with legend and myth, none of which is accepted by academics. I chose scenes from all sources, scenes that I felt relayed best her high social status during Yeshua’s life, the love and closeness the two shared, her marginalization once Yeshua died and there was no one to protect her against the ill will and jealousy of the Apostles, the relationship with Mary the Virgin and, finally, my personal vision of a balanced religion, any religion.”

For the series, Broca studied the history of the Jews in the first-century BCE to first-century CE period. “I loved all that research,” said Broca. “I learned so much about Judaism in the process. It was reassuring to read Yeshua’s Jewish parables and to realize that he was very, very concerned with the lack of faith he found in the small beit hamidrash(es) they had in those days and, of course, in the temple. The political situation at that time was extremely complex and the ‘ruling class’ of Sadducees and Pharisees kept the masses in poverty while most of them aligned themselves with the Romans and became wealthier than they had ever dreamed. Yeshua never planned on starting a new religion; on the contrary, he wanted a return to the old ways. My understanding is that the 12 disciples were responsible for all the changes that ensued after Yeshua’s death.”

During the drawing stage of the series, Broca said she consulted two academics – Dr. Mary Ann Beavis and Margaret Starbird – about “‘how far can I push the envelope?’ before I get reprimanded by Christians for profanity or blasphemy.” For instance, wondered Broca, is it OK to portray Jesus washing Mary Magdelene’s feet?

“Each time I heard their answers,” said Broca, “I weighed them carefully, because, after all, I do retain an artistic licence for expressing my own perspective in art. But, at the same time, as a Jewish woman (not a Jewish artist) who embarks on a sensitive subject, I had to make sure I respect the Christian beliefs. I would not appreciate a Christian person making art that endorses what I consider derogatory Jewish images or symbolism.”

At the exhibit’s opening, Broca said, “I am not a theologian nor a religious person and my point of view remains, as always, a feminist one.”

She noted, “Mary Magdalene lived in a strict patriarchal society when women had few rights and freedoms, yet she left her sanctuary, her home and family, in order to follow a single man, without a job or an income, without a fixed address, a man traveling with an entourage of 12 other men spreading the word of God.”

She said, “For 20 centuries, Yeshua, or Jesus, has been both a bridge and a barrier between the Jewish and the Christian faiths. Although I find Jesus equally fascinating, this body of work here, is not about him. It is strictly about his favourite and beloved disciple, Mary the Magdalene.”

The documentary Mary Magdalene in Conversation with Lilian Broca is in post-production. The film, for which Broca wrote the script, is fully subsidized by the Canada Council for the Arts. It follows the journal Broca started in early 2016, when she embarked on her research.

“My hope is that the Mary Magdalene series will open new avenues to perceive the hugely influential relationship between Yeshua and Mariam … as well as considering what happened to that relationship in the hands of the male founders of Christianity,” said Broca. “In addition, I hope that, through my Mariam mosaics, viewers will be profoundly motivated to reexamine this whole critical episode of human history.”

In a 2020 article, Italian Cultural Centre director and curator Angela Clarke spoke in this context about Broca’s body of work as a whole, noting: “Through her mosaics, Broca looks to glass shards as a means to remind viewers that the traditional paradigms associated with traditional institutions and power dynamics can be broken through and reconstructed into a world that is more healing.”

For more on Broca, visit lilianbroca.com. For more on the exhibit, visit italianculturalcentre.ca.

Format ImagePosted on June 24, 2022June 22, 2022Author Cynthia RamsayCategories Visual ArtsTags art, Christianity, Il Museo, Italian Cultural Centre, Judaism, Lilian Broca, Mary Magdalene, mosaics
Community milestones … JFS, Krell, Hart, Rappoport, Broca & Gottlieb

Community milestones … JFS, Krell, Hart, Rappoport, Broca & Gottlieb

Clockwise from top left: committee members Tanja Demajo, Michelle Dodek, Michelle Gerber, Stan Shaw, Renee Katz and Simone Kallner. (photo sextet from JFS)

Jewish Family Services has formed a food security committee. This team will be responsible for leading the transition plan of the JFS’s Jewish Food Bank to its new and dedicated facility near Main and East 3rd Avenue in Vancouver. The committee, which reports to the board of directors, will be focused on supporting the Food Security program development project as a steering committee for the move into the new facility; and assisting as content advisors on an ongoing basis in the areas of food programs planning, security, building management, partnerships and community engagement, and communication.

Committee members have served on the Jewish Food Security Task Force and sit on several committees in the community. The committee co-chairs – Simone Kallner and Stan Shaw – also serve on the JFS board.

This year, a Food Security Project website will be launched to keep people apprised of the committee’s work. It will also contain upcoming town hall meetings, with the most current community stakeholder engagement and input opportunities.

* * *

Created in 1967, the Order of Canada is one of our country’s highest civilian honours. Its companions, officers and members take to heart the motto of the order, “desiderantes meliorem patriam” (“they desire a better country”). Appointments are made by the governor general on the recommendation of the Advisory Council for the Order of Canada and, on Dec. 30, it was announced that Dr. Robert Krell was among the 61 new appointees.

photo - Dr. Robert Krell
Dr. Robert Krell (photo courtesy)

Krell was appointed Member of the Order of Canada for “his contributions to our understanding of mass ethnopolitical violence, and for his advocacy on behalf of Holocaust survivors.”

A professor emeritus of the University of British Columbia, department of psychiatry, Krell’s research and interests are the psychiatric treatment of aging survivors of massive trauma; and antisemitism, racism and prejudice education.

Krell was born in Holland and survived the Holocaust in hiding. The Krell family moved to Vancouver, where he obtained an MD from UBC and eventually became professor of psychiatry. In his psychiatric practice, Krell was director of child and family psychiatry and also treated Holocaust survivors and their families, as well as Dutch survivors of Japanese concentration camps.

Krell established a Holocaust education program for high school students in 1976 and an audiovisual documentation program recording survivor testimony in 1978 and assisted with the formation of child survivor groups starting in 1982. He served on the International Advisory Council of the Hidden Child Gathering in New York in 1991, and he is founding president and board member of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, which opened in 1994 and which teaches 20,000 students annually. He has authored and co-edited 10 books, 20 book chapters and more than 50 journal articles. He continues to write and speak on Holocaust-related topics.

* * *

With thanks to HaShem, Schara Tzedeck Synagogue members Alexander Hart and Kathryn Selby are honoured and delighted to announce the engagement in Jerusalem of their son Shmuel Hart to Reut Rappoport, daughter of Rabbi Jason and Meira Rappoport of Alon Shvut, Gush Etzion, Israel.

* * *

An article on the mosaic work of Lilian Broca has been published in the international peer-reviewed academic magazine Journal of Mosaic Research, out of Izmir, Turkey. It can be found at dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/jmr (click on English version or translation if necessary), scroll down to article 18, which is “From Virtue to Power: Explorations in Female Heroism – The Mosaics of Lilian Broca,” and click on PDF on the upper lefthand side. The article was written by Angela Clarke, PhD, of the Italian Cultural Centre here in Vancouver.

* * *

Jerusalem-born, Montreal-based composer and vocalist Ayelet Rose Gottlieb released the album 13 Lunar Meditations: Summoning the Witches on Jan. 12, the first new moon of the new year.

image - 13 Lunar Meditations CD coverA collaborative project, this double-vinyl release includes poetry by more than 20 women and girls from around the globe, a choir of improvising vocalists conducted by DB Boyko, and features vocalist Jay Clayton. Through a multicultural approach, 13 Lunar Meditations is an acoustic exploration focusing on the moon, our relationship with it and its effects on us.

“The moon speaks to the universal and to the intimate female presence,” Gottlieb shared on her inspiration, from her personal journey as an artist and mother. “In this difficult time we live in, having a connection with each other, with the world around us and with the universe may be the most radical act of resilience.”

In 2015, Boyko commissioned Gottlieb to compose a new song-cycle for her VOICE OVER mind Festival in Vancouver. Gottlieb composed the first draft of this song-cycle for her own quintet and Boyko’s improvisers’ choir. Later that year, the piece was presented again at John Zorn’s the Stone, in New York City, where Clayton joined in for the first time.

Gottlieb’s song-cycle traces the phases of the moon, from birth to full glory and all the way back to emptiness. The compositions range in musical expression from wild and experimental, to melodic, rhythmic and light. All are laced with improvisation and rooted in jazz with Turkish and Armenian undertones. Primarily sung in English, also interwoven are Hebrew, German, French, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish and Japanese.

Gottlieb invited more than 20 women and girls to write texts on their personal relationship to the moon, which inspired her compositions. Ages 4 to 70, these contributors represent a global community from diverse backgrounds and nationalities – from Australia to Morocco, a poet, a gynecologist, a lawyer, an energy healer, a sex worker, a grandmother, and others.

Supported by Canada Council for the Arts and a Kickstarter campaign that concluded at 109%, the album was recorded in Montreal. On it, Gottlieb, Clayton and Boyko are joined by Coeur Luna, Turkish violinist Eylem Basaldi, guitarist Aram Bajakian, contrabassist Stéphane Diamantakiou and drummer Ivan Bamford.

The album and accompanying lunar calendar and box set of 13 postcards (with art by Sarit Evrani, designed by Dan Levi) are available for purchase at ayeletrose.com and ayelet.bandcamp.com.

For more about Gottlieb, see “A life of music-poetry” (2019) and other articles on jewishindependent.ca.

Format ImagePosted on January 29, 2021January 27, 2021Author Community members/organizationsCategories LocalTags Angela Clarke, art, Ayelet Rose Gottlieb, food security, Italian Cultural Centre, Jewish Family Services, JFS, Lilian Broca, mosaics, music, Order of Canada, Reut Rappoport, Robert Krell, Schara Tzedeck, Shmuel Hart
Marriage no fairy tale

Marriage no fairy tale

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” by Lilian Broca is part of the exhibit Brides: Portrait of a Marriage, which is at the Italian Cultural Centre’s Il Museo until Sept. 30.

In most romance novels and fairy tales, a love story ends in a wedding and the couple lives “happily ever after.” In real life, it’s not that simple. Marriage has its challenges.

The show Brides: Portrait of a Marriage, which opened at the Italian Cultural Centre’s Il Museo in Vancouver this summer, examines some of the aspects of marriage that fairy tales purposefully omit. The show incorporates the works of several local artists in different media: textile art by Linda Coe, photography by Grace Gordon-Collins, drawings by Jewish community member Lilian Broca and a tapestry by fellow Jewish community member Barbara Heller.

“I always wanted a show about brides,” Angela Clarke, curator and director of Il Museo, told the Independent. “We have weddings at the centre almost every week. There is so much energy, so many emotions. But the Roman goddess of marriage, Juno, was not a happy woman. Hers was not a happy marriage, and the controversy attracted me.”

Brides is part of the museum’s Gendered Voices series, and looks at marriage from a woman’s perspective.

“This exhibition places the institution of marriage under the looking glass,” said Clarke. “Each participating artist tackles the deep psychological complexity and immense social pressure involved in a traditional marriage. Historical perspectives and family dynamics, personal reflections and the impact of feminism are explored in the show.”

Each artist contributed her own personal outlook. Coe’s fabric panels belong to her Dirty Laundry series. Colourful and sophisticated-looking hangings were all created from fabric snatches that were once parts of women’s dowries, used and reused for several generations before they ended up in the artist’s stockpile.

“The eight fabric panels represent eight stages of a woman’s life,” explained Clarke. “Each one incorporates relevant texts from Renaissance romance novels and etiquette manuals. In the 16th century, such manuals were very popular in Italy, especially among the middle classes. They were written to instruct young brides in the proper comportment, in the ways to become a successful bride and mother.”

In addition, those eight panels reference the eight requisite parts of a romance novel, from the Middle Ages to the modern Avon romances. “Those stages have names, the same names as the panels,” Clarke said. “No. 1, Stasis (infant). No. 2, Trigger (young girl). No. 3, Quest (betrothal). No. 4, Surprise (courtesan). No. 5, Critical Choice (bride). No. 6, Climax (wife). No. 7, Reversal (matron). No. 8, Resolution (widow). Every love story published these days must follow this structure.”

Heller’s tapestry and Gordon-Collins’s photographs explore wedding dresses and the commodification of weddings. The tapestry shows a bride in a beautiful dress, but her face is blurry, unimportant, and the dress becomes the focal point, a uniform, a symbol.

The photos, in the photogram or X-ray style, lack faces altogether, only the wedding attires of four generations of women of the artist’s family can be seen.

“Grandmother’s wedding tunic was modest, especially in comparison to the artist’s daughter’s wedding dress, much more opulent and sensual, and designed for one-time use only,” said Clarke. “Here, we can trace how, through the generations, the weddings grow into an industry, and the wedding accessories become commodities.”

While neon-bright colours dominate Gordon-Collins’s images and Coe’s collages shimmer with the patina of gold, Broca’s contribution to the show is a sequence of stark black and white lithographs, all from her Brides series.

“My mother passed away in 1989,” Broca said, as she explained the roots of her series. “I was devastated by her death, although it was a blessing after suffering for years from cancer. Soon after her passing, I started dreaming about her as a young bride. I decided to draw my dreams.”

Her drawings reflect the dichotomy between the happily-ever-after concept and the fact that most marriages in the past were arranged, and not unions of love.

One of the drawings, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” depicts a bride sitting in a chair, regarding a frog in her lap. A few more frogs – potential princes? – wait at her feet, expecting her to choose between them.

“I knew my bride would not kiss that frog,” said Broca. “So I added several other potential grooms. Some small, others big…. Still, I had a feeling she would resist them all.”

The work “Upon Reflection” is even more powerful. It shows a bride in a gown and veil looking into a full-length mirror. The image in the mirror depicts the bride, face and posture serene, as befits the occasion, but Broca has left the image of the bride herself white and, from within it, there is the drawing of a woman, the bride, trying to escape.

“That woman, upon reflection, discovers how much she doesn’t wish to be married, to be tied down. What happens next is up to the viewer’s imagination,” said the artist.

For Broca, black and white was the only possibility for the series. “It was the most appropriate way to describe what I felt…. After the first two or three drawings, I began to realize that many brides were not happy at the altar – I showed them. Only a very few happy brides appear in my drawings. Not because happy brides are a minority, but because happy brides are difficult to portray without slipping into a less-than-powerful mode. I may be wrong, I may be able to do it today, but, at that time, it didn’t seem possible.”

Clarke knew about Broca’s series and wanted to include it in its entirety in the show, but that wasn’t possible. “We couldn’t include so many that Angela wanted because they had been sold,” said Broca. “We couldn’t borrow them. The owners live in the U.S. and Eastern Canada. As it is, the two works in the exhibition were borrowed from local owners.”

Brides is at the Italian Cultural Centre until Sept. 30.

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

Format ImagePosted on September 13, 2019September 10, 2019Author Olga LivshiCategories Visual ArtsTags Angela Clarke, art, Barbara Heller, Brides, Il Museo, illustration, Italian Cultural Centre, Lilian Broca, tapestry, women
Killer Joe depicts unhappy family’s destruction

Killer Joe depicts unhappy family’s destruction

Killer Joe tells the story of a greedy, vindictive famly. (photo by Andrew Klaver)

A crazy, violent, Texas family plots a murder in the play Killer Joe. Playwright Tracy Letts has a way with lousy families and their dangerous disputes. Letts also wrote August: Osage County, about another angry family, the recent film version of which had an all-star cast. A 2011 film version of Killer Joe starred Matthew McConaughey. With this production of the play, director Chelsea Haberlin creates a compelling portrait of an unhappy family’s destruction after it invites a devil into its midst.

Killer Joe was first produced for the stage in 1993 but it is set in the 1970s in a mobile home somewhere in Texas. This is only the second site-specific production by Vancouver’s Itsazoo Productions, and it is a great success. The site for this piece is a small, portable building in the parking lot of the Italian Cultural Centre. The interior is dressed to look like a mobile home.

The story follows a family in which Ansel (Ted Cole) and his adult son, Chris (Sebastien Archibald), conspire to kill Ansel’s former wife (Chris’ mother) to collect the insurance money. Chris’ sister, Dottie (Meaghan Chenosky), they know, is beneficiary of the $50,000 policy. They hire a hit man, Joe (Colby Wilson), who agrees to the hit but, as a retainer against full payment, demands Dottie as his sex slave. Ansel and Chris agree, and Chris’ mild-mannered, innocent sister is served up to this vile character. The balance of the play chronicles the family’s destruction at the hands of Joe. For almost the whole play, the family awaits word that the murder has occurred. Although the primary story is about a planned hit, the real story is about Dottie: how the young woman is degraded and betrayed by her own terrible family and how she survives.

The 35-member audience (a full house) is crowded into a small, temporary building decorated inside to feel like a real mobile home. The audience lines two walls, putting us only a foot or less from the action. We are the invisible inhabitants of a tiny battleground.

The real star of this show is the artistic collaboration between set, lighting and sound designers who create the home of a poverty-stricken Texas family. Set and lighting designer Lauchlin Johnston dresses the scene with ugly period furniture. Above the sink is a large Confederate flag. He cleverly turns night into day by shining “sunlight” through the mobile home’s real windows. He also manages lightning, gloom and total blackouts with dramatic effect. Sound by Mishelle Cuttler gives us thunder and rain from outside, the frequent barking of a neighbor’s dog, and poor sound quality for the country music broadcast from a cheap transistor radio that sits on the set. The effect of all this work is a perfect illusion. We are inside a mobile home in 1970s Texas.

Chenosky is excellent as the shy and innocent Dottie. In an early scene, she and Joe are alone in the kitchen as he tries to seduce her but ends up demanding her sexual obedience. We watch Chenosky operate a character who moves from shyness to fear and then to emotionless acquiescence. Her performance is devastating as she becomes emotionally numb in preparation for the inevitable (offstage) assaults. Chenosky’s Dottie captures the character’s poor self-esteem and an apparent history of mistreatment. It’s a heart-breaking portrait. The destruction of women by cruel and stupid men is a core theme of this play.

The other power in the show belongs to Joe, the hit man. Wilson is an imposing figure. He is physically large and carries himself with an air of authority. He is a cop, after all. Colby’s performance allows us to see the quiet cruelty of which humans are capable. Through movement and voice he establishes the play’s underlying tone of menace.

This production goes off the rails about 20 minutes before it ends. Once the main action of the play is resolved, the story shifts to Joe and Dottie in a way that is not supported by the direction. It becomes apparent the play is really about what will happen to Dottie, but that has been unclear to this point. That leaves the end of the play a drawn-out affair with no story left to tell.

Overall, however, this second site-specific production by Itsazoo is excellent. We can look forward to the next surprising and compelling work that takes us out of the comfort zone of a standard theatre.

Killer Joe runs until May 4 in the parking lot of the Italian Cultural Centre, 3075 Slocan St. Tickets, $20/$25, can be purchased at itsazoo.org or Brown Paper Tickets.

Michael Groberman is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Format ImagePosted on April 25, 2014August 27, 2014Author Michael GrobermanCategories Performing ArtsTags Chelsea Haberlin, Colby Wilson, Italian Cultural Centre, Itsazoo Productions, Killer Joe, Meaghan Chenosky, Sebastien Archibald, Ted Cole, Tracy Letts
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