Richard Newman

A funny look at death

David Bloom, left, and Richard Newman share two different roles in Western Gold Theatre’s production of Caryl Churchill’s Here We Go, which is at PAL Studio Theatre until May 25. (photo by Colleen Bayati)

“I love Caryl Churchill – she is quirky,” actor Rosy Frier-Dryden told the Independent. “She makes you think, makes you work. You can’t just rely on lines! You have to bring her lines to life.”

Frier-Dryden co-stars in Western Gold Theatre’s production of Churchill’s Here We Go, which centres around a funeral. Director Kathryn Bracht describes the work as “a deceptively simple, 45-minute exploration on death and dying that is a surrealist meditation wrapped up in her crafty, clever dialogue.”

For the run at PAL Studio Theatre, which goes to May 25, Frier-Dryden is joined by fellow Jewish community members David Bloom and Richard Newman in the cast, which is rounded out by Bernard Cuffling, Kate Robbins and Peihwen J. Tai.

“Without giving all of the storyline away, the general structure of the play is that it’s in three parts: a funeral scene; a monologue scene, where the deceased speaks; and a final scene without words,” explained Newman.

“We did our first runs today, and it’s quite remarkable how the three scenes build on each other to explore relationships with aging and death,” added Bloom. “It’s startlingly funny and weirdly moving.”

Bloom and Newman share roles, as do the other actors: Frier-Dryden with Robbins, and Cuffling with Tai.

“In half of the shows, I am on stage in the first third playing one of five people attending a funeral,” said Newman. “In the other half of the shows, I play the subject of the funeral, the guy who died, who has a lengthy monologue – six pages of script, to be precise. This monologue is brilliantly written – emotional, scary and, always, funny. Quite a challenge, but such a great scene to play.

“Because of Churchill’s writing and Kathryn Bracht’s direction, each actor has a lot of leeway to interpret their lines and define their characters. Like me, David will have his own interpretation of both roles, and we’ve agreed not to watch each other, so we’ll not be influenced by the other – we’re developing our characters independently. Each of us rehearses alone in the room with the director.”

Frier-Dryden also spoke enthusiastically about the latitude the actors have in this play.

“The most marvellous thing is, you are allowed to create your own character, based on what Caryl Churchill writes and the freedom she gives you,” said Frier-Dryden. “In the first scene, I am playing a character that is older and a big personality. She is a Londoner, upper class, and lives in Eaton Square with a vast array of friends. She had an affair with the guy whose funeral we are attending. In the final scene, she is ill, has dementia and she is slipping away. She and her husband have come to terms.”

photo - Rosy Frier-Dryden’s character in Here We Go had an affair with the man whose funeral the characters have come to attend — Rosy Frier-Dryden’s character in Here We Go had an affair with the man whose funeral the characters have come to attend. *(photo by Colleen Bayati)*

“Caryl Churchill is quite simply a remarkable playwright,” said Western Gold Theatre artistic director Tanja Dixon-Warren. “She has an extraordinary command of language and deep understanding of human nature. Her work is very reminiscent of Pinter and Beckett, in that the text is pared down to its absolute essentials. There is nothing extraneous or gratuitous.

“She has a distinctive, truly singular approach to writing,” Dixon-Warren continued. “Very often there is no punctuation, and lines are not assigned to specific characters, thus allowing the director and actors to find multiple stories and characters within the piece – knowing that they will bring their life experience to the work. This requires that the director, actors, designers really dig into the play, to find all the nuances and be very, very specific about what they are saying. Her material is, essentially, just the beginning of the conversation.”

It certainly has the actors thinking beyond the play and about their own lives: Bloom is 65, Newman is 78 and Frier-Dryden is 90.

“I find myself being grateful for being alive and still being able to move around under my own power,” said Bloom, who commented that the monologue “is both a marathon and a sprint” in which he immerses himself every bus journey, so he’s physically and emotionally exhausted at the end of each day.

“I think about my parents a lot,” he added, “because the play reminds me of their last years and the different ways they faced bodily decline and death. There’s a scene I’m not in that brings up heartbreaking memories of my father’s last years. But, mostly, I’m so delighted to be working on such a beautiful piece of writing with a group of wonderful people, many of whom are even older than I am.”

“You start to think about what’s really important, what I want to do with whatever is left of my life,” said Newman, who has lost many friends in the last year-and-a-half or so.

“What strikes me most strongly is that I am enjoying being here and am looking forward to sticking around to enjoy life as best as I can, as long as I can,” he said. “I consider myself fortunate – I run, work at keeping my body as healthy as I can – and believe my mind will follow…. This play kind of dovetails with my life and the issues and experiences that arise, the things I’m doing and how I’m dealing with life at this age. It’s a kind of serendipity to be in this play.

“At the end of the day,” said Newman, “I’m reminded that life is a gift, a miracle. I have my work, friends both young and old, family. I’m blessed.”

Here We Go also resonates with Frier-Dryden, who recently lost a family member.

“I have lived through the deaths of many, especially recently, and I think of this play and its themes … all the time,” she said. “I am not just going to rehearse – I am going with the knowledge that someone dear has died, and I can send them off and honour them. I love that every day I think of the person I loved, and he is gone, but not gone.”

“Here We Go features some of the best actors in Vancouver,” concluded Newman. “This will be unlike anything you’re liable to see in the Vancouver theatre season! I hope people will come to the show to watch our performances.”

For tickets to Here We Go, visit westerngoldtheatre.org.

Unique coming of age

Richard Newman and Gina Chiarelli in Bar Mitzvah Boy, at Pacific Theatre until April 14. (photo by Damon Calderwood)

The number 13 means different things to different people. To a baker, it’s that extra pastry that he adds to a dozen; to the superstitious, it’s considered bad luck to the extent that some buildings do not have a 13th floor. To a Jewish boy, it means his right of passage into manhood, a journey fraught with both angst and joy.

But what if you missed that momentous occasion, for whatever reason, and now, as a grandfather, as your grandson’s bar mitzvah approaches, you have an urgent need to have a bar mitzvah ceremony? This premise forms the basis of local playwright Mark Leiren-Young’s Bar Mitzvah Boy, a two-hander being staged at the intimate Pacific Theatre in Vancouver until April 14. It won the American Jewish Play Project’s prize for best new Jewish play last year, with successful staged readings in New York, Boston and Charlotte, N.C.

Joey Brandt (Richard Newman) is a successful Vancouver divorce lawyer who wants to study privately with Rabbi Michael (Gina Chiarelli) in order to have his bar mitzvah before his grandson’s big day. He is surprised to learn that she is female, and even more surprised when she refuses him as a student, suggesting that he join Cantor Rubin’s bar mitzvah class instead. Joey is obviously a man used to getting his way and, not surprisingly, his stint in Rubin’s class turns into a fiasco, as Joey disrupts the class and takes all the boys out for Hawaiian pizza (you know, the kind that has ham on it). The rabbi eventually relents, in light of both Joey’s advocacy skills and a big donation to the synagogue’s renovation fund.

The chemistry between the two actors is palpable. The audience is led through a witty pas de deux, and both teacher and student experience personal metamorphoses through their weekly interactions. Joey – who has not been to shul for 52 years – learns to put on tefillin, as well as studying the liturgy and history of his people, in a crash course in Judaism. Meanwhile, the somewhat bohemian rabbi (she jogs and smokes marijuana – for “medicinal purposes” only) works through her own demons, which include an almost-12-year-old daughter with cancer and a husband who cannot cope with the illness. In an engaging twist, the professional roles reverse as the players grapple with the existential question of whether G-d is a metaphor or a real entity on which to base our faith.

Newman, who says that he is “Jewish on both sides” is stellar in his role as Joey (and his Hebrew is not too bad, either) but it is Chiarelli who steals the show with her sublime portrayal of a working mom having to deal with a sick child and an unsupportive husband. Kudos to Chiarelli, who is not Jewish, but who has mastered the dialogue and rituals of the script.

The set design is sparse but effective. One side is a backlit bimah with a lectern and a dove-shaped eternal flame hanging above. The other side does double duty as the rabbi’s study (replete with a library that includes Kosher Sex by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and the Kama Sutra) and Joey’s office. The costumes are simple and the music – klezmer, what else.

Leiren-Young peppers the play with local references that will resonate with some of the community audience – names like Cantor Rubin, Rabbi Solomon, Schara Tzedeck, the astronomical prices of the real estate – some contemporary quips about the Broadway musical hit Hamilton and singer Kenny Rogers, and a multitude of Jewish clichés. He is the master of witty repartee, as anyone will know who has seen his play Shylock, which was, most recently, at Bard on the Beach last year.

“I had a truly crazy bar mitzvah at the Beth Israel,” said Leiren-Young when asked in an email interview by the JI about his own bar mitzvah experience. “There was a snowstorm and my mom’s car was hit en route to the shul for Friday night services. After that, standing at the bimah

and singing was easy! I drew a lot of inspiration for this play from real experiences – a mix of my own and stories from friends – but I just realized I left out the snowstorm. Maybe that’ll go in the movie.”

As to whether or not you have to be Jewish to get the play, he said, “No more than you have to be Catholic to ‘get’ Doubt or Mass Appeal or Sister Mary Ignatius (three ‘Catholic’ plays I love). But there are definitely moments that will hit harder for a Jewish audience and, I suspect, there will be jokes only Jewish audience members will laugh at.”

It is somewhat ironic that the world première of this play is being held in the basement of an Anglican Church, but that is part of its cachet.

The audience take-away from any play is deeply personal but, as Joey says in his bar mitzvah speech at the end of this journey into his faith: today, I am a man here to honour my family and ancestors, to celebrate being a Jew and becoming a member of a community with all the rights and responsibilities that go along with that membership. And, to that, we say, amen.

For tickets, visit pacifictheatre.org or call the box office at 604-731-5518.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

John Lazarus’ The Grandkid plays at Gateway

Richard Newman and Pippa Mackie in The Grandkid. (photo by David Cooper)

Former community member John Lazarus is a very interesting man. Dubbed by the media as one of Canada’s best-known playwrights,” his fertile mind has spawned the likes of Babel Rap, The Late Blumer and his award-winning Village of Idiots, which evolved from a play through a CBC Radio mini-series to a National Film Board animated short. His latest work, The Grandkid, the intergenerational story of Julius Rothstein and his granddaughter, Abby, opened at Richmond’s Gateway Theatre this week.

Montreal-born Lazarus graduated from the National Theatre School of Canada in 1969. The call of the West lured him to Vancouver, where he worked for 30 years as an actor, director, critic, broadcaster, playwright, screenwriter and teacher – including a stint at Studio 58, one of Canada’s leading theatre schools. For the past 14 years, he has been an associate professor of drama at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. Now, his newest creation brings him back to the West Coast.

The two-character play tells the story of an aging film professor, Rothstein, grieving over the recent loss of his wife, when his 19-year-old freshman granddaughter decides to move in with him to attend university. This leads to an intriguing social experiment and a new twist on BFF (best friends forever), as Julius and Abby become roommates and grapple with the timeless issues of youth and aging.

In a telephone interview with the Independent, Lazarus talked about his inspiration for the show. “I had friends where that living arrangement came up, their daughter moved in with Grandpa, and I listened with interest to their conversations about what was going on in the relationship. I was intrigued by the concepts of old age and youth and the stereotypes surrounding these two groups. I look around and see both people my age and young adults behaving very differently than depicted in the media and I wanted to write something to show how we can transcend the age differences and get along as a family.”

Developing strong characters is always essential, but especially so in a “two-hander,” as they have to hold the attention of the audience for the entire show. Lazarus believes that he has created two very likeable ones: “Julius is a hip old guy, easy-going, artistic, who is generally happy, but we see him when he is saddened after the death of his wife. He is an observant Jew and a liberal thinker, except when it comes to Israel, who he staunchly supports. He is tired of his career and he hopes that, with his granddaughter coming to live with him, she will inject a ray of sunshine into his life – and she does.” As to Abby, said Lazarus, “She is very idealistic, smart and wants to make a difference in the world. While the two love each other very much, they do clash over generational-gap kind of things.”

“My father, an insurance salesman, was a great storyteller and had a great sense of humor and irony. I remember thinking after listening to one of his stories, what a wonderful thing to do – to make people laugh.”

Lazarus often uses Jewish themes and characters in his repertoire. “I was brought up in a Jewish home and, while not observant, I feel culturally Jewish,” he explained. “My father, an insurance salesman, was a great storyteller and had a great sense of humor and irony. I remember thinking after listening to one of his stories, what a wonderful thing to do – to make people laugh. While I started off as an actor, writing became my passion. Although I don’t think of myself as strictly a writer of comedies, even in my serious plays humor sneaks in. To me, that is the Jewish essence of it, putting humor into every situation.”

Family and friends often provide ideas for his work and the needed conflict for the narrative. “When I was writing The Grandkid, I asked my wife what I could put into the story that would drive Julius crazy. She told me to give Abby a Palestinian boyfriend. I did not want to go there because I thought some might label the story racist so, instead, I gave her an Israeli boyfriend who has views on Israel that are diametrically opposed to those of Julius – that leads to some interesting dialogue.”

Some have suggested that the play is autobiographical. Lazarus laughed, “Definitely not. Yes, there are similarities between Julius and himself. Both of us are Ontario university professors, he film, me drama, but we differ in our views of politics and religion. I think, if we could sit down and have coffee together, we would have a very heated, but respectful, conversation.”

When asked why people should see the play, Lazarus reflected, “It makes you feel good about family and relationships. I guess you could call it a love story of sorts. It highlights the best parts of being young and being old, and how different generations can learn from one another. It will appeal to all age groups. Also, you could not ask for a better cast – Richard Newman, who I first worked with in the seventies, and Pippa Mackie, who I met in 2013 and encouraged to audition for the play because I thought she would be perfect for the part – and a terrific director, Natasha Nadir. It is good for a few laughs and you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy it.”

In anticipation of being at the theatre on opening night, as the interview took place before the play opened, Lazarus said, “It is a culmination of a dream, to come to Vancouver and say, ‘Hello, here I am, I am back and here is my new play. I hope you enjoy it.’”

The Grandkid runs at the Gateway until April 26. For more information, visit gatewaytheatre.com or call the box office at 604-270-1812.

Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.

Freud’s Last Session at Galbraith House a philosophical romp

Richard Newman as Dr. Sigmund Freud, left, and Damon Calderwood as C.S. Lewis. (photo by Damon Calderwood and Chris Robson)

When the air-raid siren goes off, it is hard not to heed it, and seek cover. So engaged does one become in Freud’s Last Session, which is on until Sunday at Galbraith House in New Westminster.

The house is an impressive sight. Built circa 1892, the 30ish audience members are already transported into the past by the time they walk through the front doors. As they take their seats in the living room, literally within breathing distance of the action, the set brings them into the late 1930s – Freud’s wooden desk to the left (that, notably, is covered with divinity statuettes from various cultures), a console radio flanked by two leather chairs in the centre, and the psychiatrist’s couch on the right.

Presented by City Stage New West, the Couch Trip Collective production features veteran actors Richard Newman as Dr. Sigmund Freud and Damon Calderwood as British author C.S. Lewis. In such an intimate space, with such competent actors delivering the dialogue, it is almost a voyeuristic experience. Director Chris Robson keeps the pacing tight, and the sound effects – from the radio, to a ringing phone, to a barking dog, to the aforementioned air-raid siren and rumbling plane engines – add to the immediacy.

Freud has asked Lewis to his home, and the fictional meeting is taking place on Sept. 3, 1939, the day that Britain declares war on Germany. Snippets of Neville Chamberlain’s address and of King George VI’s are played on the radio, as Freud periodically interrupts his discussion with Lewis for updates on the news.

Lewis is nervous at first because he thinks Freud has summoned him out of anger for how Freud is portrayed in Lewis’ Pilgrim’s Regress. But Freud is more interested in why an intelligent man like Lewis went from being an atheist to embracing Christianity. Their brief conversation gets heated on more than one occasion. Freud is particularly impassioned at times, not only from the strength of his beliefs, but from the exhaustion and frustration of being in constant pain – at 83, he is dying of oral cancer, and the play quite realistically depicts his agony, and the goriness of the disease.

The debate starts with God’s existence, and bounces back to it more than once, but covers a wide range of topics, including the impending war (and Freud’s narrow escape to England from Austria), morality, shame, desire, humor, what is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder, Jesus, the afterlife, ancient belief systems, suicide, relationships, sex and music. The play avoids becoming bogged down in heavy, philosophical dialogue by only touching upon each topic. An interruption happens – a phone call, a coughing attack, or what have you – after which the discussion generally turns to something else. Another perhaps surprising aspect of Freud’s Last Session is that the script, written by Mark St. Germain, contains many well-timed witty remarks that break up the seriousness of the subject matter, as well as the situation – both the advent of the Second World War and Freud’s intention to kill himself before the cancer does. The result is a play that may not change minds, but it will spark contemplation and discussion, which is more than enough.

Freud’s Last Session is at Galbraith House, 131 Eighth St., New Westminster, until Feb. 9. For tickets, visit brownpapertickets.com/event/549655.