This weekend past I had a little theatre blitz of my own (as I can't afford the real "theatre blitz" and I'm not important enough to get comped, and all my hookups have left the industry). Friday evening I went down to Inglewood to catch a spirited production of Richard II. I had been debating all day between a couple shows, I picked Richard II because, seriously, how often does one of the "lesser" Shakespeares get produced in Cow-Town? It had that kind of old-school community production feel - actors in a wide range of talent levels, a kind of surreal mess of classical and modern costumes and references, and a huge cast. It also had video clips that were suprisingly well executed given the obvious shoe-string budget, and overall I was fairly satisfied with the show - I pretty much always understood what they were saying and what was going on and I didn't go in with any idea of the plot.
The next afternoon Lady Rose and I went to the pay-what-you-can matinee of "Doubt" at Theatre Calgary. We blundered into some awesome seats and counted ourselves lucky. The show-thats-just-been-made-into-a-movie thing led to a lot of buzz about this show, but I have to admit I didn't think that much of it. Don't get me wrong, I thought the cast did a great job, and the set was pretty amazing, but for all the hype I thought the script was a little weak. Not, perhaps, the best pick for TC's first one-act in a long time. It felt like it should have been the first act of a two act play, where the real meat, digging down to the truth of the characters, and facing the real depth of the issue got done in the second act. As it was, everyone got off a little easy as far as I was concerned, with pretty minor consequences. Not that you go to TC for heavy psychological drama in general, but when you decide to take the plunge and face the dark secrets of the catholic priesthood you better damn well deliver. Nuff said.
That evening, we went back to our roots. A brand new community theatre company doing their first show in the Pumphouse. David Ives. Still weirds me out a little since Hidden Insanity's first show was at the Pumphouse and featured a script by David Ives - one of the plays from the set presented this evening. Perhaps its just the distance of a few years, but I really noticed how painfully shallow Ives is in this production. The actors did a good job with what they had - nice timing, clear characterizations, good energy and tight physicality. But its all just hyperintellectual sketch comedy and at that point I'd rather see original work than reruns of the now somewhat dated Ives material. Still it brought me back to a happy time in my life. In the last scene one characters prop cokebottle glasses broke on a particularly resounding death-of-trotsky and the audience couldn't help but laugh along as the cast valiantly tried to hold it together to finish the scene. These little disasters, it seems to me, are as vital as any success in making that show memorable for the company and driving them back to the theatre for years to come. If you doubt it, ask me about the "fringe flu" sometime.
