Each Thing's a Thief (Timon of Athens)

We saw "Timon of Athens" last night at the Bard on the Beach.  It was performed on the small stage (the Howard family theatre is the name I think).  In the director's notes, the director (Meg Roe) says it's a difficult play and that it is difficult to pin down its themes.  That might be because it is a relatively obscure play but after having seen the show and talked about it with the boys, I'm not sure that I agree that it is difficult.  The story is basically this -- Timon is a well respected citizen of Athens.  She (in this production -- in the original, of course, everyone is a man!) gives elaborate parties and is ready and willing to help everyone in town, paying the bail for one friend, giving elaborate gifts to others and patronizing the arts.  Her servant, Flavius, tries to tell her that she is spending too much and that she is increasingly miring herself in debt, but she doesn't take it seriously until all her creditors come bearing their bills.  She goes to the people she helped for their help and they turn her away.  She is shocked and holds a dinner at which she serves her guests warm water.  The guests are dismayed and she abandons Athens and goes to live as a hermit in the country.  While digging in the dirt for roots to eat, she discovers gold and of course, people start to show up to be her friend again, but she doesn't trust them any more and the play ends tragically.

Firstly, my sons did not agree on their take on the play.  William really liked it and said it was the best show he'd seen at the Bard on the Beach (and he's seen lots).  He liked that it was one story, not the usually more complicated layers that we get with Shakespeare.  He liked how it was staged and the acting and the way the set worked.  Anthony didn't like it.  He disagreed with William that the simpler story was better (he likes the layers) and he thought that the tech was sloppy.  I agree that the actors were really good and I also agree that the tech was a problem.  The lights kept flickering but you couldn't be sure whether it was happening on purpose or was a mistake -- there is one part where she pulls the electrical cord out of the wall and the lights go out -- okay, I get that -- but the flickering before that seemed to happen without rhyme or reason.  The set change before the dinner (and really all of them) was really slow and there was no music at the beginning to make you think that it was significant that it was belaboured in that way.   Timon (Colleen Wheeler) was excellent and it was a real workout for her when she destroys her home and finds herself on a field of dirt.  Patti Allen played Sempronius (one of the friends) and she was fantastic -- she looked like a million bucks and you couldn't take your eyes off her.  At the end, Apemantius (Marci T. House) and Timon have a big confrontation and Apemantius (who is played by a black actor) yells, "beast!" at Timon and Timon yells back "slave!" at her and there was this terrific long moment where they just stared at each other -- that was the most memorable of the moments in the play.

Some of it was quite creative -- it starts with a big party and the guests all arrive and you hear snippets of the later dialogue (and they include the audience in this, but then they abandon the use of the audience which felt like a lost opportunity) but it's very fake and "society-party" and the ending was reminiscent of Godot with the two servants dealing with the aftermath.  I think that the theme is that the world of people ("society") can be toxic and if you depend too much on the opinion of others and sacrifice yourself to gaining their good impression, then you're lost.  I think you could have done something stronger in contrasting the world of society with the world of nature, where Timon seeks refuge.  In fact, a lot of this production felt like a loss of opportunity -- lots of great ideas, many of which did not come to fruition.  But still, worth seeing.

The play's the thing

I've been all drama'd up the last few days!

On Thursday, I saw "42nd Street" at TUTS (Theatre Under the Stars) at Stanley Park.  If you know me, you know I'm not a big fan of musicals, but once a year, my sister-in-law and I go to Stanley Park to see one of the two musicals they run over the summer.  The performances are always lots of fun and very energetic and it's good for a little drama teacher like myself to embrace all forms of theatre, even those to which I am not partial.

I did not know the story of "42nd Street" at all, nor was I sure what songs it contained, but you didn't need to know either to enjoy the production.  The script throws in all the cliches that you might expect -- a young idealistic girl from Allentown, Pennsylvania arrives in New York hoping to become a star.  The director is a hard-driving force to be reckoned with who forces the "kids" in the cast and the chorus line to work until they drop.  There is an older actress/diva who expects everyone to cater to her.  The show is being bankrolled by a Philistine capitalist who is in love with the diva.  The diva isn't a good dancer but has a dynamite voice and has an actor boyfriend unbeknownst to the Philistine.  They open out of town and the idealistic girl bumps into the diva and breaks Diva's ankle.  "Oh no, the show has to close and all the 'kids' will be unemployed . . .  unless . . . hm, where can we find a young woman who can sing and dance and act?  Hm."

"Hey, what about that girl from Allentown, Pennsylvania, who we just fired because she broke the diva's ankle?  Hey, Allentown, can you learn ten dances and songs and pages of dialogue by tomorrow?"  She does!  She saves the day!  She becomes a star!  Sorry if I ruined the ending, but you knew anyway, right?

So okay, very hokey plot, but the actors really sold it and I'm always so impressed with the dancing.  I have two young sons and out of all the teams and classes and friends they've had, only one of the kids in their connection learned to tap dance.  But there are all these young people on stage just tap dancing away.  And singing and acting and sporting colourful costumes and it's just great fun and I would recommend it highly.  The other show is "Cinderella" and I bet that's fun, too.

Last night I saw a double bill of "The Room" (which people call the "Citizen Kane of bad movies") and then "The Disaster Artist" which is a movie by James Franco which is about the making of "The Room".  "The Room" is truly terrible -- badly cast, badly written, nightmarishly directed, no continuity, stiffly performed, actually embarrassing to watch and as one of the people in "The Disaster Artist" says, "it's like the people involved have never actually seen a movie".  This guy named Tommy Wiseau, who is kind of mysterious -- no one knows where he comes from (he has a weird accent and claims to be from New Orleans) or how old he is or where he gets his money (he has a lot) wants to make this movie and he wants to be the hero in the movie and so he does actually make a movie based on his own script.

This friend of his who plays the second lead wrote a book about the process of making the movie and James Franco optioned the book and made "The Disaster Artist" in which JF plays Tommy Wiseau and his brother, Dave, plays the friend, Greg.  I really enjoyed "The Disaster Artist" and was very impressed by James Franco (as I always am -- he is an excellent actor and quite smart, I think).  It was funny and also rather poignant (the best comedies aren't just yuck-fest in my option.)

It was fun to watch both of them in one go, but I don't think you need to see "The Room" in order to enjoy "The Disaster Artist".  As I said, I found "The Room" pretty difficult to watch.  Some of it is really embarrassing to see -- it's just so terrible and you don't know quite what to make of it and people announce they have breast cancer or a drug problem and then nothing happens about the announcement and the romantic or passionate scenes are too long and quite gross and there are all these shots of San Francisco which have nothing to do with the plot and there is no reason to call it "The Room" (except that most scenes begin with a shot of the front door of Lisa and Johnny's apartment)  and poor Tommy Wiseau himself is so hard to understand with his accent and his tendency to laugh inappropriately and his strange appearance (his costumes and his actual physical appearance).  But it is a bit of a pop culture icon now, so I did sit through it.

Tomorrow night, we're going to Bard on the Beach to see "Timon of Athens".  It's a Shakespeare play I don't know at all (I think I read it years ago, but retained very little of its plot or anything else).  The production is set in a city "much like Vancouver" and Timon is being played by a woman, so we'll see  how that will work.  I'm looking forward to it.  More on this later.

Boy, is it hot!  I wish we could get some RAIN!  Everywhere you go you see birds all fanned out in the grass with their mouths open trying to cool off.  Why don't they go into the shade?

Trees and Bees

Above you will see two things I saw at the UBC Botanical Garden, which is a great place to visit, even if you aren't a botanist!  In this heat, there are lots of cool shady places to walk and in the Greenway, you can climb up into the forest canopy on this suspension apparatus (like a bridge -- I'm making it sound scarier than it seems, even though, with my fear of heights, I would not want to use it).  At points on the walkway, you are seven stories high and you can get up close and personal, just like loggers or people who want to prevent loggers from taking the big trees.  There is a meadow with endangered Garry Oaks and in the meadow is a beautiful sweet smelling tree (I believe it is a catalpa) and I walked over and stood under it and it was just abuzz with bees and so I did my best to photograph one busily doing her work.  There are so many blooms that the bees finish climbing into one and then just walk over to another; they don't have to fly.

There is an alpine garden with a giant maple tree shading things -- it has a beautiful white trunk, almost arbutus-like.  I believe it is called a paperback maple.  And there is a little greenhouse with cacti and succulents and a lovely physic garden with medicinal plants (also very popular with the bees) and a lovely flowered herbaceous border and just loveliness for all the senses (I even had an ice cream, so thankfully I didn't have to taste any of the hellebore,  which is poisonous!)

As I said, one of the reasons I went to the botanical gardens was to see the golden spruce descendant (or perhaps it's more of a clone, because it is growing from a cutting of the tree).  I went into the BC trees area, where the spruce was supposed to be growing.  It is lovely with a pond and all sorts of different grasses and trees.  I couldn't find the golden spruce, but I was enjoying the pond and the hemlocks and Douglas firs and Western red cedars when I overheard a couple who were looking for something and it seemed as if it was the golden spruce.  I didn't interrupt them, but I listened to a bit of their discussion, which helped me find the tree, too.  It doesn't stick out from the other trees.  It is very slow growing and so it doesn't make much of an impression.  It doesn't even seem that "golden".  Maybe the "goldenness" comes when it gets older.  (Like I'm approaching my "golden" years!). Anyway, it was nice to see the little tree bravely growing there and think about its amazing story.

Visiting the garden made me think a bit about Do Androids Dream of Mechanical Sheep?  Philip K. Dick postulated this world which we had destroyed with nuclear fallout, in which nothing grew and nothing natural lived.  As I said, the time period is basically ours and there I was in this beautiful garden with big trees and lots of birds and insects.  (In the novel, J. R. Isadore finds a spider and he's thrilled because there are almost no wild animals left.). Human beings can be so destructive -- we have destroyed the habitats of many animals and even insect populations are plummeting.  We could end up in a world like the one Dyck described if we aren't careful.  But then, other human beings, like the environmentalists who camp out way up in big trees to prevent them from being logged, or people like David Suzuki or John Muir or the members of Greenpeace or the World Wildlife Fund or the Nature Conservancy speak up for the natural world and wildlife and we are all better for it.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

I just finished reading this book by Philip K. Dick (yes, that's his actual name).  The book is the "inspiration for [the movie} "Blade Runner", but I don't remember much from the original "Blade Runner" except the scenes of Harrison Ford's hovercar wending its way through all the electronic billboards.  I did see the new "Blade Runner 2049" and I liked it, but this book hasn't got much to do with that either.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the book.  It is also about a bounty hunter who tracks down and destroys androids.  Shockingly, it is set in 2021, which isn't long from now, and of course, we don't have androids or hover cars or things like that, but the book also still has us with telephone booths and technologies that have long since almost completely disappeared.

It is pretty exciting with his search and discovery of the androids {driven by his need for money and the idea that people in this time will spend vast amounts of money on live animals as pets, because there aren't very many animals left, thanks to the fallout from WWT (World War 3)}.  There are lots of great characters, like J. R. Isadore, a "chickenhead" -- they don't actually explain why he's a "chickenhead" and other people are "antheads", and Iran, Rick's girlfriend, and Luba Luft, the android opera singer.  And I liked how it suggested that one difference between us and the androids is their lack of empathy (I hope we have that) and that some people, because of their circumstances, lack empathy and that makes them more like androids than the tests are comfortable with.

I would recommend the book if you're looking for something good to read (which I'm sure you are).

I am going to the UBC Botanical Garden today.  I just finished a book about The Golden Spruce and apparently they have clippings from the tree at the garden and so I'm going to go and see.  On a hot day, some time spent in a beautiful garden seems like a good route to go.

No redemption

I watched "Sicario" tonight (not the sequel but the original).  It was very gripping, but my son said it was not "that violent" -- I would say it was extremely violent and disturbing.  The acting was terrific -- Benicio del Torro was just seething -- but poor Emily Blunt got the short end of the stick.  She's playing us and so she is out of the loop and confused for most of the movie, like we are, and spends a lot of time looking stunned and shocked and out of her depth, which is what she is supposed to do, but doesn't give an actor much satisfaction, I don't think.  It made me think that Mexico is a scarier place than I suggested in my last post.  I'm sure it's not all like the way they portray Juarez, but you certainly couldn't just sit back and let the movie wash over you -- you were tense the whole way through.

I was impressed with Denis Villeneuve's direction -- the scenes in the tunnel were so oppressive and the traffic jam at the border and the mass of people at the bus terminal gave you a very strong apocalyptic sense and Benicio del Torro squatting down and speaking softly to the migrants in Spanish and the scene in the bank and the use of the security camera.  The music reminded me of "Arrival".  He likes that kind of industrial groaning sound.

I read Coriolanus and Winter's Tale today.  I was thinking about Bard on the Beach's production of Winter's Tale and wondering again how you could make Hermione's statue more palatable.  I think the Bard production had a good idea with the theatricality of the show, but I don't think they went far enough.  Rickie said she saw a great production of Coriolanus at Stratford this year and I wanted to remind myself of it.  I have never seen it produced.  I thought you could do a lot with the two tribunes, but reading it made me feel like the ending comes up super fast.  You'd have to really choreograph something big for the attack scene, I think.

I'm sleepy.  I was up very early this morning even though my phone is not working properly and my alarm didn't go off.  Daisy likes to get up and about before 7!  She starts clunking around and I wake up and then I feel like it's my responsibility to take her out.  Once I get up, I'm fine.  And so good night.  Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

Should you trust a mysterious stranger?

My sons suggested to me that you might not want to take advantage of those tickets left by the mysterious stranger.  Perhaps the stranger has evil plans for you and is using the tickets to get control of you.  (This sounds like a good idea for a play.).  They thought they would like to go to Mexico, which would be interesting, I know.  I would like to see the Aztec pyramids and I think Mexico City would be really exciting, too.  Rickie and Carlos went several times and had a wonderful visit.  Still, I do think it would be viciously hot at this time of year.  (Of course, it's viciously hot here now.  Daisy is panting all day long.)

I think my choice of Dalvay-by-the-Sea is still what I would do.  I would pack a suitcase full of books and my sketch book and just relax on the beach and sit in the beautiful old-fashioned lounge and think about my favourite author, L.M. Montgomery, and how much she taught me about how to live my life.  (Find solace in the beauty of nature.  Strive to be a good person.  Art is important.)

Height of summer (or heat!)

Goodness, if I don't write in my blog more consistently, no one will read it.  (I wonder if anyone does in the summer, anyway, but I like to write so I will do it anyway and hope that I can be more consistent.)

Have you been getting outside and enjoying the unstructured time?  (I know that it isn't unstructured for those of you who have jobs or are doing school things.)  I find it difficult at first, to go from full on schoolwork to full on relax mode, but I think I am getting close at this point.

For the first week of the holidays, I went to Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island.  I had never been there before, although I have been to Parksville several times and also Nanaimo which are quite close.  Qualicum Beach is a lovely town with lots of cute homes and little shops and the beach is terrific.  We stayed at a hotel right on the beach and the view was terrific (even though there was a noisy road in between our hotel and the water).  It seems like a place where people would go to retire, and I really liked it, but I don't think I could retire there.  Although their museum was quite good and it is very walkable and there were a couple of good restaurants, here's one thing I was challenged by -- (and you'll say it is a very minor thing, but nevertheless) there is a nice theatre on the Main Street and I was interested in whether there were any shows on while we were there.  There was a thing called "Bard to Broadway" or some name of that sort.  Okay, that's promising.  Then I looked at the shows and one was certainly Broadway -- "Chicago".  But there was no Bard to be had!  The other shows were "Baskerville" (about Sherlock Holmes) and "The Savannah Sipping Society", neither of which is remotely Shakespearean.  I don't think you should call something "Bard" unless you're committed to doing something Shakespearean.

We found a couple of nice coffee shops for breakfast and one morning, we were sitting at our breakfast table and noticed a film shoot going on.  It was for a tv show called "Chesapeake" (which I have never seen) and it was fun to watch the extras walk by the cute little house so many times and see the people setting up cameras and lighting equipment.  It reminded me how boring it is to be on a film set -- it all seems to take so long and nothing really seems to happen.  It's amazing that they ever get a finished product to show.

I went to the Port Moody Film Society's latest feature, which was "Maudie" starring Sally Hawkins (of "The Shape of Water" most recently) and Ethan Hawke.  I just loved it.  It was about this artist named Maud Lewis and her work and her life.  I was going to write "difficult life" because she faced many challenges -- she had rheumatoid arthritis which gave her an ungainly walk and later made it painful for her to paint.  Both her parents died when she was young and her brother sold the family home and left her with an aunt who wasn't very sympathetic to her.  She got a job working as a housemaid for a harsh man with whom she had to share a bed (they later married and seemed happy together, even though they were poor and struggling).  She had a baby out of wedlock and her aunt told her the baby died because it was so deformed, but it turned out that the baby was perfectly fine and her brother "sold it" for adoption.  (They don't really explain if he actually sold the baby.).  Anyway, the beauty of the story was that Maud didn't let the difficulties she faced stop her.  She didn't even really let them BE difficulties.  She accepted that things were challenging, and of course, they are for all of us, even if we don't have arthritis or have to face an unloving family or poverty.  Obviously, she had enormous challenges to bear but she found great joy in painting and in the beauty of the world around her and she lived a pretty happy life and I loved her and her husband and the actors and the movie.

I've been reading a lot (just finished The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, which I recommend highly -- about a boy who also grows up in difficult circumstances -- he loses his mother in a mysterious terrorist attack -- and does let that awful event change him, and not for the better) and I have returned to the Aquafit classes at the pool (great for exercise and also fun because it's outside!). We are going out today to have our passport photos taken (we aren't going anywhere interesting because we have to have the roof replaced and that is going to cost a pretty penny), but it's important to have a valid passport, I think -- who knows?  Maybe some kind mysterious benefactor will send us a letter and say that there are tickets for us at the airport for anywhere in the world we'd like to go!  Where would you go?  I'm not sure.  There are lots of wonderful places in the world that I'd like to visit.  I was thinking of going to London this summer, but then I have already been there.  If it was a free ticket, maybe I would want to choose a more expensive place, but then, many of them would be very hot at this time of year.  Maybe a nice trip to Prince Edward Island!  There is this lovely hotel called "Dalvay-by-the Sea" near Cavendish and when I was there long ago, I thought it would be nice to stay there for a week or two, and just wander on the beach and see the L.M. Montgomery sights and eat lobster suppers and sit in the lounge at the hotel and have a drink and read.  I think I've decided so if you're a mysterious person who wants to send me on a trip, I'm ready to go!