Happy Spring!

I hope you've all enjoyed a wonderful, relaxing spring break!  We just have the weekend left before we're back at school.

I did some hard work in the garden, some spring cleaning, lots of reading and went to some terrific plays.  I saw a staged reading of Alyssa Hirose's latest work, "Waiting for Becket" about the end of copyright protection of the great play, "Waiting for Godot", which Samuel Becket (the playwright, in case you didn't know) has said must only be acted by MEN.  He and his estate, after he died, tried to enforce this edict, but to date, these efforts have been unsuccessful.  It was a funny and thought-provoking script presented as part of UBC's BraveNewPlayrites.

I also saw "The Orchard (After Chekhov)" at the Stanley.  It is a Canadian version of the Russian classic, "The Cherry Orchard", one of my favourite plays.  It was terrific.  Quite funny (Chekhov always said his plays were comedies, although they tackle serious issues and have lots of touching and tragic aspects) and very moving at the end.  This version was set in the Okanagan with a Punjabi family, but was very close to the original script otherwise.  At the end, the character of Charlie (Charlotta in the original) spoke about the land before the cherry orchard was there and sang a very powerful indigenous song.  It was very moving and affirming.  I read an article written by Stanislavsky (the great director and theatre theorist, who had worked with Chekhov) and it appears that Chekhov saw the end of the original play as affirming, too, although I always found it very sad.  You should read it.  It's great.  I also reread "The Enemy of the People" by Henrik Ibsen.  These classics always return to us and seem to be as relevant today as they were when they were first written.

Tonight I'm going to see "Chimerica" with Angus Yam, one of our alumni.  It is about a journalist's search for "Tank Man", the man who stood in front of the tanks at the Tiananmen Square protest.  I'm really looking forward to it.

See you bright and early on Monday.  Enjoy the weekend.