Tag Archives: james macdonald

Tracey Power’s Glory!

1 Reply
Kate Dion-Richard, Gili Roskies, Katie Ryerson, Morgan Yamada, and Kevin Corey in GLORY. Photo: Barbara Zimonick. (Set & Lights: Narda McCaroll. Costumes: Cindy Wiebe.)

When I read that Calgary’s ATP would be putting on a new play about women hockey players, and specifically the Preston Rivulettes of the 1930s, I knew I needed to go to Calgary to see it.  And I was right!

I cried a lot during the performance, because the portrayals of the young women and of their community’s responses were so familiar from my own experience of female hockey starting in the 1970s.  I felt represented, understood, and honoured.  “I’ve always wanted to play on a team!” enthuses future captain Hilda Ranscombe (Katie Ryerson).  “Girls don’t play hockey!” retorts reluctant coach Herbert Fach (Kevin Corey).

The playwright Tracey Power (Chelsea Hotel) chose two pairs of sisters, Hilda and Nellie Ranscombe (Ryerson and Edmonton’s Morgan Yamada) and Marm and Helen Schmuck (Gili Roskies and Kate Dion-Richard) to represent the players, and created interesting distinct characters with enough backstory, conflict, and connections to be compelling.  The historical background of the 1930s was essential to the story, filled in by the characters talking about their families and community and by listening to CRBC (later CBC) radio.  One player couldn’t go to university because her father’s business was struggling and her brothers had lost their jobs; another wasn’t admitted to law school because she was Jewish.

Hockey games were represented on stage in stylized choreography (Power), with different movements and music for each game.  Yamada was an agile and stubborn goaltender.  Hard shots (of imaginary pucks) had me ducking in my seat.  Set and lighting (Narda McCarroll) and costumes (Cindy Wiebe) support the storytelling.  I was particularly impressed with the rapid movement of the rink-boards pieces to become changerooms, factory workrooms, and even a baseball park.  Director James McDonald (formerly of the Citadel) and playwright Power paced the action well and kept the human stories to the forefront.

I have known of the Preston Rivulettes since I was a young hockey player and fan, looking at team photos and trophies in the old Preston Arena.  I vaguely remember meeting Hilda and Nellie much later in their lives, at a Preston Trianglettes game, and finding it hard to comprehend that forty years earlier, they had played for provincial and national championships.  In the 1970s there was no provincial or national governing body or championship for female hockey – but in the 1930s there was.   The play Glory included enough of the documented facts to make me happy as a scholar, but more importantly captured perfectly what it is like for women to play the game they love despite many obstacles.   I hope to tell some of the second-wave women’s-hockey stories on stage myself someday, and this play affirms my sense that they are worth telling.

“When we fight to win, we have a whole lot more at stake”, one of the characters in Glory says, explaining why fans find their matches exciting.  And Hilda Ranscombe finishes with a monologue daydreaming about what will happen someday, despite the loss of competitions and opponents on the eve of war.  Someday, she says to her teammates, there will be so many teams we won’t be able to play them all.  And there will be women coaches.  And women referees.  And women announcers.  And Olympic medals.

There are, Hilda, there are.  Thank you.

Glory is playing at Alberta Theatre Projects in Calgary until April 21st.

 

The Falstaff Project: hanging out in a bar with Thou art Here Theatre

Leave a reply
  • Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I is a story about the prodigal Prince Hal, the heir to the throne of his father King Henry IV.  While the king is busy fighting rebels, the Prince of Wales is carousing with disreputable companions in taverns.
  • Thou Art Here Theatre is a local company focusing on site-sympathetic and immersive adaptations of Shakespeare.
  • The Artery is a small community-driven liquor-licensed arts and music venue near downtown.  (They’re being forced to close their doors at the end of the month, but are working to find a new location and continue with their mandate.  Their fundraiser is here.)

Put these three together and you can see where it’s going:  telling the story of Henry IV Part I as seen from inside a tavern, at The Artery.  Andrew Ritchie developed the adaptation and directed the show, cleverly bringing the important bits happening outside the tavern in using multimedia – clips of breaking TV news read by the Messenger (Katie Hudson), TV interviews with the rebel Hotspur hiding out in a cellar (Ben Stevens) and with the King giving press conferences in City Hall (James MacDonald), Hal’s texts and FaceTime calls with the King.  Prince Hal (Neil Kuefler) and his friend Falstaff (Troy O’Donnell) hang out in the tavern managed by Hostess Quickly (Nancy McAlear) and her employee Francis (Ben Stevens), and their bluff sidekicks Poins (Alyson Dicey) and Bardolph (Jesse Gervais) drop in with rowdy schemes.

If you’re feeling hesitant about what you have to do as an audience member in an immersive theatre experience, this is a good one to start with.  Because basically, you can just sit in the tavern with a drink and watch the story happen around you, with no more work than twisting your neck.  Or you can get up and go get another drink, or you can engage with the players a bit more if you want.

I’m not very familiar with the source text, so I can’t tell you how the adaptation varies.  It seems to have much of the original language, but all the performers are comfortable enough with the Shakespearean text that it’s easy to follow and not distracting.  McAlear is especially natural as a timeless tavern-keeper.  Kuefler manages Prince Hal’s transition from irresponsible scamp to a smooth officer for his father with a surprising shift in body language as well as costume.  And O’Donnell was a delight as the lazy greedy opportunistic middle-aged knight Falstaff.  I got a little tired of all the fat jokes, but I guess I should take that up with Shakespeare and the audiences he was writing for.

The Falstaff Project is playing at The Artery until Sunday night – and oh! I forgot to tell you the other cool thing.  There’s music afterwards.  Different local musicians are playing after every performance, and admission to that is free with the play ticket, or $5 just for the music.  Advance tickets are here.

 

Citadel season ends with Make Mine Love

2 Replies

The first thing that made me happy about attending the Citadel Theatre production of Tom Wood’s new comedy Make Mine Love – no wait, the second one, after a visit with my season-ticket companion and a glass of red wine in the lobby – was recognising names in the program.  There were ten actors on stage, and I had seen all of them in other shows.  As well, there were many familiar names credited with performing or working on the video bits, including Patrick Lundeen and Lianna Makuch, Braydon Dowler-Coltman and Andrea Rankin.

And after that?  Well, there was Rebecca Northan.  As far as I’m concerned, Rebecca Northan makes this show.  The plot is fun, the other characters are amusing (especially those played by Mark Meer, Jana O’Connor, and Julien Arnold), the special effects are … I don’t know if they are simple or complicated, but there were several things that are seen in old-time movies but never or rarely seen on stage, except for here.  For example, there was a scene set on a train … and someone clinging to the side of the train and slipping backwards, one window at a time.  With the help of some video clips, there was a car chase scene with gunfire and the car spinning around.  The costumes, sets, and accents built the environments of New York City and Hollywood in 1938.  And the great love story of two movie stars, (John Ullyatt and Rebecca Northan) has some not quite predictable details, most of which were improvements.    But Rebecca Northan was great, and great fun.

Now I will note a few of those details, so don’t read further if you’d like to be surprised.  (I do – which is why I try to go to previews).

It is refreshing indeed to have the powerful demanding leading-lady turn out to be actually competent, not just in acting but in other skills like fixing cars.

The storyline about how she only gets to be friends with him because she thinks he is gay … it was a little weird how the writer had to find expressions for that which sounded period, but also sounded cute and not offensive to modern ears.  I did not entirely buy how quickly she forgave him for the layers of deception, but, hey, whatever.

I liked the subplot about the dancer (Alex McCooeye, who was in Spamalot) teaching the starlet (Lisa Norton, who was in Penelopiad) how to tell a story in her singing.  It was believable and satisfying.

And I liked the tiny romantic bit with a same sex couple (Sarah Machin Gale and Jana O’Connor) which was not played for laughs.  After spending most of my vacation budget on Broadway shows, I noticed that there seemed to be a lot more queer and genderqueer men in the shows I was watching, than there were women of non-standard sexuality or gender expression.  So it was nice to come home and see two women together on stage at the Citadel.

Make Mine Love continues until June 1st at the Shoctor Theatre (the big auditorium at the Citadel).  It’s not great theatre but it’s good fun, and especially enjoyable if, like me, you like watching Rebecca Northan.

 

 

 

A Christmas Carol at the Citadel

Leave a reply

One of my motivations for writing up notes on what I see and posting them here during the run of the show is to encourage other people to go see the show, or to tell people enough about the show that the people who will like it will go.

But in the case of A Christmas Carol at the Citadel, I’m not sure whether I need to do that.  I had the impression that anyone in Edmonton who would like it has already seen it in previous years, and if they wanted to see it again they would already get tickets.  And when I saw it opening night, I guessed that most of the audience had seen it before, based on lots of them seeming to be anticipating the special effects that kept catching me by surprise.  I ended up seeing it closing night as well, and I can see why it’s such a perennial favourite with a long run every December.   It seemed to have a demographically diverse audience, some families with little kids, some families with older teenagers, and adults of all ages.  I wondered whether it was too intense or scary for some of the littler kids, or whether the story was familiar enough to them from other adaptations like “The Muppet Christmas Carol” and readings-aloud that they could get past the scary bits remembering that at the end Scrooge isn’t really dead and neither is Tiny Tim.

The play has a cast of 42 with a lot of the adults playing more than one character. James MacDonald was Scrooge, and he was particularly fun when he giddily realises that he has time to mend his ways and change the outcomes.  Julien Arnold was the ever-grinning Bob Cratchit, and Eric Morin was Scrooge’s nephew Fred.  Belinda Cornish did Mrs. Cratchit very well, conveying warmth and optimism while damping her usual powerful stage presence and upper-class accent enough to be convincing in the role.  Many other names on the cast list are familiar local actors and instructors at Foote Theatre School.

A lot of complicated scenery is moved quickly and smoothly on the Maclab Theatre thrust stage, much of it while our attention is distracted elsewhere.  Some magical special effects delighted me just as much on second viewing.   The ornate costumes clearly conveyed the class distinctions and the era and were fun to look at.

If you missed it this year, I’m sure it will come around again.  But in the meantime, there’s going to be lots of other great entertainment at the Citadel and around the other Edmonton stages in 2014.  I can’t wait.