Readers of this blog will know that I am a huge fan of Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch. This is the third play I’ve been able to see and review this year alone, following strong productions of Bunny in Vancouver and Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes at the Belfry. This play is an early one by Moscovitch, premiering in 2007. Once again, the play impresses me with its attempt to empathize with the child of a Nazi war criminal and his journey of discovery and revenge. James Johnson plays the protagonist Rudi, who is onstage for the entire 85 minute-long performance, a real achievement for a young actor with limited stage experience. While his performance was perhaps a bit one-note, he was able to convey Rudi’s confusion and anger when he discovers the terrible truth about his father’s work as a doctor in Auschwitz, conducting medical experiments on Jewish inmates. He decides to leave Paraguay, where his family fled following the war, and return to Berlin. There he meets a young Jewish woman, Sarah (played by the always effective Melissa Blank), and attempts to turn his life around. The play ends on a note of high tension, as we see Rudi return to Paraguay, perhaps to take his father’s life, or perhaps his own.

The production on Inconnu’s small stage felt a bit cramped, with fencing meant to represent the concentration camp pushing the three actors (MJ Connelly plays Rudi’s childhood friend, who spills the beans on his father’s dark past) into limited playing space. Director Don Keith adds in some movie-like music in certain scenes that I found intrusive, and overall I found the direction less than inspired. But I was happy to see yet another Moscovitch play, that reinforces my opinion that she is one of the most important playwrights in the country. The production closed on May 21st.

The Belfry’s final production of the season is a world premiere by playwright Rosa Dolores, Kindred. The play is about two divorcing couples, Mo (Stephen Lobo) and Soleil (Medina Hahn) and Troy (Andrew McNee) and Elise (Celine Stubel). They each have a young child. The play opens with the couples battling each other, as the wounds inflicted are recent and still raw. As time passes the situation improves, and reaches the point where Soleil and Troy meet up for a first date. While I won’t spoil what happens next, we will also see a scene late in the play bringing Mo and Elise together. Playwright Dolores’ world view seems to reflect a belief voiced by Soleil and Troy that they are ‘givers’ and their exes are ‘takers’. While this may be over-simplistic–people tend to be more complex than being reduced to one type or another–in the world of this play, it does ring true. Firefighter Troy and massage therapist Soleil feel that they have given more than they received from their former partners, and find hope in finding a fellow ‘giver’ to move on with. Takers Elise and Mo are more challenging to portray, as they appear selfish and demanding. But we soften our view of them somewhat when we see them meet up for a candid conversation. Is there perhaps a romantic spark there as well?

All four actors offer nuanced and solid performances; I particularly liked Andrew McNee and Medina Hahn’s work. I have seen McNee on stage in Vancouver a number of times, and he always appeals as a warm presence, as does Hahn here. Their long first date scene was surprisingly moving, as they trip all over themselves in holding back and then oversharing. We root for them, and the actors’ work makes us hope that they will make it together. Lobo and Stubel have to harder job here, as their characters are less likeable, but they round them out over the course of the play.

Director Lauren Taylor moves the action along well in this 90 minute long one-act play. She is supported by designer Pam Johnson’s effective set design, a house front with a revolve bringing set pieces on and off stage. While this play offers a modest ambition in its blend of comedy and drama, its pleasures overall make for an appealing good night out. Runs until June 12th with tickets at www.belfry.bc.ca.

ENDNOTE: The digital program for the production neglects to offer a note from the playwright or director on the play (or even a bio of the playwright!). I miss these elements, as they can offer insights into what I am about to see. Dear Belfry, please bring back these notes!

I have seen a number of shows in the past week or so, starting in Victoria with a fine Pacific Opera Victoria production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. We all may know the story of the inveterate seducer of thousands of women, who eventually pays the price for his lechery, ending up literally in hell (where George Bernard Shaw will follow up the story with his own postscript play). Set in modern times, the show was well-directed by Maria Lamont, who effectively brings the story into the present day. The simple sets, designed by Christina Poddubiuk, worked well, with columns and Italianate archways taking us into the appropriate setting. The lead singers were all excellent, in particular Daniel Okulitch’s rakish Giovanni, who fights to the death for his libertarian lifestyle, and Aviva Fortunata’s Donna Anna, along with Tracy Cantin’s Donna Elvira and Cecile Muhire’s appealing Zerlina, all of his rejected lovers expressing both their regret for falling for him alongside the lingering longing they cannot help but feel. The POV orchestra, under Timothy Vernon, sounded terrific, and the chorus looked and sounded dramatically caught up in the action Mozart spins so well.

My next show took me across the country to Toronto, and Soulpepper Theatre’s production of Dominique Morisseau’s play Pipeline. Originally produced by Lincoln Center Theater in 2017, New York City, Pipeline was commissioned by Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago. With a pedigree like this, and with the subject matter of personal interest to me, I was really looking forward to seeing this production, directed by Weyni Mengesha and featuring a majority Black cast. The plot tells the story of divorced mother Nya (Akosua Amo-Adem)–whose son Omari (Tony Ofori) has gotten into trouble at school after losing his temper and pushing a teacher–and her very real fears for his future and safety in America. While Nya is a public school teacher, a tough job in America, she sends her son to a private school, and is pinning all her hopes for his future on his succeeding in that setting. The play follows this situation and introduces us to Omari’s girlfriend Jasmine (a delightfully ‘teenage girl’ Chelsea Russell), long-suffering fellow teacher Laurie (the always strong Kirsten Thomson), ex-husband and absent father Xavier (Kevin Stanchard) and school security guard, plus potential love interest for Nya, Dun (Mazin Elsadig). I found the play to be well-written and the acting competent, if not inspired, throughout this 90 minute performance. But I also found my attention drifting at times, less than captivated by what I was witnessing. I heard from a fellow theatregoing friend that the Lincoln Centre production, which was available for live streaming during the pandemic, was sensational. This production left me wanting more.

Next, my quick trip to Toronto took me to a superb production of Verdi’s great opera La Traviata. Based on The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas fils, it tells the tale of the tragic Violetta, a Parisian courtesan who finds true love, and an escape from the emptiness of her high society life, in the arms of Alfredo Germont. Of course, this being opera, she loses her love (for a while), and eventually her life to the great killer of the 18th and 19th centuries, tuberculosis. In this production, a remount of the same opera last seen in 2015 at the COC, director Arin Arbus captures the passion and beauty of Verdi’s music in the dramatization and especially the strong lead performances by Amina Edris as Violetta, who sang beautifully throughout, and Matthew Polenzani as Alfredo. Strong also was Simone Piazzola as Alfredo’s judgmental father Giorgio Germont. The costumes by Cait O’Connor were suitably ravishing, especially in the party scenes, with O’Connor adding some giant puppets into the mix as well, to great effect. The lighting was lovely, as designed by Marcus Doshi. The chorus looked and sounded splendid, and so did the orchestra, under the baton of conductor Johannes Debus. All in all, it was a three hour dip into an opera that is so much revived for good reason; its glorious romantic music will move you and its story of tragic love will touch your heart, as all good art must do.

My fourth and final recent performance was a virtual one; Robert Lepage’s virtual reality experience The Library at Night, based on the book of the same title by Alberto Manguel. The experience is advertised as “an immersive and sensory virtual-reality journey that whisks you away to ten libraries, real or imagined, throughout time and across the globe – from Mexico to Japan, Copenhagen, Sarajevo and beyond.” Visitors are greeted by a guide who leads us into (what else?) a library, outside of which we see rain falling down the windows and hear Alberto Manguel introduce us to his lifelong love affair with libraries and everything they both hold and represent. We are then taken into another room, seated and given instructions on how to put on and operate our virtual reality headsets. The interface is quite intuitive, and I was able to navigate to the ten different library sites worldwide with ease. Each library offers a 3-D version of the library, in which the viewer can turn and look in all directions. Actors move soundlessly in and out of the space while music plays and Manguel’s voice orients us to what we are seeing. So we travel from the Ancient Library of Alexandria, to the destroyed Sarajevo Library, to the National Library of Canada (with an incredible animation emerging from the pages of Audabon’s The Birds of America (the highlight of the experience). I have librarians in my family; both my mother and my sister are retired librarians, and my sister now teaches at the UBC Library School. I have always believed in the value of libraries as bastions of knowledge-keeping and democracy–where else can you get anything in our world for free?–and this VR experience brought back to me both the beauty of libraries as architectural spaces and the profundity of what they represent for humanity and its better nature.