As we crawl towards finish line of this year, I’m thinking about my theatregoing experiences of this year. What sticks in my mind? What moved me? So here are my picks for 2022, in ascending order:

10) Seventeen at Western Gold Theatre: This Australian play has a cast of elders playing adolescents. I resonated with the juxtapositions, as an elder myself, and it took me back to my own lost youth. Smart and funny, with strong performances from the ensemble cast, who each take on multiple roles.

Cast of Seventeen (photo from Facebook)

9) East Van Panto: The Little Mermaid by Theatre Replacement: There’s nothing like a traditional pantomime, with its audience participation and kids in the audience, some of them perhaps experiencing their very first play. This show, in its tenth year, was filled with plenty of laughs, great costumes and funny performances from the leads Dawn Patten as the villainous Ursula, Amanda Sum as a charming and glasses-wearing Ariel, and Mark Chavez as world-weary crab Sebastian. Well directed by Meg Roe. On now until January 1st with tickets at https://thecultch.com/event/east-van-panto/

Ensemble photo by Emily Cooper, from website

Amanda Sum, Ghazal Azerbad and Dawn Petten, photo by Emily Cooper

8) Cliff Cardinal’s William Shakespeare’s As You Like It: A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal: I saw this show in February as part of Vancouver’s PuSH Festival and was taken with Cardinal’s extended monologue as a pre-show chat that covers a lot of territory, including land claims, indigeneity and many other topics. Cardinal is a charismatic performer and holds the audience in the palm of his hand throughout. You can read my review here.

Cliff Cardinal in William Shakespeare’s As You Like It: A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal (Dahlia Katz/Crow’s Theatre)

7) The Book of Dust at Bridge Theatre, London: I had read this book by Philip Pullman and loved it, and I loved the stage adaptation just as much. It had it all; appealing characters, plenty of stage magic (the projections were next-level!), and puppet daemons that were terrific. This show is coming up on screen in the NTLive series…don’t miss it!

Photo from Bridge Theatre production of The Book of Dust (from website)

6) Wuthering Heights at National Theatre, London: Here’s what I wrote on Facebook about this show: A most unorthodox production, with singing, dancing and almost cartoon-broad portrayals, it is not for everyone. Cathy is played as a bit of a manic case, twitchy and obsessive, at one point screeching a rock song directly at the audience. Heathcliff is played more straight, and to better effect. The rest of the ensemble play multiple roles, each one given a chance to shine. There is a lot of darkness and death in this novel, with each death announced with a name written on a blackboard slate and paraded across the stage. The nearly 3 hour show did make me want to reread this great novel, so I suppose that’s a mark of success.

From left, Ash Hunter (Heathcliff), Nandi Bhebhe (The Moor), Lucy McCormick (Cathy). Photograph: Steve Tanner

5) Battles and Metamorphoses of a Woman at International Theatre, Amsterdam: Another Facebook review: Tonight we saw this excellent adaptation of a French novel, Battles and Metamorphoses of a Woman, a two-hander between an embittered poverty stricken mother and her gay son. Ultimately surprisingly uplifting, the acting was very fine and the show was directed by hotshot international theatre director Ivo Van Hove. I will add that the surprise of the play is its happy ending, as the mother meets a new man and moves to Paris. The moment when this happens, the mother and son physically push the set upstage, replacing it with a bistro table and chairs. The mother then brings out all of her new dresses, placing them in a circle around the stage. I found this very moving, after feeling beaten up by the psychological warfare between this mother and son. Metamorphoses indeed!

Marieke Heebink and Majd Mardo in Battles and Metamorphoses of a Woman (photo from website)

4) TIE: Clean/Espejos and Bunny: In March I saw two excellent shows in Vancouver. Clean/Espejos is a new play by Christine Quintana, looking at the complex relationship between a Mexican resort guest and worker. This was followed by Hannah Moscovitch’s Bunny, about the sexual awakening of a young woman. I saw three Moscovitch plays this year, which only confirmed my sense that she’s one of the best Canadian playwrights I know. Read my reviews of these two shows here.

Photos of Alexandra Lainfiesta & Genevieve Fleming by Sewari Campillo (from website)

Emma Slipp as Bunny – Photo by Emily Cooper (from website)

3) Much Ado About Nothing at The Globe Theatre, London: This was my first time seeing a show in the outdoor theatre at the Globe, and it did not disappoint. This was a note-perfect production that mined the play for maximum laughs while also finding the pathos. There were plenty of sparks between Lucy Phelps as Beatrice and Ralph Davis as Benedick. A delightful afternoon at the theatre!

Curtain call of Much Ado About Nothing (photo by Monica Prendergast)

2) The Black Rider and Vigil: I would be remiss if I didn’t include a couple of shows from my hometown of Victoria! These two really impressed, so have made my list…you can read my reviews here.

Cast of The Black Rider (photo by Clayton Jevne)

Anton Lipovetsky as Kemp and Nicola Lipman as Grace (photos by Emily Cooper from Belfry website).

1) Cabaret, London: This show knocked my socks off, with Amy Lennox’s portrayal of Sally Bowles erasing forever the anodyne version in the Liza Minnelli film version of this great musical. She was intense, very intense, as you can see in her singing of the title song at the Olivier Awards earlier this year. Staged in the round, everything about the show worked. Definitely my number one theatre experience of the year! Here’s to more theatregoing in 2023!

Eddie Redmayne as the Emcee in original cast of Cabaret, with Jessie Buckley as Sally Bowles. We saw the second cast, with Amy Lennox as Sally Bowles and Fra Fee as the Emcee, below. Photos from website.

Above, cast of The Black Rider (photo by Clayton Jevne)

Well, it is not your typical Christmas Holiday fare, but you could do a lot worse than take yourself to see Theatre Inconnu’s production of Tom Waits’ and William Burroughs’ 1993 musical The Black Rider. The plot is based on an early 1800s German folktale titled The Fatal Marksman, a familiar twist on the sell-your-soul-to-the-Devil trope so popular in literature and art. Young Kathchen (Melissa Blank) has fallen for a clerk, Wilhelm (Nicholas Guerreiro), but father Bertram (Cam Culham) insists that his son-in-law be a hunter, so Wilhelm falls into the clutches of Pegleg (Rosemary Jeffery) who provides him with magic bullets that lead to his success at winning Kathchen as his bride. But the twist in the tale leads to inevitable tragedy.

All of this is supported by Waits’ songs and Burroughs’ poetic text, written in rhyming couplets. The music features a couple of memorable tunes, “The Briar and the Rose” and “I’ll Shoot the Moon” are two that stuck in my head after the show. Director Clayton Jevne has cast the show very well, and as usual makes the most of the small stage in Paul Phillips Hall. Here, he’s supported by movement coach Sylvia Hosie, who creates some good effects with simple gestural motions rather than full-on dance. The set, designed by Jevne, works well, with shimmery translucent legs on each side of the stage, and a shadow theatre in the rear that is used effectively in multiple ways throughout. The costumes by Linda MacNaughton work well, capturing the early 1800s period.

While everyone in this nine-person cast has a standout moment or two, I want to highlight three actors who really impress. First is Nicholas Guerreiro, who shines in his role as Wilhelm, capturing well the manic intensity of a man who has given himself over to the dark side. Guerreiro is all arms and legs and makes the most of his lanky physicality in the role. Next is Ian Case, who plays multiple roles including Wilhelm’s uncle, the Duke’s messenger, and my favourite, William Burroughs himself. Case is an excellent actor, and he nails each of these characters with economy and precision. Finally, I was blown away by Rosemary Jeffery’s portrayal of Pegleg. She plays the part with great gusto, cackling with delight as all of her nefarious plans fall into place. The company all wear German Expressionist style pale face makeup, which heightens the theatricality throughout.

My one regret about this excellent show is that it lacks live music. While Brooke Maxwell has created an effective soundtrack (although not nearly as edgy as Waits’ original recording), I did miss seeing a live band perform. That said, this is an excellent production, and one you only have until next weekend to catch. Highly recommended. Tickets are available online at theatreinconnu.com.

Ian Case as William Burroughs (photo by Clayton Jevne)

Nicholas Guerreiro as Wilhelm and Rosemary Jeffery as Pegleg (photo by Clayton Jevne)

I was very pleased to see the production of Morris Panych’s early play Vigil, on now at the Belfry. I have read but have never before seen this play, and it’s a good one, from one of Canada’s best playwrights. The plot is simple: a man named Kemp (Anton Lipovetsky) arrives at his sick aunt’s home, supposedly to care for her, although he seems more interested in her shuffling off this mortal coil. The aunt (Nicola Lipman) fails to deliver on this promise, so a year passes by before a terrific plot twist turns everything upside down. All of this is delivered with dollops of Panache’s black humour, reminding me in moments of Beckett in its casual existential despair, especially when Kemp keeps hinting out loud that his aunt is taking too long to die. Both actors in this two-hander mine the script for all of its comic potential, with Lipovetsky playing Kemp as a Panych-like stand-in (the playwright played the role in Vancouver and Calgary) with both acid wit and a dose of pathos too. Who is this strange man? Why has he dropped everything to come and live with his long-lost aunt? He tells us that his aunt has been out of his life for decades, and we get no closer to understanding his decision, not that it really matters. As he attempts to care for her, with endless trays of butterscotch pudding, a homemade device to help her commit suicide (which backfires on Kemp, of course!), his playing of old records and searching for photographic evidence that his aunt cares about him, Lipovetsky manages to build some empathy from the audience. This is quite a dramatic feat, as he is not a very likeable character, awkward and alone in the world as he is, but Panych does the unexpected here. And Nicola Lipman does wonders in her almost silent role as Grace the aunt. Her reactions to Kemp throughout are priceless, and the few lines she does have are delivered with full comic force.

Director Glynis Leyshon is in her element with this play, as comedy is her directorial strength, and she keeps us engaged throughout. Leyshon is well-supported by Ken MacDonald’s set design (as Panych’s partner, MacDonald has designed most of his shows) where we enter an off-kilter warehouse-like attic apartment, with paper over the windows, hermetically sealed off from the world. Tobin Stokes’ sound design also adds to the proceedings, offering music that supports rather than competes with the play. Finally Luc Prairie’s lighting works well to define this odd world and its two inhabitants. Runs until December 11th with tickets at www.belfry.bc.ca. Highly recommended.

[Images, top: Anton Lipovetsky as Kemp; bottom, Anton Lipovetsky as Kemp and Nicola Lipman as Grace (photos by Emily Cooper from Belfry website).]