From This & The Last Caribou (Credit: Daniel Paquet)

I was in Vancouver last weekend to see some shows at the PuSH Festival, always a worthwhile event. I’ve seen some tremendous work at PuSH before, including Robert Lepage and other national and international works. This time was a bit more hit and miss, beginning with a three part dance piece from Regina’s New Dance Horizons. This performance was a mashup of dance and movement, more movement than dance, which left me wishing for more of the latter. I found the experience to be disappointing one, with the caribou in the piece above wrapping herself up in the long strip of white paper…to what effect exactly? And although the middle piece had more merit, with a male Indigenous dancer in a long red dress, it also left me scratching my head. What was it all about? The last piece featured six dancers, prancing with caribou antlers about the stage, as a meditation on their fate. It was all a bit so what for me, I’m sorry to say.

Top, Laara Sadiq, Bottom, Ensemble (L to R: Laara Sadiq, Amy Rutherford, Andrew McNee and Ryan Beil) (Credit: David Cooper)

Electric Company is one of Vancouver’s most exciting and edgy theatre companies. Founded by Jonathan Young, his former partner Kim Collier and playwright Kevin Kerr, Electric has produced some fabulous theatre over many years. This new play, An Undeveloped Sound, takes place in a call centre where we meet four characters who we think are selling condo units on a sound near Vancouver. But there is something strange going on in this workplace, it has the feeling of a cult, with a mysterious baby sitting with its back to us who is know as “The Developer”. Who is this baby and what is its purpose? Who are these four people and why do we get the sense they are trapped here, like in Sartre’s No Exit? The play is written and directed by Jonathan Young, and is filled with witty dialogue that perplexes as much as it amuses us. The acting is excellent throughout, with all four actors having wonderful moments. The play resolves, somewhat, with a punchline that makes one think about what we mean by the word “development” especially in a city like Vancouver that is development-mad. The design, lighting and use of a giant screen reflected Electric’s aesthetic of pushing boundaries of what’s possible on stage. I really liked it, even though I’m still not sure what it was all about.

Itai Erdal in Soldiers of Tomorrow (Credit: Matt Reznek)

I saw lighting designer Itai Erdal’s previous one-person show, How to Disappear Completely, twice, both times it came to Victoria. It was a moving performance about the death of his mother mashed up with a lecture on basic lighting design. Filled with photos and videos of his family in Israel, Erdal traced his mother’s decline while sharing his knowledge of sidelight and the effect of various lighting angles on the human body.

Now he is premiering a new show titled Soldiers of Tomorrow, co-authored with playwright Colleen Murphy, about his mandatory time spent serving in the Israeli Defence Force. When Israelis turn 18, they must serve for three years, and Erdal served in Lebanon as well as at a border crossing between Israel and Palestine. This 70 minute show is presented in a similar way to his previous one, as Erdal speaks directly to the audience throughout, in a kind of lecture-performance. He is a natural storyteller, and shares that his goal was to prevent his nephew from doing his stint in the army. He brings out a photo of his newborn nephew and sticks it to the stylized backdrop portraying the Middle East. He then walks us through his initiation into the army, his close ties with his commanding officer and some of the hard lessons he learned. Erdal makes effective use of both smaller and larger plastic soldier figurines, animating them to show conversations between himself and his comrades, and focusses in on a tension-filled encounter at the border. A Palestinian grandmother wants to bring her sick grandchild back to Israel to care for him. Erdal and his fellow soldiers are suspicious, as he was serving in the early 90s when suicide bombings were all too common. He makes us feel the nervousness of the moment, when we realize in a moment that things could go horribly wrong.

The production looks wonderful, beautifully lit by Alan Brodie, and fluidly directed by Anita Rochon. It features a live musician, a Syrian refugee named Emed Armoush, whose soft music effectively underscores the play. It also features a moving cameo at the end, which caused some leakage from my eyes. I hope more audiences get to see this lovely show.