PuSh Festival's La Marea brings live drama to Gastown storefronts

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      Walk toward the block of Water Street between Carrall and Abbott and at first you'll think you've stumbled upon a film set: giant flood lights illuminate the brick road, which has been cut off to traffic at either end.

      But instead of being waved away from the production zone, you're coaxed in. And if last night's dress rehearsal was any indication, what awaits is one of the coolest things happening at this year's PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.

      Did we mention it's free?

      The show is called La Marea, and along the street, in the trendy heritage storefronts and upstairs windows, a series of vignettes plays out, with live actors and surtitle screens that reveal their stories and innermost thoughts.

      The most striking, and disturbing, sequence finds a man splayed out in the middle of Water Street, apparently thrown from the nearby spilled motorbike, his helmet tossed a few feet away. While he struggles slowly to crawl across the concrete, projected text tells us what brought him here and lets us in on the life that's flashing before him.

      In a nearby second-floor window, club music pulsates and disco lights flash, but what we see is a middle-aged man—well-known local actor Tom Scholte—watching his teenage daughter's birthday party and reading his thoughts.

      Other moments: in the giant window of Obakki, a couple is watching a TV zombielike while eating dinner until the woman suddenly grabs the man and plants a passionate kiss on him; through the glass at Spirit Wrestler Gallery, a woman tosses and turns in bed trying to make herself go to sleep; and at InForm Interiors' storefront, a guy does pushups and situps, detached from his partner, who's playing a nearby piano in their livingroom.

      Most of the pieces touch on love—its early stages (a couple kissing for the first time, love at first sight) through to its end stages (a couple having a last dinner before the wife leaves forever in the morning).

      Is it theatre? Performance art? Film clips come to life? Trying to figure that out is part of the multidisciplinary fun of a festival that defies genres. What we can tell you is that La Marea is a slice of surreal voyeurism you won't soon forget.

      It's the brainchild of Mariano Pensotti, an Argentinean-born theatre artist who, not surprisingly, has worked heavily in film and video.

      Props go to the city for letting the PuSh people and its cohorts at Boca Del Lupo, block off the busy thoroughfare for such high-concept art, and to the Gastown businesses who have donated their little windows on the world.

      Bundle up before you head down, and check it out before it's gone. It runs from 7 to 9 p.m. from tonight (January 18) to Saturday (January 22); the nine episodes are about 10 minutes each and run concurrently, but play over and over so you can wander through them as you please.

      And pinch yourself to remind yourself that you're in Vancouver.


      PuSh International Performing Arts Festival executive director Norman Armour discusses some of the highlights at this year's festival.

      Comments

      9 Comments

      Wayne Wayne

      Jan 18, 2011 at 3:35pm

      I guess everyone who have business or live in Water St. need to put everything on hold for them?

      Steve Newton

      Jan 18, 2011 at 5:15pm

      sure your name isn't Whine Whine?

      David Hotman

      Jan 18, 2011 at 5:45pm

      Wayne Wayne - is your other name Whine Whine?

      RF

      Jan 19, 2011 at 2:29pm

      Certainly a change of pace for Vancouver. There must be an added layer of meaning here, perhaps unintentional and/or ironic, what with the cheek-to-cheek mix of the manufactured drama involving middle-class urbanite scenarios and the very real and often grim drama of life in the East End. An interactive approach might have made things really interesting.

      zevster

      Jan 21, 2011 at 7:07am

      boring. no risk. actors very general. didn't seem to be aware of text or didn't seem to be playing off it. text was trite, mostly lacking a sense of character, quite voiceless in fact. subject matter largely mundane and completely forgettable.
      the best part was the experience of having a blocked off water street. the show itself is a disapointment.

      Liza

      Jan 21, 2011 at 11:02am

      Yay! No panhandlers or bums on the block. Thanks for helping!

      Taryn

      Jan 22, 2011 at 1:38am

      This show is incredible! For all of the scenes to be timed exactly to 10 minutes each night is a feat most people would probably ignore. And how incredible that the theatre company can transform Water Street each night and make it a stage, Congrats all!

      bopper

      Jan 25, 2011 at 11:25am

      If anything good happened, I didn't see it.

      First, as zevster mentioned, there was a complete disconnect from the script to the actors' actions and it wasn't worth it. I would have had a better experience watching random strangers and reading a random book or script and trying to impose meaning.

      Second, the design was flawed. It was an interesting concept (having the action etc. happen in store windows) however, it was terribly executed. People would crowd up at the front and prevent 80% of the audience from seeing anything at all ($5 worth of caution tape keeping people 1 metre from the windows would have fixed this). On top of that, most of the screens with the script were placed behind the windows and BEHIND PILARS so when I did happen to make it close enough to the front to see anything, I couldn't even read all of the words.

      I understand that this was a free event, which I think is fabulous. But what is the point in holding a free event that most of the audience missed or, like me, were perpetually annoyed by the entire experience?

      Lance with Pants

      Jan 26, 2011 at 9:03am

      So-So execution but great idea. Next time they should get better writers, like Douglas Copeland. Actors were good. I hope they got paid. I hear that sometimes with these shows the producers keep all the money and only a couple actors get paid. That should be illegal, like sweatshops.