Theatre critics' picks: Strong choices make for tough decisions

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      Vancouver has never seen a spring theatre season so packed with promise. The shortlist for this article was 20 shows long. Ten stellar selections made the final cut.

      Lowest Common Denominator

      (March 14 to 30 at the PAL Theatre)

      For Zee Zee Theatre, Dave Deveau (My Funny Valentine, Nelly Boy) has penned a play about intergenerational gay sex. This production will feature Deborah Williams as the single mom, Shawn Macdonald as her date, and Dallas Sauer as her son, whom she finds kissing her beau. 

      The Draw: Provocation.
      Target Audience: Your libido and your conscience.


      Underbelly

      (March 18 to 30 at the Vancity Culture Lab)

      Jayson McDonald’s solo show about the life and work of beat writer William S. Burroughs is hallucinatory genius.

      The Draw: This production from McDonald’s Stars and Hearts company won the 2012 Georgia Straight Critics’ Choice Award at the Fringe because it’s one of the best damn things you’ll ever see.
      Target Audience: Connoisseurs.
       

      Nashville Hurricane 

      (March 19 to 23 at Performance Works)

      In the latest solo from Chase Padgett, which is being presented here by the Fringe Festival, three voices tell the story of a guitar prodigy’s rise to fame. We hear from his alcoholic mother, his unsavoury manager, and his blues mentor.

      The Draw: Padgett’s Six Guitars, which won the 2013 Georgia Straight Critics’ Choice Award at the Fringe, was jaw-droppingly virtuosic. The guy can act. The guy can play.
      Target Audience: Fans of music, fans of shape-shifting.


      Chelsea Hotel: The Songs of Leonard Cohen

      (March 19 to 29 at the Firehall Arts Centre)

      In director Tracey Power’s vision for this Firehall show, a character called the Writer searches for inspiration and revisits his past through tunes that just happen to have been written by Leonard Cohen. The production is thrilling: the multitalented cast members play a crazy variety of instruments; Marshall McMahen’s set and Barbara Clayden’s costumes seem to be made of paper.

      The Draw: Thanks to musical director Steve Charles, you’ll hear Cohen’s compositions with fresh ears.
      Target Audience: Worshippers in the temple of song.


      Helen Lawrence

      (March 19 to April 13 at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage)

      TV writer Chris Haddock (Da Vinci’s Inquest) and art star Stan Douglas (Venice Biennale, MOMA, the Tate) join forces to create a film-noir, mixed-media spectacle in this Arts Club production.

      The Draw: Media showers. Filmed and live images of the actors will be projected into fully furnished virtual spaces.
      Target Audience: Folks who like a little slippage with their reality.

       

      Mies Julie

      (March 25 to April 19 at the Cultch’s Historic Theatre)

      For this production from South Africa’s Baxter Theatre Centre, writer and director Yael Farber reimagines August Strindberg’s sadomasochistic classic, Miss Julie.

      The Draw: In this post-apartheid telling, the genteel woman is white and her servant is black, so race adds another level of tension to the exploration of power and lust.
      Target Audience: Rave reviews in the New York Times, the Guardian, and the Independent are screaming at everyone to see Mies Julie.

       

      The Bomb-itty of Errors

      (April 16 to May 10 at the Arts Club’s Revue Stage)

      A rap retelling of William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors sounds like one of the worst ideas in the world. It is one of the best.

      The Draw: In this Arts Club mounting, which was originally produced in Vancouver by Twenty Something Theatre and Temporary Thing, Niko Koupantsis plays the bimbo Luciana, and he spins a drag turn so hilarious you’ll want to borrow his shoes.
      Target Audience: Wild things.

       

      Watching Glory Die

      (April 22 to May 3 at the Cultch’s Historic Theatre)

      In Judith Thompson’s new script, which is being produced by Toronto’s Canadian Rep Theatre, Thompson herself plays all the roles: a messed-up young offender, her mother, and a prison guard.

      The Draw: Nobody writes tough, poetic text like Thompson does (The Crackwalker, Lion in the Streets, Palace of the End ).
      Target Audience: You. Thompson is an unstoppable force. The Cultch run is a premiere.


      Espresso

      (May 16 to June 14 at Pacific Theatre)

      Off-stage, Vito has been in a car crash. On-stage, we meet his daughter, his second wife, and his mother. In this Pacific Theatre production, Lucia Frangione’s script uses the Song of Solomon, the most sexually ecstatic writing in the Bible, to explore the women’s shame, longing, and transcendence.

      The Draw: By getting your heart to talk to your gonads, Espresso might help you to redefine your soul.
      Target Audience: People smart enough to skip to the dirty bits when reading the Good Book.

       

      Totem

      (May 25 to June 29 under the big top at Concord Pacific Place)

      This Cirque du Soleil offering is about the evolution of mankind. Eventually, we all turn into acrobats.

      The Draw: Québécois director Robert Lepage has applied his genius to Cirque’s budget and skills.
      Target Audience: The theatrical equivalent of storm chasers: it’s going to be big.

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