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In Valhalla
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Theatre
- Hits: 3030
Tonight, the choice was between the Valley - play, "A Midsummer's Night Dream", and dinner with the cult. I was all for the cult, there was going to be dinner, blessings, then after music and dancing, shit, I wanted the cult...
...the boy did too, but his friend, well, he was a bit leery. And so liberal democracy is thwarted yet again by the conservatives...
We end up driving into the valley - "A Midsummer's Night Dream", playing at the Vallican Whole. We're optimistic, after last night's "WTF" we're pretty excited about how much more "WTF" we'll get here.
It's community theatre. Everyone in the audience - maybe 100 people - they're related to - brother, sister, mother, son, daughter, father, husband, mother, wife - somehow to a member - or several - of the cast. And there's a lot of "in" jokes, laughter at things we wouldn't get, we're not in with, we don't know the community.
It's a bit of a buy in. A lot of a buy in. Like with - if you're following this from Calgary - "Front Row Centre" Players - the people who did the "Big" musicals again at the Pumphouse Theater. The productions - they were enthusiastic, but amateurs. The same. But here, the audience goes wild. It's great.
And some of the performances - well, they're worth it. And others - well,...but the enthusiasm, the general appreciation from the community, it overrides all tastes and prejudice.
The first act ends, go outside, have a cigarette, chat to a couple of the locals, it's amusing, this, funny, we're laughing at the cultural disparities, the fact that such a family oriented production has such obvious product references to the local currency.
Try this in Calgary. Even with liquor. The boy knows, it wouldn't fly. You'd be getting letters to the editor, unwanted features in the papers, arrested, it would be "NO".
Here they're all in on the joke. The joke, well, you know it if you're reading this, and if you don't I won't explain. The sun is going down, the play ends, the theatre is roused to ridiculous applause - and, were there a green room, we'd be staying - there's interest, there's beauty and personality, this would be the best "Green Room" in the country, I'm sure, but there isn't and the boys are hungry, want to return to the hostel to eat and then go out clubbing so we drive off into the sunset, 30 minutes or so back to Nelson, the long shadows of evening promising further adventures. I love this place.
Garage Sales, June 24
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1655
The season is clearly over. 20 Garage Sales in Nelson, I cover most of them. A batch of disposable pens and lighters with curious sayings imprinted on them: "BE A VEGETARIAN for health and compassion for life", others. 2 Packs of Tarot Cards - the Rider-Waite and the Crowley decks, + 2 books on reading the Tarot and a book on "Sex Magick". any Sex would be Magick at this point...some paintball balls - YES! (funny, I knew they were coming), slingshot, some slight end-of-season treasures, but really, it's done, it's done.
Trump, Obama, Putin
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1859
This is old news:
Not that I buy Obama's integrity (he's demonstrated, again and again, that it's been compromised at best and at worst there was none), but - history is often comparative, and he's looking pretty good now...
The Variety Show
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Theatre
- Hits: 1304
So, the boy's in town, take him on the grand tour. Oso, Happy Hour at the grill on the lake, a couple of dozen oysters and Caesars, other appetizers, then, in the evening, the Variety Show. It's at the Capitol Theatre, a fund raiser for the Oxygen Arts Center, a good cause, I don't bother inquiring as to details as - on occasion - the best experiences are walked into blind.
Outside, people milling about, a fine summers evening, there's a period dressed brass band - tuba, trumpets, trombone, snare drum drumming up interest, playing period pieces, .... the boy - him and his friend, they're late, and I'm annoyed they're missing this - and the fear sets in that they'll miss the play, they're exhausted from the trip, they fell asleep at the hostel...
They show up. Late. The theatre fills - not full, but pretty good for a town of 10,000 people, all ages, shapes & sizes, per-capita, I've said it before, there's a far more educated crowd here than you'll find in bigger cities, by a long shot...
Waiting for the show to begin....
The Capital Theatre, perfectly restored vintage movie theatre and playhouse, the community saved it, many times over, it's great, only "The Uptown" was close to as good as this in Calgary, and look what they did to it. Here, it's preserved, loved, used. We're front row centre, exactly where I want to be, my favorite position in the theatre, maybe - because of the height of the stage, a little too close, but it's fine...
And the show begins. A variety show, thinly plotted or threaded on the lines of "Aliens on Earth" - a reference to Trump, current politics, it'd be stretching to read too much into it but I get what they're trying for. And skit after skit, easily 30 performers, completely - on the surface - unrelated, the first, the skit of continuity that recurs throughout the evening involving a ...
Well, really, there's no explaining it. It's one "WTF" moment stacked upon another, impossible to describe, I'll try, but you really had to be there.
Examples: 2 Japanese (??) men in tight spandex and with power drills behaving as dueling robots, in sync with the sound of the power drills. A Slovenian woman doing a performance art-piece, in Slovenian, with a sprinkling of English to make sure you understand what's going on - "Mail-Order-Bride", etc. A Talking Mime. A Nationalistic Beaver. A Banjo player that lures the entire audience into singing along with him. Aliens in spacesuits with buckets on their head singing of their love of Spaceworms. You couldn't make this up, I'm not making this up, we're all laughing sooo hard...we're missing a key ingredient, ridiculous, here, given it's abundance, had we known I would have ensured the boys were properly dosed, but we're still laughing...
After this to the Yellow Deli, a delightful cafe for a late night bite to eat, tomorrow evening I promise the boys we'll visit the farm for the community night, who knows, it's early, plans here get waylaid all of the time, sidetracked, forgotten, ... but, the boy, his friend, they tell me with a tear in their eyes, they never want to leave...
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