PuSh 2015: Séquence 8

Montreal is the undisputed world hub for circus arts. In addition to being the home of the National Circus School and the venerable Cirque du Soleil, the city hosts an annual festival of international circus acts every summer and is also the base of two other acclaimed companies: Cirque Éloize and Les sept doigts de la main. The latter is in town this weekend as part of the PuSh Festival, in a co-presentation with Théâtre la seizième and Tom Lightburn.

Founded in 2002 by alumni of Cirque du Soleil and San Francisco's Pickle Family Circus, among others, Les sept doigts eschews the large scale spectacle and Las Vegas showmanship of Guy Laliberté's various Soleil franchises. Instead, they create shows that are more intimate, designed to play venues the size of the Vancouver Playhouse and to appeal in part because they showcase the individual personalities--alongside the incredible physical talents--of their performers. In the case of Séquence 8, a young, polyglot cast of eight comprises the ensemble. Colin acts as our impresario, keeping up a running comic banter throughout the evening, when not doing backflips or flying through a series of stacked hoops, or crooning a moving ballad as Camille leaps and flips through the air, alighting on Tristan's shoulders or upturned hands. Eric juggles blocks of wood with the dexterity and virtuosity of a master sculptor, so that it is impossible for us to determine where wood, air and arms come together and come apart. Dev scales the pole planted upstage right like he is running up the side of a wall, only to wrap one lonely limb around it before sending his whole body sliding downward, somehow stopping and suspending himself before crashing into the ground. Alexandra does impossibly high somersaults and half pikes off of a springy Russian bar perched on the shoulders of two of the men, landing each time with the precision and elegance of a trained gymnast on a balance beam; later she will also twirl and spin through the air in a dizzying display of acrobatics on a circle that descends from the rafters. Finally, even though they only joined the cast two weeks ago, Guillaume and the smallest male member of the troupe (whose name I've forgotten) prove themselves as adept as their cast mates at defying gravity, with Guillaume working a trapeze with fluid grace before later sending his companion vaulting and spiralling through the air by jumping with Colin onto one half of a see-saw.

The circus, premised as it is on the live performance of risk, is a profoundly kinetic form. We marvel at the agility and physical prowess of the artists, but there is also a way in which their daring literally moves us to the edge of our seats. In this physiological or muscularly empathic connection between performers and audience, circus shares something with dance. Thus, it is fitting that amid all of the more traditional acrobatics in Séquence 8 there is also a lot of choreography that would not look out of place at a contemporary dance show (this is, after all, the troupe that choreographed the acclaimed revival of Pippin that just finished its run on Broadway). In this respect, the transitions between individual routines were, for me, a particularly compelling aspect of the show; here we saw, through the execution of more pedestrian--though no less complex or agile--movement sequences, that this ensemble, like fingers on a hand, is very much the sum of its parts.

P.

Back to the Moon

Last night Richard and I were at the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at SFU Woodward's for a sold-out performance of Robert Lepage's Far Side of the Moon, a co-production with Théâtre la Seizième, who together with the now departed Playhouse first brought the show to Vancouver back in 2003. That was, I believe, Lepage's first visit to the city since he toured here in the 1980s with The Dragon's Trilogy, but he's since been back with The Andersen Project (2005) and, most recently, The Blue Dragon, which was also mounted at SFU Woodward's as part of the Cultural Olympiad in 2010. And if the rumours are true of him buying a condo here, we may be seeing a whole lot more of him.

It was by no means certain that last night's performance would go ahead as scheduled. SFU is in the midst of labour disputes with two separate unions, CUPE (representing staff) and TSSU (representing sessional instructors and TAs), and picketing of the downtown campuses over the weekend had forced the cancellation of at least two performances of Yves Jacques' performances. A campus-wide picket had been called for yesterday. But with Lepage himself taking over the role starting this Tuesday, Michael Boucher, Director of Cultural Programs at SFU Woodward's, and the man most responsible for bringing the show back to Vancouver, was anxious to avoid further disturbances if at all possible. To that end, Ex Machina Producer Michel Bernatchez read a prepared statement from CUPE in advance of the performance indicating that, in fact, no further picketing of SFU Woodward's would take place for the duration of Far Side's run.

This was as much a relief to those of us at the PuSh Festival as it no doubt was to Boucher. For PuSh is a community partner on this production and last night's performance was a special "PuSh night," which in addition to allowing us to secure discounted seats for our loyal Festival patrons, also saw us distributing our 2013 Festival program guides to all members of the audience in advance of their official release throughout the city today. Great publicity for us, and for our own ongoing SFU Woodward's presence, which Executive Director Norman Armour rightly highlighted in his portion of the curtain speech.

And now onto the performance itself. Far Side has always struck me as one of Lepage's more successful solo shows, in part because its images and theatrical conceits are so stunning (a washing machine door that becomes a portal to space), and in part because it is so personal (about the relationship between two brothers, Philippe and André, in the wake of their mother's death, the play was written just after the death of Lepage's own mother). The play was also turned into a very successful film by Lepage, one that, if it--as it seems--remains his last, will stand as an excellent synthesis of several recurring themes in his work (a focus on doubles and Oedipal family dynamics, symbolic use of colour, screens-within-screens, etc.). Indeed, this current production of the play has, if memory serves correctly, been changed to accommodate several new scenes that come directly from the film and, as is increasingly the case with any new Lepage stage production (witness The Blue Dragon), projected credits at the top of the show emphasize the cinematic feel of this piece of theatre.

And yet, for all the various projected film excerpts of the American and Soviet space race and the high-tech mechanics of the set, some of the most effective bits in the play still come when Lepage reverts to the basics of theatre-making, as with the frequent use of puppets, or when he turns a simple prop like an ironing board into a gym bench press in one instance and a scooter in another. In these moments Lepage understands that in the theatre, unlike in the cinema, the audience needs to work with the performer to create the illusion.

Would that Lepage worked just a little bit harder with us to create the same kind of shared emotional intimacy. The man has always been a cool, almost affectless performer. No doubt this anti-spectacular acting style allows the spectacle of his staging to stand out. But in a show like this one--which is, after all, partly about grief--I longed for just a bit more intensity and, dare I say, energy. However, I certainly can't fault Lepage for the effort he puts into the amazing final scene, which combines all the best elements of his theatre into a singularly stunning, almost balletic image.

And speaking of ballet, Lepage will be in conversation with choreographer Crystal Pite at SFU Woodward's this evening, beginning at 5 pm. The two have collaborated on Lepage's staging of the opera of The Tempest, currently on at the Met in New York. Pite's own dance version of the Shakespeare play, The Tempest Replica, opens tomorrow at the Playhouse, the second show in DanceHouse's current season. And, as it happened, I was sitting beside Kidd Pivot dancer Sandra Garcia last night. She graciously let me gush about my admiration for the entire company's work. Which I look forward to immersing myself in once again this Saturday.

P.

Bee in a Bonnet

Last night I braved the hordes of depraved Canucks fans crowding around the open windows and patios of pubs broadcasting Game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals to attend a benefit for Théâtre la Seizième at the Playhouse featuring The Daily Show's Samantha Bee. Turns out la Seizième's Artistic and Managing Director, Craig Holzschuh, went to school with Bee at the University of Ottawa, and was able to convince her to come to Vancouver to talk about her career as "the funniest Canadian woman on American television" in order to raise some funds for Vancouver's resident French-language theatre company. As I'm teaching a course right now on Women and Comedy (and helping to organize an affiliated scholarly workshop on the topic for the beginning of August), I thought it would be a good opportunity for some of my students and I to get a glimpse of the process behind Bee's particular brand of subversive humour.

I have actually only ever watched a few clips from The Daily Show, but I am familiar enough with Jon Stewart's fake news concept to know that its basic premise is divided between Stewart, as anchor, satirically parsing the main headlines of the day or interviewing invited guests, and field correspondents (of whom Bee is "the most senior" on the show) doing more in-depth reports on some of the everyday people behind or affected by various events Stewart and the show's producers deem worthy of comedic ribbing. Last night Bee set up two of her more memorable reports, one on the "gayification" of NASCAR, and the other on the 2008 Republican National Convention, in which, following the news of Bristol Palin's pregnancy, she tried to get various delegates to even utter the word "choice." I don't know which was funnier: the actual audio clips of the reports that aired on the show, or Bee giving us a blow-by-blow of how the reports were put together.

The evening was not structured as a stand-up routine (Bee is trained as an actor), but rather as a conversation between Bee and Holzschuh, with questions taken from the audience at various moments throughout. The format worked well, as Bee is a born comic storyteller, her anecdotes displaying just the right combination of pointed wit and digressive self-deprecation to keep the audience in stitches. And if, as Tina Fey has recently argued in Bossypants, the writer is always queen in comedy, then Bee wears the crown regally. For me, the absolutely funniest part of last night came when Bee read an hilarious excerpt from her book I Know I Am But What Are You?, in which she details how a crazy family vacation to the Maritimes that got tacked on to another couple's honeymoon led to her parents introducing the facts of life to her via an explanation of lesbian sex.

Although it doesn't do the full context of the story justice, here is a YouTube clip of a pregnant Bee reading from the relevant section of the book:

As good a rebuttal as any to the specious claim that women aren't funny.

P.