Up on the highway it’s almost blizzard weather. Semi-trucks are jackknifing across the Coquihalla. Here, there is the faintest beginnings of our wind.
Theater Under the Gun was fabulous. Five shows, which only got better as the night went on. I couldn’t breathe for laughter. Theater companies from all over the Lower Mainland are given inspiration packages, each with a sound clip, an image, a quote, and a prop. They’re given fourty-eight hours to create a show, rehearsal, costumes, and all. This is the first time in a few years that I haven’t been personally involved with any of the shows, so I can vouch that usually there is very little sleep involved in the creative process and an awful lot of drinking. The plays created are practically always brilliant comedy. Originality smacking you with the knee-slapping wit of Tanya Harding.
During intermission I made the acquaintance of the little girl sitting next to me. She was done up pretty in a bright pink dress with her feet swinging under her seat. I remember being in the Cultch at her age. Music and films, but very little theatre. My mum wouldn’t have taken me to something like this, my mum brought me to experimental jazz. The girls mother was very kind and all three of us made fast friends. David Bloom was there, but we don’t know what to say to eachother really. I’m like the Theater Widow, with an empty seat at my side. I had better luck with Chris MacGreger and Trevor Found. It was good to see them and catch up a little. I’d almost forgotten that it was their show.
The stage was littered with props while we sat waiting. Tinfoil covered chairs, bowls with whisks and chocolate, and three haridryers on long christmas light strings. We spun stories of what could be coming up next. A boy came up to me then, asking if we knew eachother. Turned out he had been at The One Man Lord Of the Rings months ago. Poor lad had been caught talking to Robin. I was surprised at how few people were in attendance. Not even the floor was filled. There were gaps in the front two rows. It would be a pity and a shame if this were to die. It’s Theater Under The Gun’s seventh year.
The show that came up after intermission fully lived up to it’s weird collection of props. Three sisters dealing with their daddy coming home from prison. Wacky girls, messed up and beautiful, making poisoned pudding to welcome him back. It was stylish work and the use of props was extremely well done. The silver chairs made it a salon where the three lived and worked. They loved their daddy, they put peroxide in the pudding. They put barbital, and bleach, then ate it up themselves. Sweet and dark and bouncy, the perfect essence of the event. I was attacked by flying hair clips and the woman one seat over caught a lab coat in the face.
The last show was stark in contrast but no less funny. The line they had was “I understand what you’re saying but the dancing still confuses me”. Their image was Death climbing a mountain to a meditating man in a loincloth with long hair. They did exactly that, but with lights up to reveal a skinny man with an over the top wig of golden curls reaching almost to his waist. In each hand he has a tiny doll baby. Death groaningly arrives and they begin to argue. In the end, it’s decided that the ascetic will take his place. To illustrate what exactly it is that death does, disco lights suddenly flick on and a description defying dance routine begins to a heavy beat. If there were nightclubs where people would dance like that, I would live there. Toss in a few gags afterward and the traditional ending and it was perfect. The audience was slow on applause for the laughter.
I thought about hanging about a little, but really couldn’t see the point. I slipped backstage to congratulate people on a show well done and then walked out. I had Raven to go to and nothing keeping me at the Cultch but some people who would feel slightly obligated to be my friend. On my way out I fell into step with the boy who talked to me at intermission. Spur of the moment I invite the him and his friend over for tea and they agree. I can only dearly hope I didn’t come across as someone too odd. My house is full of boxes and my room is littered with AV gear, a ferret wandering over everything. They’re both around age 16 but well on their way into theater. Maybe if I was lucky, I talked them out of it.
Raven was fun, if not terribly interesting. A pub night for leather women, everyone seeming to know people but me. Completely what I deserve for showing up to an event for a scene I’m not part of. Once again, I was counting off spanking for people and sitting ni a corner, not really talking with anyone. I got home late, tired enough for the brain to start clicking off. I was glad of the people I did meet, friends and family and one or two new.