The Hobbit adapted by Kim Selody
from the book by JRR Tolkien.
Directed by Jack Paterson
Carousel Theatre Company
The Waterfront Theatre
April 11 to May 3rd, 2008
Photo credits: Tim Matheson
[img_assist|nid=83|title=The Hobbit - Small Map|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=253|height=170]Vancouver, BC: I don’t know who enjoyed The Hobbit more; I or the very young audience members whose occasionally audible comments revealed how completely they were caught up in the adventures on stage.
Kim Selody’s adaptation of Tolkien’s novel condenses the Tookish adventure of hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, of Hobbiton into an hour and a half of exceedingly entertaining theatre for all ages. At the urging of the wizard, Gandalf (Craig Erickson), Bilbo (Kristian Ayre) hesitantly accompanies the dwarf Thorin (Stefano Giulianetti) and his men, in a quest to the Lonely Mountain, where Smaug (Erickson), the fiery dragon guards the treasures stolen generation before from the dwarf ancestors. As the band of adventurers, intermittently aided by Gandalf, encounter trolls, elves, goblins and spiders, Bilbo finds the courage to rescue his comrades from several potentially deadly situations. On the way to the lakes near Lonely Mountain, Bilbo is separated from the dwarves and encounters Gollum (Tamara McCarthy), a mysterious creature who plays a riddle game with him, falsely promising to show Bilbo the way out of the cave system if he guesses the answers. In Gollum’s lair, Bilbo finds a Ring which has the power to make the wearer invisible. This is the ring which Bilbo’s young relative Frodo later carries on his own quest in Lord of the Rings.
[img_assist|nid=85|title=The View from Above|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=210|height=248]The View from Above by James Long:
Directed by Diane Brown
Performance Works
Ruby Slippers /Theatre la Seizieme
April 12th-27th, 2008
Photo credit:Tim Matheson
Vancouver, BC: It seems fitting that the inaugural review on this site should be the English world premiere of a new Canadian play. And what a play; apocalyptic, uncomfortably thought-provoking, weirdly humorous - but enthralling for 90 minutes without intermission.
The setting: Vancouver, after the 2010 Olympics. Three years of non-stop rain have caused the ground on the mountainside in North Vancouver to slip gradually down the slope, taking multi-million dollar hilltop homes with it. Tom McBeath is Stuart, desperately clinging to his “asset”, taking care of his crazy wife, Marsha (Karin Konoval) and counting the days till his house slides down the mountain side. Kyle Rideout plays Roland, their drug addicted son, who was locked up in the silo with the several hundred other addicts and homeless people removed from the streets of the city centre, and not rescued by Stuart. When Roland and Trish (Donna Soares), a fellow drug addict and mother of Roland’s baby return to the house, Stuart’s tenuous hold on survival is stretched to the limit.
Playwright, Long, and director Brown, who draws powerful performances from the whole cast, make us confront our own morality. Is there anything you absolutely would not eat if you were starving? What price do you put on the life of a junkie? Would you let your son languish for three years in a semi-prison?
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