Vancouver , BC:  I can't remember when last I laughed so hard that I was worried that my shaking would rattle the chairs next to me. It may have been when I first saw The Drowsy Chaperone in New York two years ago. Yeah, sad but true. The stuff that most people find funny doesn't usually get more than a smile from me but for some reason the outrageously-over-the- top Latin Lover, Adolpho, here played by Thom Allison, gets me going. 

Vancouver, BC: Land-line, cell-phone, I-phone, Blackberry - whatever you use to communicate, call the Main Street Theatre Equity Co-op info line at 604-992-2313, and tell them you want to see Glengarry Glen Ross.  Stephen Malloy's tightly directed production of  Mamet's play about a bunch of unscrupulous fast-talking real estate salesmen is especially timely in view of events in the US. As I watched the slick tag-team of has-been Shelly Levene (Bill Dow) and current top-of -his game Richard Roma (Alex Ferguson) bamboozle the timid, elderly Lingk (Patrick Keating), I found myself saying a silent thank you to my wonderful, careful and considerate realtor-friend who helped me in my downsizing phase and didn't try to sell me the Burrard Bridge!

There are times when I wonder if I actually inhabit a parallel universe and it is an alternate me that is seeing  and hearing the folks around me. Either that or I watched so many episodes of Dharma and Greg that I morphed from a Greg-ette into Dharma. You know, put all that "uptightness" into a bubble and just let it float away! So now I smile a lot, don't yell at theTV news or  swear when I read the newspaper, and love my neighbours.

In commenting on a creative work each of us inevitably brings our biases to the evaluation.  I like to acknowledge mine up front - see the About page of Review From The House. But in the interest of fairness, in the same way that  the creative artists  make themselves and their work open to our critical judgement, I  thought it might be appropriate to reprint a Rants, Raves and Reviews column from 2006. It was written in response to reader responses to my reviews of two plays, This is our Youth and Summer of my Amazing Luck.

I was recently invited to dinner at Villa del Lupo, an elegant Italian restaurant in a heritage building on Hamilton.  Although I have dined there several times, it has to be more than ten years since my last visit. It retains the old-world European  ambience with comfortably sized tables, spaced far enough apart  to allow quiet conversation. 

Having recently learned a few culinary terms for Italian, Spanish and Indian dishes, I was delighted to be invited by my friends, Linda  and Brian,  to a Swiss night for racelette and fondue. Their plan was to ply us with food and wine and then have a quiz about all things Swiss. This is an occasion where my "just in time" approach to life let me down.  I forgot my firm resolve, formed when Linda invited me, to cram a Wikipedia post full of Swiss trivia into my brain so I could stun my friends with  my encyclopedic knowledge. In fact, until the moment Linda announced the contest I had forgotten there was to be one. So there I was, totally unprimed with facts, other than its location in Europe, the appearance of the Swiss flag, and the fact that I had actually spent two days in Zurich more than thirty years ago.

One of the exciting aspects of seeing theatre in a versatile, performance space like Performance Works, is that as you enter the space you never quite know what layout to expect. For  Touchstone Theatre's world premiere of Victoria playwright Janet Munsil's play, Influence, set designer David Roberts  has re-created the room of the British Museum in which the collection of statues and metopes known as the Elgin marbles are displayed.  The audience sits corridor style, on either side of a long rectangular space with doric pillars at either end. Displayed on marble stands are large realistic renditions by Heidi Wilkinson, of  some of  the original Greek sculptures, including the Selene horse head from the Parthenon.

As I was working on my review of  Influence, Janet Munsil's new play now on at Performance Works,  I found myself thinking about  another of my favorite courses at UBC;  Professor Lee Johnson's course on Romantic Poetry which I took through distance education. Although as I worked my way through  Wordsworth, Coleridge and Blake to Keats, Shelley and Byron, works by each poet in turn became my favorite of the moment, but ultimately it was Keats that I really identified with.

The Dockside Restaurant in the Granville Island Hotel is really convenient if you are going to see a play at Performance Works, about  1 minute walk from the hotel entrance. We were going to see Influence, a new play by BC writer, Janet Munsil, that was opening at Performance Works, so dinner at Dockside was an excellent choice. Whenever I have been there before it has been quite busy so I made a reservation for 6 pm. We were shown to  a window table with a beautiful view across False Creek. Vancouver is such a spectacular city. 

Shortly after 6, in good time for my reservation,  (see Gillian's Kitchen) I arrived at Cobre Restaurant which features "nuevo latino cucina" (which I hope translates into contemporary Latin American cooking ). I was seated at a nice spacious window table where I could look out onto Powell Street. I was cold and hungry, and my dining companion had called to say she may not get there until 6:30.

I was going to see a new play, The Velvet Edge, at a venue that I had not previously been to, the Chapel Arts Centre on Dunlevy and East Cordova,  about two blocks east of the Firehall Theatre. So casting around for somewhere to eat before the show, I decided to enhance my newly acquired Spanish food vocabulary by eating at Cobre Restaurant in Gastown.  Cobre features "Nuevo Latino Cuisine," contemporary cooking  from Latin America.

Spectral Theatre Society boldly declare in their program that they make "theatre for people that hate theatre. " Hmmm...     I have not seen any of their previous productions so I sought further clarification in the program small print. It said  "To breathe new life into the fetid rotting corpse of live theatre by thrilling and chilling audiences with fantastic stories delivered in unpredictable and innovative ways." Well, okay.  I thought  would perhaps ignore the comment on the state of live theatre - and ask if there was a single phrase that could encapsulate Spectral's niche. I got it - "theatre of the macabre." 

In the evening we were heading out to the Telus Studio Theatre on the Point Grey campus of University of British Columbia to see Billy Bishop Goes To War. So I thought we would check out Gastropod for an early supper. Our reservation was for 5:30 and despite heavy traffic, we got there shortly after 5:30. We were warmly greeted and shown to a nice table, that could comfortably seat four. It was in the elevated section so we could look out over the rest of the restaurant. The impression is of a light, airy and open space.

When you are twenty, if you give any thought at all to death, it  is merely something that happens to old people. In the opening song in Billy Bishop Goes to War, newly minted Cavalry Officer, Billy Bishop (Ryan Beil) and Piano Player et al (Zachary Gray) reflect the naive anticipation of  generations of young men who never made it home to die of old age.

For one who likes going to combine seeing plays and eating out, Granville Island is very convenient, as it has at least six indoor theatre spaces alone, that I can think of, as well as a variety of restaurants appealing to different palates and pockets; and all within a few minutes walk of each other.  The Sandbar Restaurant and the small sushi section down below are two places I often visit. I have found that in the summer it is often advisable to call for a reservation,  but this time, on a rainy Thursday night at 6 pm,  we decided to just walk in and take our chances.