Lunchbox Theatre is full of activity lately. They announced their 2011-2012 season, started the Soapbox Speaker Series featuring Mayor Nenshi as the first speaker and the Suncor Energy Stage One Festival of New Work runs from June 10-25, 2011. Luckily, Pamela Halstead, the artistic director for Lunchbox Theatre, was able to get away long enough to answer my 5 Questions plus a BONUS question.

Lunchbox Theatre is the world’s longest running lunchtime theatre, what makes a Lunchbox play?

The key to the most successful shows at Lunchbox Theatre have been local playwrights that have been through the Suncor Energy Stage One Festival so the audience is invested in the development of the play itself and has had input into the content and creation.

Have there ever been any repeats?

There have been a number of repeats though most noteworthy is The Life History of the African Elephant by Clem Martini which then was also made into a film. A number of shows have gone on to production in other places across the country.

Why did Lunchbox Theatre add the new Soapbox Speaker Series and invite Mayor Nenshi as your first speaker?

The Lunchbox Soapbox Series was created to engage the audience in a different sort of dialogue and to bring people into the theatre who may not be aware of who we are and what we are doing. THe Lunchbox Soapbox will also help raise funds for Lunchbox Theatre. Nenshi is a great first speaker because of his public profile and popularity.

If time and space were no object, who would you like to see on the Soapbox next?

A fascinating speaker would be Richard Florida, the author of The Rise of the Creative Class, which looks at why smart communities and smart investors are looking to the arts as the fastest growing new economy.

Is there a play you’re particularly looking forward to for the 2011-2012 season?

I am particularly fond of The Whimsy State or The Principality of Outer Baldonia by AJ Demers which chronicles the real life story of an eccentric Washington lawyer and some fishermen from Yarmouth who declared and island off the coast of NS a sovereign nation in 1948 and ended up declaring war on Russia. Fact is sometimes stranger than fiction!

BONUS: What’s next for Lunchbox Theatre: sandbox, black box, boombox or Xbox?

We are already a black box and if the speaker system is on full it is a boom box of sorts! So perhaps we could be all of the above!!

If you haven’t been to Lunchbox Theatre yet you should try it (there are a few evening show on Fridays and Saturdays). Who would you like to answer 5 Questions next?

Downstage Theatre presents In the Wake, a theatre piece with no props or stage, just four people on a box. Oh, and two people play the chairs on occasion.

Delving into the issue of climate change and its effect on ocean waters, the cast explores every twist and turn of the topic, making sure to demonstrate the political complexities of the problem. Dealing with geo-engineering and eco terrorism, the play features a community off the west coast of Canada that has a dead zone in their waters. An oxygen deprived part of the ocean that isn’t allowing for any wildlife. Showcasing many characters within the community, the story covers different points of view without being preachy, presenting the audience with the ideas and problems surrounding the issue.

The play is physically demanding on the ensemble, as not only does each cast member plays several characters at a time, they also play the props and the set. Each character twists their bodies to be a barnacle for example, or two people come together to be the computer. Dealing with the dark, politically charged subject matter is eased with this comedic aspect. The audience starts to look forward to what they will create next. (The audience favourite was a vespa)

Set to live music, composed and performed by Ethan Cole, In the Wake is a thoughtful, innovative and challenging piece of creative work and is a must see within the High Performance Rodeo.

In the Wake plays it’s last show at High Performance Theatre on Sunday, January 16, 2011 at Lunchbox Theatre. Buy tickets at hprodeo.ca.

This review might be late, but so was her original date…

There’s a question sometimes about the value of a review for a show that only runs for a week. If you’re able to get a review up of opening night, sometimes the cast have not been able to settle in. If you get the review up a few days in, there’s little chance that the review would be able to influence people to see the show. But sometimes you just have to review a show so that it’s documented somewhere, as a valued piece of our shared history.

Rebecca Northan’s Blind Date is a gem, worthy of documentation and its place in this Year’s High Performance Rodeo. Rebecca Northan is gorgeous, aggressive, coy, heartfelt and sexy all rolled into one. It is balls to the wall theatre, with Northan throwing herself to the wolves every night for about an hour and a half or longer.

Sometimes though, Northan plays the wolf.

Blind Date plays out much as a blind date would. Two parties that are unfamiliar with each other sit down over assorted beverages and “see where the night goes”. Northan plays Mimi, our francophone enchantress that is at both times innocent and suggestive. Her date? Her pick. No professional actors as plants in the audience. No rehearsal. Just Mimi and a real someone plucked out of their chair.

The basic platform is simple. There’s a table, service staff that serve drink orders, maybe a few other locations… There is a timeout box, a high stool in a box of light where Northan and her date can step outside of the reality of the date for a breather or a talk with the audience. The date plays out in slightly condensed time, and some set pieces may or may not be used depending on the night and the date.

During the High Performance Rodeo I laughed and guffawed through two date’s of Mimis. They could not have been more different.

Guy 1. I will call him Slick, like the product in the hair. Rides motorbikes for a living. Wears three hundred dollar jeans (what the what?). Likes to go fast. He seems like a study in confidence and corny lines, which seems for the first while to work well with Mimi. All he would have to say is that he was a volunteer fireman and we all could have called it a night. But surprisingly, he draws the line, refusing to kiss our girl…

Guy 2. I will call him msimoens, as that is his twitter alias. He’s the contrast to Slick. Msimoens codes software, is a very lightweight drinker, and doesn’t ride motor bikes. He’s a bundle of nerves at times, noticing often that the heat of the stage lights cannot be escaped by heading over to the time-out box. Although he may not have quite the polished moves of Slick, he still has his own recipe for earnest charm and smiles, which ends in a rather hot make out session on the couch. And then his wife’s best friend called for a time out.

Yeah, it’s like watching a sexy car crash, but it’s such a great voyeuristic time.

Blind Date has enjoyed success across Canada and now has had a fantastic return run in Calgary at the HPR playing to packed houses and lively audiences. It’s a great showcase for Northan’s talents. She is coming off of a strong season, including a run of Blind Date in Toronto for the Worldstage Series and a saucy showing in the 10 Minute Play festival on Ground Zero’s team.

But there’s a larger reason for its appeal beyond Northan’s charm and talent. Blind Date lets us all step outside of our own dating experiences, and pray that buddy up on stage manages to dig himself out of the trap we watched him walk into. We get to pretend that it wasn’t us that missed all those signs that she was telegraphing, or it wasn’t us that had been caught with our fingers in her box…

If Northan decides to stage Blind Date again, we all should give her a chance to find out if there is any chemistry. It could be a beautiful thing.

The High Performance Rodeo presented
Blind Date
Rebecca Northan
January 19-23
Lunchbox Theatre

Nothing new under this sun

But that is in no way a bad thing.

Simply put, Under The Bright Sun is enjoyable, with a generous amount of laughs warmly served up and smartly staged. Having said that, there may not have been any jaw dropping moments of realizations pulled out of the audience. There are no sharp inhales of surprised thrills, or deep nuanced discussions of morals, ethics, perceptions and realities.

Well, there is a little bit of a chat about that last part.

UTBS does a good job in being honest to what it is and not forcing anything where it shouldn’t go. For a one act comedy digestible over a lunch hour, it hits it’s mark and delivers you a fun diversion from your day without bogging you down.

The cast of the show all perform slight caricatures of archetypes that are thrust together at a bus stop.  The characters are all intentionally written slightly flat, while each of the performers are capable of far more, with strong acting chops. Len Harvey destroyed me one night with his work in Mob Hit’s Elizabeth Rex. But UTBS is not a challenge to the skill set of the cast at all. This is not to say it’s a poor acting show, or a poorly acted show, but the characters are driven almost mechanically by conventions and repetition.

A majority of the jokes you can see coming from halfway down the street, but you still hang out to see how they are delivered. The ensemble proves to be bright, taking their time and giving the comedic notes the punch they need. I was a particular fan of Elinor Holt’s work. She has gifted me amazing heart tugging moments with her work with Urban Curvz, and here delivers a very upbeat and lovable performance. Everyone is really huggable in this show to be honest, with the cast rounded out with Karen Johnshon-Diamond’s harder edged whip cracker and Gerald Matthews oddly off-putting chest hair trimmer.

I can’t give away much of the plot, but in the end, we’ve seen this before. Some of the jokes have a bit of a rhythm that is more planned the natural, or even come off as cheap (I like French women, and their chests are fine). The opening of the show tends to take a bit long to get where it’s going, but when it picks up it’s a good ride. It’s fun. It’s bright. It’s a great diversion from the office for an hour.

As one of the Lunchbox staff said to me about the Lunchbox in general, “It’s a perk of working downtown.”. If you need a bit of a lite escape, go use your benefits and check out this show.

Under The Bright Sun runs through November 14th at The Lunchbox Theatre.

Lunchbox Theatre
160 115 9 Avenue SE
403 265 4292

Because the strangers on the bus make me question my existence and purpose sometimes…

Currently running at Lunchbox Theatre is the world premiere of Norm Foster’s Under The Bright Sun. Amnesia of some form confounds four people waiting at a bus stop, leading them to question their lives and love. Running until November 16th, you can check out this lunchtime comedy which seems to have a basis in an all too familiar sensation for some of us.

Or at least for me. I’ve often spent time at the bus questioning my motives for everything, wondering if the person standing beside me is happy with their life, or if I was happy with mine… I asked the cast members of Under The Bright Sun to commiserate about public transit based moments with me. This is what they had to say.

Wil Knoll - Every patron of public transit seems to have that one horror story… Any that you wanted to share?

Elinor Holt – When I was living in Edmonton I regularly encountered the “Juicy Fruit Lady”. Every day I saw her she would eat an entire pack of Juicy Fruit. One stick after another in her mouth until she was smacking with every chew and there was an over powering smell of Juicy Fruit. Also, I once could not get out of the Greyhound bathroom and another passenger on the outside had to calmingly tell me how to get out.

Len Harvey – In Vancouver in the early 90s, after they closed an insane asylum the residents ended up riding the public buses. One lady saw some girls with bright colored hair and just freaked out, yelling at them until they got off the bus…

Karen Johnson-Diamond – Once, when my son was young, we were on the bus and just out of the blue he yelled, “Hey, everybody! Look at my mom’s boob.” Not “boobs”, just one of them. I’m not sure why he did it.

Wil – There was a guy one night that started picking random fights with people on the LRT. Asked me how I wanted to die… *shudder*. Your show discusses people taking stock of their lives. What do you think it is about exposure to strangers, either on the bus or at the stop, which triggers this? Is it the strangers or is it something else?

Len – Once on the bus a young girl took off her over coat and you could clearly see she was a ‘cutter’. I’m not a trained as a social worker but I wanted to help her. I felt helpless. Eventually I realized that if I could just get her into a theatre and she could experience the joy of the theatre things might be better for her, even for just a while.

Karen – On the bus you have nothing better to do it is fun to sit quietly and judge others.

Wil - Did working on this show help identify anything to you that you personally needed to take a look at? Good or bad?

Len – I’ve always been pretty introspective so I think about that kind of stuff regularly.

Elinor - It reinforced that I love my job. I never dreaded coming to rehearsal.

Wil – You’ve never dreaded going to rehearsal? I’m in the wrong line of work at my day job. Speaking of monotony, ever wait an insane amount of time for a bus? What was the thought process there?

Len – Last winter when it was really cold and snowy I remember waiting forever for the bus, and was terrified that if I left to find out what was going on I would miss the bus. That is a terrible, paralyzing feeling.

Karen – I once waited for a bus in the cold for over an hour and eventually had an asthma attack and had to go to the hospital.

Elinor – Not a public transit bus but I grew up on a farm and often had to wait forever for the school bus. The longest I ever had to wait for a bus was two weeks when we were snowed in and the buses couldn’t get through.

Wil – Did the bus ever come?

Len – It did eventually. With lots of angry people on it.

Karen – No. I walked.

Elinor – When the snow melted it did eventually.

Wil – Love that, “eventually”.

So maybe do something different with your lunch and enjoy a comedy set in that odd place that we all have been…. The deep pool of thoughts in your head that can only ever really exist while waiting at the bus stop.

Now I really don’t want to take the bus home…

Under The Bright Sun runs until November 14, 2009.