The Penlopiad

My review of the Arts Club's newest production, Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad.

Colleen Wheeler (left) and Meg Roe star in the Penelopiad.

Credit: Supplied

The Penelopiad a powerful new take on an old story

Posted By: Andrea Warner

Love her or hate her, few can argue that Margaret Atwood knows her way around a woman’s words. The female characters in her books pulse with a tangible complexity: They have wit, intelligence and passion. As a writer, she fills the huge gulf between the stereotypical feminine archetypes of Saint and Slut with a nuance that’s often sorely lacking in literature. And now, with the Arts Club's help, Atwood leaps from the page to the stage with The Penelopiad.

A flipside to the Greek myth of Odysseus, it focuses instead on the hero's wife, Penelope (Meg Roe), and her struggles to keep their kingdom afloat during his decades-long Trojan War absence. She chooses the prettiest, youngest women slaves to become her confidants, and it becomes their job to stave off the thug-like men looking to claim the kingdom — and Penelope — as their own. The women succeed, but at a horrific price.

Structured so that it zigs in and out of time, Penelope alternates between recreating scenes from her life and narrating events in the present day from the spirit world (where she’s haunted by her cousin/rival, Helen of Troy and the slaves she failed). The slaves are portrayed by one of the strongest ensemble casts to ever grace a Vancouver stage: Colleen Wheeler and Laara Sadiq are particular standouts, thanks to showy dual performances as Odysseus and Helen of Troy, respectively. Wheeler, who has played a man with great authority before, fluidly transitions between her two roles perfectly with just the slightest adjustments to her mannerisms and movement.

Wheeler also sparks opposite Roe as Odysseus and Penelope’s sexual connection deepens their marriage. Here Roe goes beyond her usual reliably fantastic state and has, arguably, never been better. She’s regal, womanly and her subtle delivery of Atwood’s deadpan observations and poetic phrasing is spot on. She absorbs the pompous surface of Atwood's words in favour of the author's clever and keen observations.

Director Vanessa Porteous, artistic director of Calgary’s Alberta Theatre Projects, makes a stunning Vancouver debut. Confident, creative and insightful. With the exception of a faltering quasi-musical segment in act two, I’ve never felt — or welcomed — the presence of a director more.
The Penelopiad offers what might be one of the most daring, innovative and extraordinary productions in the Art Club’s canon. That, friends, is the ultimate in female empowerment.

The Penelopiad runs to Nov. 20 at Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage, 8pm (Wed-Sat), 7:30pm (Tues). Matinees: Wed, Sat-Sun, 2pm. $29-$65 from 604-687-1644.

If you didn't catch A Beautiful View in Vancouver, head to the Shadbolt in Burnaby and check it out.

Colleen Wheeler (left) and Diane Brown star in Ruby Slippers' production of Daniel MacIvor’s A Beautiful View.

A Beautiful View

Posted By: Andrea Warner

12/11/2009 12:00 AM

With crippling arts cuts looming and a concomitant debate raging about the “worthiness” of arts funding, it’s easy to forget what the fight is all about. Ruby Slippers’ production of Daniel MacIvor’s A Beautiful View is a gratifying reminder of what’s really at stake: Achingly great creativity.

Moving along at a brisk 75 minutes, MacIvor’s nimble script runs the gamut of emotions without ever exhausting the audience, or exploiting his thoughtfully crafted characters. Two women, Linda (the reliably fantastic Colleen Wheeler) and Mitch (a winning Diane Brown), meet at a camping store, end up having an unexpected one-night stand, and spend 20 years tiptoeing around their love for each other, in all its various forms.

It doesn’t sound like much, but MacIvor’s script is so full of life, and so innovatively structured (he also directed), that every moment Linda and Mitch shares feels both familiar and fresh. View begins with the Linda and Mitch standing in front of the audience, seemingly prepared to be judged in some way, and arguing about how they got to this point. They then take us back, remembering their lives together, recreating key moments from the last two decades — from their meet-cute through to the almost-present. Wheeler and Brown address the audience directly, constantly breaking of the fourth wall. It’s a risky device, but it works here and succeeds at wrapping the audience up in Linda and Mitch’s history. (And, not incidentally, highlighting the viewer’s investment in the play’s ultimate question: Will they ever admit they’re in love?)

Spanning, it seems, the early 1980s to the early 2000s, neither Linda or Mitch can fathom owning the “lesbian” label. Fear is View’s third character, a point that MacIvor’s writing brings home eloquently and with dashes of robust humour. The sexual tension between Wheeler and Brown buoys every scene, but never detracts from the fact that we’re also watching two people try to build a life on a shaky foundation of unspoken, almost secret dreams.

Influence

My review of Influence also appears in this week's WE.

STAGE REVIEW: History and fantasy meld beautifully in ‘Influence’

Daniel Arnold and Colleen Wheeler combine literary history and Greek mythology in Influence.

Credit: Supplied

Posted By: Andrea Warner

11/13/2008 12:00 AM

Victoria-based playwright Janet Munsil might be a genius. At first glance, the ideas behind her new play, Influence, seem too numerous and, well, dull — like some strange introductory English Lit class — to result in anything resembling an entertaining two hours of theatre. And yet, in her capably crafty hands, she makes her audience care about the magic of inspiration and art by interweaving Greek mythology, Romantic poet John Keats, and failed painter Benjamin Robert Haydon.

Influence delights in its academics, but takes equal pleasure in blending fact and fiction for a full-bodied re-imagining of a visit by Keats and Haydon to view the Elgin Marbles (ancient Greek statues originally housed in the Parthenon, and the inspiration for Keats’s famous sonnet). There, the pair meet three tempestuous Greek gods — Athena, Apollo, and Hephaestus — who end up battling over Keats’s fate, as well as settling old scores with each other.

This is an impeccably cast production, but a few standouts include Daniel Arnold, who is a joy as Keats. His desperation is palpable (Keats has just quit his job to become a poet), and his delighted awe at Haydon’s artistic passion makes their mentor-protégé relationship entirely believable. Colleen Wheeler is always wonderful, and her Athena is powerful and appropriately intimidating, given that the character is the God of wisdom and war.

But Influence’s greatest asset is Mike Stack as Haydon, imagined here as obnoxious, self-involved, a borderline mad Willy Wonka wielding a paintbrush. Yet Stack keeps the character relatable, allowing the audience to see that for all Haydon’s bravado, his denial is a fragile bubble in which to hide.

This is Influence’s world premiere, and while there likely are still tweaks to be made (it’s about 20 minutes too long), it has all the makings of a new classic.