TheatreOne's Doubt: A Parable

TheatreOne is finishing its season with John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt: A Parable.

Many will be familiar with Shanley’s film, but this stage version is highly recommended if you have not seen the film, and even more highly recommended if you have.

Doubt introduces us first to Father Flynn (frank Zotter), a charismatic priest who opens with a sermon, and then to strict principal Sister Beauvier (Norma Bowen) and young, idealistic teacher Sister James (Julie McIsaac).

Once insinuations are made about Father Flynn’s attentiveness with certain boys, we also meet one of the boys’ mothers, Mrs. Muller (Monice Peter).

The schoolchildren are off-stage, only sounds and subjects of conversation, and Flynn’s congregation is us, the audience.

Other nuns, other priests, and the busy population of New York City weigh in on the story, but the elegant structure of Shanley’s script means we never need more than these four characters.

This allows four actors the opportunity (and challenge) to keep the audience’s attention, and TheatreOne’s cast has no weakest link.

Instead, the four players offer very effective interpretations that build to be just as impactful as any previous performances.

The production team for TheatreOne has created an elegant, simple set that makes great use of the revolving stage.

A constantly scattered light, like sunlight through trees, throws shadows across parts of the set that would otherwise be plain, and the soft dimming between scenes as the set rotates, through to the final blackout, allow the entire production a hypnotic rhythm that avoids the stop/start awkwardness of amateur shows.

TheatreOne has done a marvellous job working with a script that is unquestionably a modern masterpiece. Even if the production were messy (it’s not), and the actors were lousy (they’re not), Doubt is a play that must be seen on a stage.

Doubt performs nightly at 7:30 in the Malaspina Theatre at VIU until Sunday, April 27. For tickets, call: 250-754-7587.

Originally published in the Nanaimo Daily News and Harbour City Star

What if James Bond was American?

Inspired by BuzzFeed's clever What If "Doctor Who" Was American? column, I decided to consider that other 50-year-strong British franchise.

1. Paul Newman

The one and only original Bond, James Bond. Winning the part over Fleming-favorite Robert Redford, Newman made the role iconic and cemented his career as a leading man for decades to come. The elements that make the Bond films what they are were all established during Newman's tenure including the classic Ford Torino GT and Ernest Borgnine as Q.

2. Warren Beatty

Although he only played Bond in one film, Beatty managed to prove that the franchise didn't have to end with Newman's retirement. And with the tragic death of Tracy Bond (Faye Dunaway), 1969's On the People's Secret Service remains one of the series' most emotional films.

3. James Garner

Originally expected to take over after Newman, James Garner signed up for another season of Maverick and was unable to take the role until 1973's Live and Let Die. Garner's lighter persona proved popular, and he became the longest-running Bond with 7 films between 1973 and 1985.

4. Michael Keaton

Michael Keaton was a return to the darker, more violent Bond films of the Newman era, bringing back the physicality that had been lost with Garner's increasing age. After 1989's Licence to Kill, Keaton decided not to return.

5. Kevin Costner

In a post-Cold War world, Kevin Costner became known as the best Bond since Newman. He saw Bond into the modern era of computers and terrorism in 4 films between 1995 and 2002. Costner's Bond was under the command of the first female M (Meryl Streep), and he was the last Bond to work with Ernest Borgnine's Q before he retired in The World is Not Enough and replaced by Bill Murray.

6. Johnny Depp

For the 21st Bond film it was decided the franchise would reboot with a young Bond at the start of his career in Casino Royale. Skyfall, Depp's third film as Bond, saw a new Q (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a new M (Bryan Cranston), and new Miss Moneypenny (Zoe Saldana) usher in a return to the classics.

THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER

Dinner. Sex. Murder. Dessert. Stabbing. Abuse. Singing. Rape. Cannibalism. Cooking. This is the world of Peter Greenaway’s graphic, rhythmic and haunting film starring Helen Mirren and Michael Gambon.

Albert Spica (future Dumbledore Michael Gambon) returns each night to the same restaurant with his unflappable wife, Georgina (Helen Mirren), and his gang of thugs. He boisterously announces every thought in his head, punctuated by profanity and verbal abuse of everyone around him. Meanwhile, his wife begins an affair with the bookish Michael sitting at a nearby table.

The cook, French chef Richard Borst, is the arbiter of Georgina and Michael’s affair, hiding them in pantries and meat lockers to protect them from her gangster husband. He and his eclectic staff of cooks, dishwashers and servers suffer the brunt of Albert’s verbal abuse, but soon witness the escalating violence that this so-called marriage has brought down on them.

It’s difficult to say which is more unearthly or evocative: the set design or Michael Nyman’s orchestral score. The restaurant, kitchen and loading dock are where 90% of the film takes place, and the vaulted ceilings, broad corridors and colourful lights are like sets out of “Blade Runner” or “Brazil”. At the same time, the music is as epic and overbearing for a climactic fight as it is for the serving of desert.

Extreme elements, from the words and actions of the villain to the alienating score and sweeping movement of the camera, boil over and drown the audience in ways that few films dare to do. The emotional impact of this film could be compared to “Requiem for a Dream” or “A Clockwork Orange”. Extreme adult content in a powerful narrative can leave the right audience stunned and fascinated.

It is likely the film’s X rating that kept it from gaining wider acclaim in the way that Stanley Kubrick’s film have (and this is a very Kubrickian film), and the same can be written for Michael Gambon’s character. Albert Spica may have missed out on the AFI’s Top Villains list, but when he makes appearances on similar lists, he’s at the top.

Viewer discretion is strongly advised.

As published on Examiner.com 

Killing the Point

If there is a purpose to film, a single reason to continue making them, then that has to be their ability to reflect life as we wish to see it. Making a film reflect reality is actually more difficult, as any documentarian will tell you, but the reflection of life as we would like to see it is - in my opinion - far more important. Films can provide dreams to those who would otherwise wollow in pain and poverty, and they can illustrate goals for where we want to go as a society, where the next technological break should come, or just what part of the world we would like to explore if we get the chance to go on vacation. Therefore, I it as a dangerous and horrible pattern how many short films dealing with youth and LGBT issues end in suicide.

There isn't much value in listing all the offenders, but they are not hard to find. In this argument I will look at the prototypical story points of a gay coming-of-age drama:

1. Straight-minded character has a moment of same sex attraction

2. Breaking away from core, "straight" friends the character acts on the attraction

3. No matter what reaction is, it results in the character being "outed" to one or all other characters

4. Distraught and bullied, character is faced with immediate choice

5. Character choses death

First of all, no one North of 2 on the Kinsey scale is completely unaware of same sex attraction until their mid teens. There is a case to be made that films on this subject are rarely able to get younger actors to participate because of child pornography issues, and the age of sexual awakening is usually increased in films as a result. But the dependence on "love at first sight" is an overused trope in this case on par with its overuse in Hollywood romantic comedies.

The next issue with this outline is point 3. The first, secretive sexual act, the kiss in the doorway or under the bleachers or under the freeway overpass, is established as an event that the character does not want anyone to know about. Teens are particularly focused on keeping things secret, from their parents or friends or school authorities, so for this first kiss to immediately result in getting caught is a drastic oversimplification of the lives of teens.

Next, point 4, is the climactic choice. Despite other situations that can preceed it, the choice is usually the same by the end of the film: live or die. This is not an unreasonable choice to wish upon a character at the end of a film since if the final choice was between which colour shirt to wear the next day it would have less immediate urgency for the audience. But the fact that this choice usually comes within hours of the character being outed only shows that the writer believes teens have absolutely no impulse control.

Now, I do remember being a teen and having poor impulse control, but when it comes to a choice of life or death, I know it takes longer than an hour to decide.

But the film ends with the character stepping off a roof, bleeding out behind a locked bathroom door, or any other horrible scenario that is supposed to show the characters who bullied, who disowned, who lashed out that their actions were wrong and they have lead to this. It also shows the audience that life is not worth fighting for, and if you find yourself being ostracized by your family and peers there is nothing you can do so you might as well kill yourself.

This is why I dislike Romeo and Juliet. If Romeo had not been such a drama queen and just waited, thought things through, then Juliet would have woken up and the aweful plan would have actually worked. But it seems, to the mind of the angsty modern dramatist, that Romeo's quick purchase of poison was made rationally, and we get to witness the endless repeatitions.

Ironically, the gay-inversion of Romeo and Juliet, Private Romeo (4 stars), replaces "death" with "expelled from military school". The film actually blends the modern story with an English class reading the play, but the implication is that the real love story does occur and it is just being presented to us with higher language on top. So instead of killing himself over his dead love, Private Romeo "commits suicide" by getting caught with his lover, and they are, we assume, expelled and live happily ever after. To my mind this is the only form of suicide acceptable at the end of a gay teen film.

If the suicide occurs earlier to a supporting character then the film is a legitimate exploration of the effects of suicide, but if it is tagged on as the character's last choice it is a bullshit cop out that disrespects the characters and only manages to affect the questioning teen who finds it on YouTube and becomes just a little bit more discouraged with life. Unacceptable.