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September 2010

Wednesday September 8, 2010
Pivot Readings - Jesse Huisken, rob mclennan and Meaghan Strimas

Thursday September 9, 2010
Tear the Curtain! - Jonathon Young and Kevin Kerr

Thursday September 9, 2010
Vigil - Morris Panych

Tuesday September 14, 2010
The Trespassers by Morris Panych - Belfry Theatre

Tuesday September 14, 2010
The Olive Reading Series presents a night with Robert Kroetsch

Friday September 17, 2010
The Refugee Hotel - Passe Muraille

Friday September 24, 2010
David Homel at the Kingston WritersFest

Friday September 24, 2010
Adeena Karasick at the Kingston WritersFest

Sunday September 26, 2010
Carmen Aguirre - Word on the Street

Tuesday September 28, 2010
Ali & Ali: The Deportation Hearings

Back to The Ends of the Earth

Tottering Biped theatre closes is 2010 season this week at Burlington Student Theatre with an energetic production of Morris Panych’s Governor General’s Award-winning play The Ends of the Earth.

This is what reviewer Tom Mackan had to say about the production:

“There’s a lot of content in the play, a risky factor in the world of absurdist theatre. It would be a huge burden to a weaker company. One has especially to commend the two leading actors, whose confident control of the text is absolutely remarkable. Trevor Copp discovers in speech so much fine–tuning and sub–textual riches as to amaze an audience. He is a whole body actor, as convincing in stillness as he is evocative in movement. In Michael Hannigan, the production has a skilled absurdist masked by a convincing façade of realism. He has a sound understanding of what is needed when, and his experience is eminently evident in his timing and action, both of which make his comedy delightful.”

The Ends of the Earth runs from September 2 to 4.

Visit the Tottering Biped Theatre web site for more information.

The Collected Books of Artie Gold Have Arrived!

Who was Artie Gold?

Endre Farkas indicates: “Along with Ken Norris, we were the original poetry editors of Vehicule Press, although he considered himself the ‘disassociate’ editor. He and I ran the Vehicule reading series in the early ’70s. He was the disassociate host and when we started the mimeographed magazine Mouse Eggs, he contributed the name, some poems and his disassociation. And though he was always disassociating, he always believed in poetry as a noble obsession and in supporting the development of a vital and hip poetry scene. 

George Bowering, Canada’s first poet laureate, who knew Artie well, wrote of him: “I knew that he was serious about poetry. He was not interested in getting famous or expressing his uniqueness or preparing himself for a job teaching creative writing. Artie never chased any kind of job very hard. What keeps coming through his poetry is his learning, his engaged reading of the avant garde. Since his first poems Gold has always shown taste.“ 

The Collected Books of Artie Gold includes his eight published books, which arrive as a startling discovery for many readers, presenting a unique and singular voice in Canadian poetry.

Jamie Reid reads from PREZ: Homage to Lester Young

for Jamie & Carol (August 2010) from Lary Bremner on Vimeo.

Jamie Reid is also the author of I. Another. The Space Between

Vancouver Opera presents Lillian Alling

This fall, Vancouver Opera will present the world premiere of its new commissioned opera by Canada’s foremost opera-creation team: composer John Estacio and librettist John Murrell.

In 1927, in the true story and legend, young Lillian Alling arrives in New York City from Russia in desperate search of a man called Jozéf. Penniless, she walks across North America and into the wilds of northwestern BC, following Jozéf’s elusive path. During her brave trek, she is embraced by a Norwegian farming community in North Dakota, incarcerated in Oakalla Prison Farm near Vancouver, and loved by Scotty, a lineman along BC’s “telegraph trail”.

Seeking freedom in the future but bound to a dark past, Lillian’s fierce determination and alluring mystery drive her into danger and forever change the lives of everyone she meets. A cathartic scene on the banks of Skeena River reveals a shocking truth and brings Lillian face to face with destiny. Her story will take you deep into the emotional heart of love and courage.

At $1.6 million, Lillian Alling is the biggest and most expensive production VO has ever taken on. With two hours of music, 14 scenes, 12 principals, a chorus of 36, a 60-piece orchestra, and more than 175 costumes, it’s guaranteed to be well worth taking in.

Lillian Alling has performances on October 16, 19, 21, and 23.

Visit the Vancouver Opera web site for more information.

The Remarkable Emily Carr

This month, the audience at the Chemainus Theatre Festival is in for an educational treat.

The Remarkable Emily Carr traces the artist’s life, very much in her own words, from age 6 to 60. Two actresses share the role of Carr. Ella Simon portrays the artist as a young woman, while Barbara Pollard, a 30-year stage veteran, plays Carr in mid-life and beyond.

A former member of Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Barbara Pollard now lives in Vancouver. She’s one of the original authors of the smash Canadian hit, Mom’s the Word.

Sarah Rodgers, the director, is fresh from winning outstanding director kudos at the Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards for Billy Bishop Goes to War. She appreciates the fact that Susan Shillingford pieced together the play using Carr’s autobiography titled Growing Pains. “What’s unique about this play is that it’s all her own words,” Rodgers said.

The Remarkable Emily Carr runs from August 25th to September 18th.

Visit the Chemainus Theatre Festival web site for more information.

Muthologos is here!

We are pleased to announce that Ralph Maud‘s second edition of Muthologos, a collection of Charles Olson‘s lectures and interviews, is now available.

The revised edition, arriving some thirty years after George Butterick’s first, adds several new items: “At Goddard College, April 1962”; a second Vancouver 1963 discussion, “Duende, Muse, and Angel”; a short addition to the “BBC Interview”; a second “On Black Mountain”; and a further hour of Olson’s conversation with Herb Kenny. In addition, all the available tapes of these talks and interviews have been listened to again, and many of their previous transcription errors have been corrected.

This is a “must-have” item for scholars, critics, and followers of Charles Olson.

Charles Olson reads 'The Librarian' (Mar 1966)

Steve McCaffery reading from Carnival @ Instal 09, Glasgow

Steve McCaffery has been twice nominated for the Governor General’s Award and is the co-author of Rational Geomancy with bpNichol.

On Healing Family

With her play Doc, Sharon Pollock appears to confirm the theory by Marcel Proust that a neurotic makes the best physician, since only this person is attentive and understanding enough to treat himself, and therefore others. However, said physician must suffer from what they are actively trying to cure.

In Making Theatre: A Life of Sharon Pollock, Sherrill Grace has written the story of Pollock’s life from her family roots in New Brunswick through her pioneering years as a Canadian playwright to the present as she continues to make theatre. Pollock’s semi-autobiographical play Doc makes it clear how close to home many of her earlier plays are, as the audience is visited by a version of her own personal “ghost story”.

Pollock makes a rather intriguing remark about the role of reality in fiction:

I always say that the realities of life are the flour and eggs and vanilla a playwright puts into the cake that she’s baking. And when it’s all finished, who can taste the flour and eggs and vanilla anymore? It’s all about the cake itself.

Doc recipient of the Chalmers Canadian Play Award and the Governor General’s Award for Drama, is being revived by Soulpepper in a production that runs from August 19 to September 18.

To purchase tickets, visit the soulpepper web site.

Sharon Pollock has two plays with Talonbooks, Saucy Jack and Walsh.

The Book of Esther

The Book of Esther by Leanna Brodie is currently running at the Blyth Festival. This epic story tackles issues of faith, farming and sexuality with a refreshingly frank approach.

Set in the early 1980s, stoic Seth Dalzell is struggling to hold onto his Century Farm in the rural community of Baker’s Creek. His devoutly evangelical wife, Anthea, is struggling to keep her family intact. Todd is a middle-aged pillar of the gay community, living in Parkdale and providing shelter for homeless youth. And A.D. is a teenage hustler, happiest when he’s raising Cain. What do they all have in common? Esther Dalzell. She is fifteen years old and she has just run away from home.

“This is a play about running away and the overwhelming urge to escape our problems, instead of dealing with them head on,” says Artistic Director Eric Coates. “It tackles some big issues, but it does so in a very balanced way.”

The Book of Esther is Brodie’s second premiere at the Blyth Festival. Her critically acclaimed Schoolhouse premiered as a sold-out hit in 2006.

The Book of Esther plays at the Blyth Festival in repertory until September 4.

If Nothing Was to Happen in Autumn: Something on The Collected Books of Artie Gold

Garry Thomas Morse discovers Gold:

He imbues this particular book with a wonderful nonchalance that tempers the sense of desperation about—what else but the difficulty and often failure of language to serve as a vehicle for our thoughts and emotions, at least not without a great deal of tinkering. Artie Gold leaves behind one poem after another for us, “like a cake placed in a two hour oven / in a building with a bomb, not caring.”

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Terrorism: Today’s ‘Yellow Peril’?

Author Roy Miki studied the official language that stripped his Japanese Canadian family of rights. He sees lessons for today.

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Rational Babblerap with BABA Brinkman

Creator of the first peer-reviewed hip-hop show, Darwin devotee and science celebrant Baba Brinkman is intent on spreading the word, discovers Roger Cox

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Artie Gold - from The Collected Books of Artie Gold

Preview a poem from The Collected Books of Artie Gold (coming this fall).

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