Theatre BC North Shore Zone Annual Festival of Plays, Presentation House Theatre, May 4-10. For schedule visit phtheatre.org/show/annual-festival-of-plays.
Theatregoers can revel in the pleasant disguise of illusion as Presentation House Theatre plays host to seven plays in six nights as part of this year’s annual festival of North Shore plays.
The works were written over 70 years and span the brutal tenderness of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie to the brutal brutality espoused in Athena’s Self-Defence for Girls-to-Be.
This year’s festival is an attempt to bring more young people behind the curtain, says Mike Jarvis, chairman of the Theatre BC North Shore Zone Annual Festival of Plays.
“I’m dead, I’ve had it,” the theatre director declares before clutching his chest and approximating a death rattle in a Lonsdale Avenue café.
Jarvis, who is in fine health, is illustrating theatre’s need for an infusion of youthful energy before he and his colleagues take their final bows.
Youth will be served in Seycove Theatre’s May 5 double feature of Remember Me and Give Me a Reason.
Both one-act plays were written, directed by, and starring students.
Kate Condon’s Remember Me follows five teens during one summer that serves as a crossing point between childhood and the rest of their lives.
Sarah Adam’s Give Me a Reason uses a backdrop of survival following a bus crash to explore the lives of teenagers.
The Seycove stalwarts earned rave reviews from Jarvis, who directed a play at the school.
“When I directed that play, I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is going to be awful, all these snotty teenagers giving me the gears and all the rest of it,’” he recalls. “It was an absolute delight.”
The young thespians responded to theatre’s biblical rule, according to the director.
“One thing you have to learn in theatre: the director, his second name is God. When he speaks everybody listens,” Jarvis says.
Many of the Seycove students were more amenable to the director’s notes than “tried and true” actors, according to Jarvis, who launches into an improvised dialogue between actor and director.
“‘What do you mean I’m doing it wrong?’ ‘Well, it looks terrible from where I’m sitting,’ ‘Well, I thought I did it right.’ ‘Shut up!’”
One of the festival’s most intriguing plays is God of Carnage, penned by Yasmina Reza and staged by the North Vancouver Community Players.
With elements of Luis Bunuel and Lord of the Flies, God of Carnage locks four concerned parents in a living room and lets the audience to watch their rather humorous descent into beasts.
Written by North Vancouver karate sensei Michael Doherty, Athena’s Self-Defence for Girls-to-Be features the titular goddess offering fighting tips to female souls who are about to swim through a cosmic cloud toward their births.
The one-act play got its first staging at last year’s Fringe Festival after Doherty offered the only speaking part to Jennifer Huva.
“Not having ever read it even, I said, ‘Yes, sensei, I will do this,” Huva says.
While polishing up his cup of coffee, Jarvis reflects on the difference between an amateur actor and a professional.
“There’s several answers,” he allows. “One is: ‘Well, one’s a waiter,’ and that’s the professional.”
The other difference is that many aspiring film and television actors — talented though they may be — end up with credits like Biker with Monobrow, or Slumber Party Victim #6.
But amateur actors can see their dreams come through, Jarvis maintains.
“You go down to a community theatre and you could play Othello,” he says.
There are 10 other theatrical festivals across British Columbia with the finalists from each zone heading to Kamloops later this year to decide a provincial winner.
