Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Reason To Subscribe #6: PASSION is Critic's Pick!

THE PASSION PROJECT
Jan 27 - Feb 6

"Theatre Critics' Picks: Curtains Rise on Strong New Works"
Colin Thomas, The Georgia Straight

In this spectacle from New York — presented in Vancouver by Pacific Theatre and the PuSh Festival of the Performing Arts — director Reid Farrington deconstructs Carl Theodor Dreyer’s classic film THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC. Solo actor Shelley Kay interacts with images of film performer Maria Falconetti, which are projected onto parchment screens that hang from ropes and hooks, making moving sculpture. The Draw: The staging. The audience stands for this show, jostling in a small area surrounding the performer like witnesses at the saint’s burning. Target Audience: People who want to experience the best of New York—without paying the airfare.


AND..... Let me encourage you to buy an Everything Pass this season, if only because it entitles you to see any PT show as many times as you want! For PASSION, that means you could book your tickets for a 7:00 performance, experience the astonishing intensity of this 35-minute compression of Dreyer's masterwork, then immediately book your FREE tickets for the 9:00 showing, grab a coffee on Granville with friends to debrief what you've seen, then head back to the theatre for another encounter with Joan of Arc - and stick around after the show to talk with creator Reid Farrington! Now THAT'S an evening of theatre!


One more thing. The 2010 PuSh Festival will also feature a screening of the complete film THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC, featuring the premiere performance of a live score created for the work by Vancouver composer Stefan Smulovitz. The concert/screening will be held at Christ Church Cathedral Thursday, January 28 at 8pm - the night after we open THE PASSION PROJECT on the Pacific Theatre stage. This is an extraordinary opportunity to view this seminal work - often considered the great masterpiece of silent film - through two distinctly modern (post-modern?) lenses.

Man, we live in a great city!

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