Thanks to the Books & Culture email newsletter (well worth the free subscription: it's easy to sign up at their website), we've got news about a new cd from Sinéad O'Connor. I was moved by her first couple records (1987 "The Lion & The Cobra," a reference to Psalm 91, and 1990 "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got"), and still treasure her first recording, a haunting song she recorded with The Edge for the soundtrack of a film called THE CAPTIVE. When the storms of controversy she stirred up swamped her and her musical career, I couldn't help wondering if she was suffering from the same mental illness that was devastating a close friend, and while some dismissed the religious themes of her music as a symptom of that sort of mania, I thought about how real religious faith can be attacked by mental afflictions the same way everything else is, that her faith and her God might be just as real as my own, however confused by her apparent illness. Or that her faith is perfectly real, but different from mine - but with enough in common that her music moves me, which is probably the safest place to end up.
All speculation, of course: I hate celebrity-watching, and I'm very nervous about that impulse to justify and buttress one's faith by claiming famous folks as fellow travelers. But the music moved me, and while my friend's (possibly) parallel afflictions made O'Connor's music painful by association, neither was I inclined to write off the musician, her music or her faith.
So now that word is in about THEOLOGY, I'm going to post a whole pile of words here. (I know, I should just link to it all. But sooner or later the links go dead, so I'll play archivist: hey, if a thing's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.) Here's a rundown of what's included in the post, complete with links;
Sinéad O'Connor's Theology and 'Theology': Why you shouldn't be surprised that her new album is mostly passages from the Old Testament
Christianity Today, July 9 2007
Sinead O’Connor talks music, mental illness and men: The doe-eyed young woman who sang Nothing Compares 2 U is now 40 years old, with four children – and as brutally frank as ever
The Times, June 16 2007
Sinead O'Connor's Act of Love: The controversial singer talks about her new album 'Theology' and why she ripped up that photo of Pope John Paul II on TV.
Interview by Dena Ross for beliefnet
(You can listen to streaming audio of "Something Beautiful" and "If You Had A Vineyard" at the beliefnet site)
Sinéad's quiet return: The former pop star is mounting a spiritually informed, low-key comeback.
Orange County Register, Sunday June 24 2007
And since that's already more than enough, I'll just give you the link to a brand new christianmusictoday.com interview - in which the artist makes it perfectly clear that she's no orthodox Christian. But like we've said, that doesn't say the music won't speak.
Songs are also available at O'Connor's MySpace page (though it wouldn't open for me: probably too much traffic) and her official site. And of course there are videos on YouTube.
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Sinéad O'Connor's Theology and 'Theology'
Why you shouldn't be surprised that her new album is mostly passages from the Old Testament
Ted Olsen for Christianity Today, July 9 2007
It has been 15 years since Sinéad O'Connor tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live and said, "Fight the real enemy." So it's little wonder she's tired of talking about it and other provocative things she has done over the years. In fact, she was so tired of it back in 2003 that she quit the music business.
"I was quite disillusioned, and also, I was tired of carrying the weight of the whole 'controversial Sinéad O'Connor' crap," she recently told the London Times (also included in this post). "That's a painful, difficult thing to carry, and I felt I couldn't work without having to deal with that."
Her retirement was short-lived, and now she's out promoting her new album. Which means she's patiently answering more questions about that Saturday Night Live appearance. But this time, the questions make more sense. Her new album, "Theology," is all about God, and almost all of it is based on Scripture.
An act of love
O'Connor once called tearing the pope's photo "a ridiculous act, the gesture of a girl rebel," but in recent interviews she's anything but apologetic about it.
"Sometimes we want to challenge the people we love, and sometimes we want to rattle the bars because we see them going down the drain unless they face particular issues. And they may not want to face those issues; for example, the issue of sexual abuse by priests within the Catholic church," she told Beliefnet (also included in this post). "Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't actually an angry act, although I can see, of course, why people would think it was. It was actually an act of love."
In that same interview, she lamented Catholicism's decline in her native Ireland as "the baby getting thrown out with the bath water."
Is this the revisionism of a 40-year-old woman who has mellowed in the past decade and a half? Damage control for sales of Theology? Probably not.
Two weeks after the show aired, O'Connor went on stage at New York's Madison Square Garden for the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration. She was booed off the stage. Too bad: The Dylan song she was going to sing was "I Believe in You," his psalm about trusting God amid hardship. (She also recorded it for A Very Special Christmas 2.)
Son of Man's woman?
It's tempting to see those actions and conclude that O'Connor is one of those "spiritual but not religious" types. But she doesn't go for that.
"I love religion," she told the Orange County Register (also included in this post. "But I think religion has weaknesses—the chief one being that it doesn't understand that it is not God a lot of the time. … There was a God before religion." (She similarly told Beliefnet, "I adore religion and love it.")
In her music, it's clear that she loves religion. Exactly what religion has not been terribly clear. Take, for example, her 2000 album, Faith and Courage. On "No Man's Woman," she sings:
I got a lovin' man but he's a Spirit.
He never does me harm never treats me bad.
He never takes away all the love he has.
And I'm forgiven—oh!—a million times.
Then, in the clearly autobiographical "Daddy I'm Fine," she identifies herself as a "strong independent pagan woman." On "Emma's Song," she sings, "The great goddess had us blessed." The final track, "Kyrie," is a lovely setting of the liturgical Kyrie eleison in Greek and English ("Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy") overlaid with Rastafarian phrases.
Christian and Rastafarian themes meet again in "The Lamb's Book of Life," a forerunner of many of the themes in Theology:
I bring these blessings with me
A strong heart full of hope and a feeling
That everything in this world would be okay
If people just believed enough in God to pray
But the world thinks that sounds crazy
And that's the thing that makes me sing so sadly
To think that we would leave God so lonely
To think that we would mess up our own destiny.
She means it. "God is underemployed, when there are a lot of problems in the world that could get fixed very quickly if people actually believed in God. I know that sounds very childish," she told Beliefnet. "I do believe a whole lot could be changed if we were to ask God to help. But because of religion, people often don't think there is a God—therefore they don't ask."
So, in Theology, she sets out to "rescue God from religion." At times, her God sounds awfully tragic, as on "Out of the Depths":
You're like a ghost in your own home
Nobody hears U crying all alone
Oh U are the one true really voiceless one
They have their backs turned to you for worship of gold and stone …
It's sad but true how the old saying goes
If God lived on earth people would break his windows.
Then again, the rest of the song is taken straight from Psalm 130:
Out of the depths I cry to U, oh Lord
Don't let my cries for mercy be ignored
If U keep account of sins oh who would stand?
But U have forgiveness in your hands
The rest of the album has selections from Jeremiah, Isaiah, Song of Solomon, Job, 1 Samuel, and Psalms 33, 91, 104, and 137. There's no trace of pagan goddesses on THEOLOGY, and Sinead's Rastafarianism seems not to be the kind that focuses on former Ethiopian king Haile Selassie as God but rather the kind that focuses on the God of the Eastern Orthodox Selassie.
What you won't find on Theology is much about Jesus—or anything from the New Testament, for that matter.
"I wanted it to be on the right side of the line between corny and cool," she told the Associated Press. "When it comes to religious music there is a very fine line between cool and very uncool. … If you start writing songs about the New Testament, you're doomed no matter how you say it; people have such a prejudice about it. If you start writing songs about Jesus you know no one is going to listen to you. Obviously, I do believe in Jesus, but I am not stupid."
Still, Jesus does appear on the album, just not by name, in the second of two cover songs. The first is Curtis Mayfield's "We People Who Are Darker than Blue." The second is Jesus Christ Superstar's "I Don't Know How to Love Him." It's a remarkable inclusion, not only because of its implicit confession, but also because its closing line, "He scares me so," provides a counterbalance to "Out of the Depths," where she sings, "I've heard religion say you're to be feared, but I don't buy into everything I hear."
Jesus, or at least Christian theology, also appears in Theology's first track, "Something Beautiful" — "You give life through blood, blood, blood, blood, blood, oh blood." The song provides a kind of introduction to the rest of the album:
I wanna make something
So lovely for U
'Cause I promised that's what I'd do for U
With the Bible I stole
I know you U forgave my soul
Because such was my need on a chronic Christmas Eve
The song then transitions into several passages from Jeremiah:
They dress the wounds of my poor people
As though they're nothing
Saying 'peace, peace'
When there's no peace
Now can a bride forget her jewels?
Or a maid her ornaments?
Yet my people forgotten me
It's not the kind of thing you hear on a typical Christian album, even one focusing on Scripture. Nor is it the kind of verse you hear taken seriously in liberal pulpits. O'Connor told Christianity Today sister publication Christian Music Today, "I don't think God judges anybody," but her music specifically says otherwise. The songs here are full of both the pain of sin and forgiveness from it.
O'Connor says Jeremiah is her favorite book of the Bible—not usually something said by those who believe God doesn't judge. Still, she knows the message of Jeremiah and the prophets is not "God will hunt you down," but "God is coming for you."
"I hope this record would make someone think that perhaps God is not an angry, punishing, warmaking God and is in fact a gentle and compassionate God who actually is upset at the loss of us," she said.
In the end, because it is so drenched in Scripture, Theology offers anything but a tragic God. It offers an active God who is tearing down kingdoms to bring people to him. He seems to be chasing Sinead O'Connor down, too.
"I adore U … and your journey toward me," she sings.
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Sinead O’Connor talks music, mental illness and men
The doe-eyed young woman who sang Nothing Compares 2 U is now 40 years old, with four children – and as brutally frank as ever
Sheryl Garratt for The Times, June 16 2007
It’s a warm day, and when I arrive at her house in the affluent suburb of Monkstown in Dublin, Sinéad O’Connor is sitting on her front step opposite an icon of the Virgin Mary while some men haul out the equipment she’s been using to record her contribution to the soundtrack of The Water Horse, a children’s film due out at the end of the year. She’s wearing scruffy track pants and a paint-splattered fleece top, her head shaved into a soft crop as it has always been but her face older, more tired – thanks mainly to her four-month-old son Yeshua’s sleep patterns. She’s exhausted, she’ll tell me later, “But I don’t mind. He’s just so cute, smiling at you in the middle of the night. And because he’s the last one, you’ve got to appreciate it all, even if you are tired.”
O’Connor turned 40 this year, and if I needed a reminder of how much time has passed since she shot to global fame with Nothing Compares 2 U in 1990, it comes in the shape of the hefty, pleasant-looking guy with extravagant facial hair sitting in the front garden next to her. At first I think he is one of the roadies taking a break, but then I see his arm is in a cast. I ask him how he hurt it, and he laughs and says it was a skating accident, looking up at me with his mother’s huge blue eyes. At 20, Jake is the oldest of O’Connor’s four children, and lives in an annexe behind the large Victorian house where O’Connor lives with the new baby, three-year-old Shane, and her daughter Róisín, aged 11. The rented house has the lived-in look you’d expect of somewhere that houses two large dogs and three small children, but it’s also clean, comfortable and filled with toys, religious icons and trinkets: a home.
Talking to O’Connor, there are two things you notice immediately. First, there’s a vulnerability, despite her apparent toughness. She may be easy to attack from a distance – and indeed, that seems to be the default setting for most of the media – but as we sit down at a table in a sunny side-room just off the huge kitchen and I watch her fidget nervously with her fingers, my immediate instinct is to protect her, to look after her. The other thing you quickly learn is that she lacks an edit switch, and in an interview the main person you want to protect her from is herself. As always she answers questions with disarming honesty, leaving herself wide open to more of the attacks and criticism she so hates. It’s like watching someone complain they’re hot, while continuing to feed the fire.
“Nobody is telling you, ‘Don’t say this’, or ‘Don’t say that’,” she says at one point, explaining how unprepared she was for the fame that overwhelmed her at the age of 23, then adding more thoughtfully, “And you’d probably tell them to go f*** themselves if they were. You shouldn’t have to be in a situation where you can’t be honest if you want to.”
So she will tell me about the new coil she’s started using to ensure that Yeshua really will be her last child, about various ill-advised affairs, about faith, therapy, shoplifting and her frequent thoughts of suicide. Some of this, to be fair, was in answer to my questions; but when I asked about a line in one of her new songs about stealing a Bible, I was expecting to hear about some childhood folly, not to hear that it happened three years ago, and for her to tell me the location of the shop and the exact date. “My manager is completely freaked out about me telling anyone,” she laughs after finishing the story. “But I don’t give a shit.”
She is about to release a new album, Theology, her first to feature new songs for seven years. In 2003, a year after releasing Sean Nos Nua, an album of traditional Irish songs, she announced she was giving up music completely, and apart from an album of reggae cover versions, recorded over a couple of weeks in Jamaica, she has remained silent. When I ask why, she comes up with a variety of answers: her manager of 12 years, Steve Fargnoli, had just died and she didn’t want to replace him. “I got into the pop thing very young – I was 17 when I signed my deal – and I came to feel that I hadn’t formed an identity of my own. I was quite disillusioned, and also, I was tired of carrying the weight of the whole ‘controversial Sinéad O’Connor’ crap. That’s a painful, difficult thing to carry, and I felt I couldn’t work without having to deal with that. So I decided to just come away from it all. I didn’t have a nanny or any help in the house, I just looked after the kids. It was great!”
She occasionally pondered what to do with the rest of her life. But whenever she talked about getting a “normal, regular job”, her friends just laughed. Everyone but her, it seems, knew she’d come back to music eventually. And she has, but first she needed to find her way through something far darker. Ever since she was 23, she says, she’d had thoughts of suicide.
“I began to have this quiet little voice every now and then – although ‘voice’ is the wrong way to put it. It’s your own thoughts just gone completely skew-whiff: ‘Look at that tree, you might hang yourself on it.’ Until the volume went up so loud that I took myself to hospital. There would be nothing wrong in your life, but you’d think about suicide all the time. It was almost funny. But after Shane was born I was really ill, and I was really worried because I was close to actually doing it. So when he was about about five months old, I took myself to hospital.”
She’d been to hospital before, a couple of times, but says they just left her crying in a bed for a week or so before discharging her. She’d also been to various therapists – including one, in London, whom she saw five times a week for well over a year. But this time she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, or manic depression. O’Connor describes the illness as like having a gaping hole in the centre of her being. She took the drugs she’d been prescribed, she smiles, “And within half an hour it was like cement going over the hole.”
When she gave up music, she got rid of all her instruments. “I never even looked at a guitar, there was nothing in the house.” But straight after leaving the doctor’s office, she bought the piano that now sits in her kitchen. The diagnosis, and then the drugs, gave her back her creativity. It wasn’t all so immediate, she says. Full recovery has taken time, and there have been setbacks: while pregnant with Yeshua she stopped taking the drugs, and afterwards she didn’t go back on them. “I was hoping that perhaps the thing would disappear and I’d be grand, but I wasn’t. So I’ve been back on them now since he was eight weeks.”
It seems to me that her illness could explain much of the behaviour that has got her into trouble over the years. Subsequent revelations have shown she was right to link some elements of the Catholic Church to child abuse, but ripping up a picture of the Pope on live US television probably wasn’t the most career-savvy way to express those concerns, for instance. Yet she isn’t interested in wiping the slate clean. “I don’t want anyone looking at things that Sinéad O’Connor has done – the Pope thing, or any other f***ing thing – and saying that those are the result of being manic depressive, because I don’t believe that. Those are things that I stand by and am proud of and would do again if I had the time over.”
But the suicidal thoughts were part of her illness, she says, and the drugs have taken them away. I point at the tree outside the window. So when you look at that now? She smiles, and it lights up her whole face. “I think, ‘What a gorgeous tree!’” I wonder if she feels angry that so many professionals failed to notice that she was suffering from a treatable medical condition, and she shrugs and says that when she went into therapy she was young, and stupid – and famous, and rich. “I don’t so much get pissed off, I get sad about it.”
What seems clear is that she’s now in a far happier place. She dotes on all of her children, but Yeshua was born with life-threatening pneumonia and spent his first ten days in hospital, making him seem all the more precious. And while there have been conflicts with her children’s four fathers in the past, she says it now works surprisingly well. “We’re all really good friends, everybody is very casual with everybody else.” She doesn’t yet live with Yeshua’s dad, American businessman Frank Bonadio, but they see each other most days and spend weekends together. She says he was a strong support both through their son’s illness and her own, despite carrying on rather public rows with his estranged wife, the singer Mary Coughlan, at the same time.
“He’s got two kids as well; their marriage broke up a couple of years ago, and we don’t want to rush the kids into a family situation,” she explains. “We’re just taking our time. Letting all the kids get to know each other better. Plus we need to actually date and court each other. See, we knew we were going to stay together, so we just figured we’d better have the baby now because I’ll be too old in a few years. So it’ll be lovely to go to sleep with him every night, but it’s also nice not to live together, because you kind of miss each other.”
Over the years, the thing that has perhaps been most misunderstood about O’Connor – or most difficult to understand – is her exploration of spirituality, her search for a connection to a higher power. Since this is the theme of Theology, we talk for a while about growing up Catholic in Ireland, but also about her interest in Judaism and the idea of a more direct relationship with God. When she moved to London in her late teens, she met Rastafarians who read the Bible daily, saw reggae as an expression of their faith and were largely against organised religion. She has also studied Kabbalah, spiritualism, Gregorian chant, Sufi poets, and back in Dublin, enrolled in college to study theology. All of this emerges in the new songs, although the one thing she won’t discuss is her ordination as a priest of the breakaway “Independent Catholic” church in the mid-Nineties – “That’s something that’s mine alone,” she says firmly. But when I ask if she will ever preach, she is horrified. “God no! I don’t believe in preaching.”
If she calls her new album religious music, she explains, it is not because she was trying to convert anyone to her point of view, but because she was striving for the kind of feeling she once got when singing in the church choir as a child. “It’s a very gentle thing. I guess the best way I can describe it is total hippy talk, really. It’s as if you had a big warm belt of air around you. Rock’n’roll music is great, but you’re giving it out. When you’re doing this, you feel like something is actually coming into you, nurturing you.”
There are two versions of the songs, on separate CDs: the Dublin sessions were mainly recorded in a flat she rented close to her house, with O’Connor accompanying herself on acoustic guitar; the London sessions have been given the full studio treatment by R&B pop producer Ron Tom. What unites both versions is that they seem to be coming from a place of peace, rather than anger: they are songs for meditation, for contemplation, making full use of her pure, strong voice. “I wanna make something beautiful for you”, she sings at one point, and though the album is far from perfect, she largely succeeds.
It won’t be a huge hit, and O’Connor doesn’t expect or even want that. She talks happily about promoting it until October, then retiring back to be with her family, to write new songs and plan what might come next. She can do this because this time round she has kept control, financing the recording herself and licensing the album out to record labels in each territory. The music industry is changing radically, and while CD sales in general are plummeting, it has never been easier for an artist to find a niche and make a living by speaking directly to their fans. There’s still a place for her songs of quiet beauty and passion, and perhaps Sinéad O’Connor finally has found a place where she can be at peace.
“I love being 40,” she said when we were talking about her new maturity. “It’s funny because I wasn’t expecting to feel anything about my birthday, I didn’t care about it at all. But you know how people go on about life beginning at 40? That’s how I really felt. I was surprised about that being true. But it really did feel like a new beginning.”
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Sinead O'Connor's Act of Love: The controversial singer talks about her new album 'Theology' and why she ripped up that photo of Pope John Paul II on TV.
Interview by Dena Ross for beliefnet
Long before Britney Spears shaved her head, there was Sinead O'Connor. Like Spears, the Irish-born O'Connor has generated her share of controversy. A Grammy Award-winning singer best known for her hugely popular 1990 hit "Nothing Compares 2 U," O'Connor created a furor when she ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II on "Saturday Night Live" in October 1992. Although she is herself a Catholic, O'Connor declared that John Paul, who died in 2005, was "the real enemy." Since then, although O'Connor has put out a number of records since her breakthrough 1990 album "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got," she has not had enjoyed continued success in the United States. All that may change, however, with her new release, "Theology," a two-CD set consisting of an acoustic and full-band version of 11 songs, most written by O'Connor herself, and based on passages from the Old Testament.
O'Connor recently spoke to Beliefnet about her fascination with the Rastafari movement, the other religions that appeal to her, and the problems she has with Catholicism.
You've had a very interesting faith journey. How do you define your spiritual life now?
Well, I would consider myself Catholic, by birth and by culture and by blood. But I'm extremely inspired by a number of other religious traditions and also extremely inspired by the Rastafari movement.
What do you identify so closely with Rasta?
What I admire and love the idea of is that they see themselves almost as soldiers for God. They have this concept of the idea of rescuing God—from all kinds of situations--and they have a tremendous excitement about God. They use music as a priesthood, and that's very appealing to me. I was interested in them because they were the first people I learned from that God and religion are two different things. I admire them and the idea of God needing to be rescued, from religion, for example.
Are you more of a God person or a religion person?
Well, I would say much more of a God person, but I love religion. I've been studying all kinds of religions since I was a child, literally all my life. I adore religion and love it. Obviously, like anything, it has all sorts of negatives sometimes, as we all do. But, I'm much more of a God person.
Are there any other religions or religious traditions that you embrace?
I wouldn't necessarily say I embrace, but I'm inspired by Hinduism, and Judaism.
What do you like about those traditions?
Well, in the Hindu tradition I love a couple of things. They have a completely different way of thinking than we do on this side of the world. They turn your head upside down when you get into their way of thinking. They have the tradition of yogis— these guys who, through meditation, can transport. That's kind of incredible. Another thing I love about them is that they often portray God as a female energy, and that's obviously interesting to any woman—the idea of the symbols for God's being allowed to be female. Also, the Vedas, their main scriptures, are just so colorful and so dramatic. They're kind of like the Old Testament, but it's all love and peace.
And I love the Sufis for the same reason, because I think they're pretty much the esoteric side of Islam. And the whirling dervishes. They are Sufis, and they have this thing that they call "God the Beloved," and this tradition of the most incredible kind of religious poetry, this kind of ecstatic poetry. My favorite is Hafiz. He writes this poetry about how he's so excited about God that he keeps chucking himself out the window and breaking his nose. They're crazy, ecstatic kinds of guys who are just completely in love with God.
You mentioned that there are positives and negatives with every religion. What do you think are the biggest problems with Catholicism?
The Rastas, interestingly, call Catholicism "Catholischism," which I think is funny, in a way, but it kind of paints a pictureof what's going on. There are roles within [the Catholic Church] which create separation, segregations, which I don't think are helpful for the church and I don't necessarily think are helpful for God. [But] there's a fine line because there's a lot that’s brilliant about the Catholic church. It's a beautiful religion— there's no getting away from that. But I think the boundaries are unclear sometimes, and that sometimes religion doesn't understand that God and religion are two different things.
Sometimes God can be almost a hostage—not just to Catholicism but to other religions—and kept behind these walls of prejudice, which keep God in and keep people out. Sometimes the hierarchies can be, perhaps inadvertently, in a situation where they are dictating to God. And that's contrary to even a three-year-old's knowledge of God. God loves everybody equally. In lots of religions, including Catholicism, there are people who are deemed less entitled to God's love than others. It's bad for business, and I wouldn't like to see the baby getting thrown out with the bath water, which is what I think is happening. Catholicism is really on the decline, certainly in my own country [Ireland].
Almost all of your songs on your new album "Theology" are based on Old Testament scripture, not New Testament. Is there a reason for this?
It's really that I love the Old Testament. Since I was a kid it was my particular area of interest. I love the New Testament also, obviously, but I suppose, from an artistic point of view, if you're going to write songs, the Old Testament is a little more artistic, very poetic, very dramatic, very emotional. It contains within it a whole lot of songs, not only in the Psalms but in some of the books. It's just more conducive to songs.
Is there a part of the Bible that you resonate with most, that you go to for comfort or inspiration?
My love is the books of the prophets. Particularly I love Isaiah and Jeremiah, but Jeremiah would be my favorite, above all. So, I'd read [Jeremiah], and just the language and the place it took me to would make me forget about anything that might be on my mind. It is a beautiful book.
You've said that your new album is "an attempt to create a place of peace in a time of war" and that it was a response to what was happening in the world after 9/11. How did 9/11 personally affect you?
I don't think there was a person on earth who wasn't extremely affected by it, obviously some much more than others. But that day did change the world—everything changed. Now, that act [the massacre] was performed by a small minority of people who claimed to represent a particular theology. And in doing what they did, they very badly misrepresented their religion and their theology, and more importantly, they misrepresented God. Obviously, it doesn't need to be stated that anyone who believes in God would never do such a thing.
And anyone who says they're a Christian doesn't send bombs to kill anyone. The world has become a very frightened and frightening place. The existence of war is proof of the absolute lack of contact with God, and that is something I see as having got a lot worse. We're all affected by what happened on Sept. 11 because all over the world there are countries at risk because of involvement in the war. In the case of the British people and the American people, they can't walk down the street without being frightened, with very good reason, that something dreadful might happen.
In the case of Britain, they've had [the violence]. A bunch of bombs went off [in London in 2005] and killed a lot of people and caused a lot of pain. If [the government of a country wants to go] to war, the people of any country should be asked and polled whether that is what they want, because they're going to be at risk. That's what has happened since Sept. 11--people all over the world have been put into a lot of danger by both sides, by Islam and by Christianity. I suppose musically that's what I'm saying-- that behaving like that, they've both misrepresented their God.
A Christian is supposed to say "What would Jesus do?" Jesus wouldn't be killing anyone and sending bombs on anyone. I do understand, of course, that people have to be protected. But while protection is going on, at the same time there should be Christian negotiations going on to see how can these things be fixed with love.
I suppose all of us are complicit in what's happening if we are doing nothing at all about it. All I can do is make records, and I hope this record would make someone think that perhaps God is not an angry, punishing, warmaking God and is in fact a gentle and compassionate God who actually is upset at the loss of us.
Where do you find God the most?
Everywhere. Everywhere, really. I don't think there's a place God isn't.
Your new song "Something Beautiful," is a prayer to God. What are you praying for?
The song was a prayer to be shown how I could go about making this record. I knew I wanted to make the record, and I knew which scriptures I wanted to use, but I was thinking, "Oh, my God, how am I going to do this? Will I be able to do it." It was really a prayer explaining what I wanted to do and why I wanted to do it and in a way saying, "God, listen, I'm going to do this, but I'm not going to disrespect you or mess you about," and "Here's an example of what I'm going to do. Give me a hand to do the rest."
How do you feel about the current pope, Benedict XVI?
I don't know anything about him, to be honest. I actually couldn't tell you anything about him. I don't watch television because I've got four kids and they have the TV on the the whole time watching kiddie programs until 9 o’clock at night, so I don't get to see much of the world.
When you left the music business for a few years, you said you wanted to rejuvenate and spend time raising your children. How did you rejuvenate? Prayer, meditation, yoga?
Mainly looking after my children. I got rid of all of my instruments. I didn't even keep anything to do with music in the house. That was great--I just forgot all about music. I went to counseling, actually, for a couple of years, and that was great, in terms of just getting to know oneself.
What songs do you resonate with most off the new album?
"Psalm 33."
What about it do you identify with so much?
It's the words. It talks to me about stuff like Sept. 11 and the situation we're living in now: "He frustrates the plans of nations and brings to nothing the designs of people." It's a very magical and powerful scripture.
Do you regret ripping up the photo of Pope John Paul II on "Saturday Night Live" in 1992?
No, I don't. Sometimes when you love a thing, such as the Catholic Church, it's really like a parent. Sometimes we want to challenge the people we love, and sometimes we want to rattle the bars because we see them going down the drain unless they face particular issues. And they may not want to face those issues. For example, the issue of sexual abuse by priests within the Catholic Church.
At the time that I did that, in Ireland—which was the first place where people began to come out and say that [molestation by Catholic priests] had happened, ten years before it happened in the States—the families of the victims were being silenced by the church, and the church wasn't able to face what had happened. Instead of facing it, they were trying to silence everyone.
Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't actually an angry act, although I can see, of course, why people would think it was. It was actually an act of love.
Love for the church?
Well, no. You see, I'm a God person—so an act of love for God, actually. But, also an act of rattling the bars of something that I do love, but I don't love it as much as I love God.
*
Sinéad's quiet return
The former pop star is mounting a spiritually informed, low-key comeback.
Ben Wener, for the Orange County Register, Sunday June 24 2007
Tuesday night, at the tiny, cramped Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles, Sinéad O'Connor gave her first SoCal performance since her brief appearance at 1998's Lilith Fair at the Rose Bowl. It was a loose, subdued affair, the Irish singer-songwriter, flanked by a cellist and a guitarist, starkly delivering thought-provoking songs from "Theology," her new double album that arrives this week.
Half of the release comes from acoustic sessions in Dublin, where she lives. The second half, recorded in London, consists of much of the same material in mild pop arrangements. And all of it, save for nods to Curtis Mayfield and "Jesus Christ Superstar," stems from Old Testament scripture, as filtered through O'Connor's post-Catholic, heavily Rastafarian sensibility.
It won't rocket up the charts like her music once could. Yet "Theology," like its predecessor, "Throw Down Your Arms" (a 2005 tribute to Jamaican artists), nonetheless solidifies the return of one of rock's most potent, if intensely idiosyncratic, voices. Consider it a stepped-up continuation of her quest for spiritual enlightenment through making records, the sort of path one finds Van Morrison, the former Cat Stevens and very few others treading.
O'Connor, you'll recall, burst into global consciousness 20 years ago with her dramatic debut, "The Lion and the Cobra" (an Old Testament-derived title). It instantly aroused critics while, in the press, the unrestrained O'Connor challenged (and alienated) her audiences via honest but controversial remarks. By the early '90s, flush with the success of a No. 1 single (the Prince-penned "Nothing Compares 2 U") and the widely acclaimed album "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got," she was poised to become one of the most influential figures of her generation, an icon who could go beyond mere femme-rock and touch souls in ways Dylan and Morrison had.
Then came infamy: that "Saturday Night Live" appearance in 1992, when she concluded her performance of Bob Marley's "War" by tearing up a picture of the pope while saying "fight the real enemy." O'Connor wisely stopped talking about the incident long ago – in 1997 she labeled it "a ridiculous act, the gesture of a girl rebel." But that and one too many middling albums sent her career spiraling. By the time she was ordained a priest in a radical Catholic offshoot in the late '90s, even ardent fans had stopped caring.
Soon after, O'Connor stopped caring as well, announcing her retirement from music in 2003, with plans to teach religious school to young children.
Yet, quick to change course as she often has been, instead came the rejuvenating "Arms," and now "Theology," which relies heavily on the grippingly hushed feel of O'Connor classics like "Black Boys on Mopeds" and "The Last Day of Our Acquaintance." Both albums, she says, are in part an attempt to inspire people to peacefully protest the Iraq war and, more importantly, "save God from religion." Sample lyric from "Psalm 130 (Out of the Depths)": "It seems to me You're hostage to those rules that have been made by religion and not by You."
I sat down with O'Connor the day before her L.A. gig at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood. It was the first time she had been to California since the death of her locally based manager in 2001. "I arrived back home the morning of Sept. 11. I haven't been here since."
Now 40 and a mother of four, she seems content, and far less humorless. Her hair is still buzz-cut close, with flecks of gray near her temples. Smoking American Spirit cigarettes while lounging barefoot in a flowing, almost Indian outfit, she's still the epitome of androgyny, her beaming eyes and shy smile somehow not quite connected to the manliness she otherwise embodies.
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER: Only a few years ago you had announced your retirement. What prompted that? What changed your mind?
SINÉAD O'CONNOR: I felt unable to carry the weight of the prejudices out there about me. I would see my name in a newspaper somewhere and get labeled this or that, but it wasn't me they were really talking about it. I had to discern my own identity. I came out of it really to spend time just being a regular person, look after my kids full time.
I was actually thinking of getting a real job. I got rid of all my instruments, didn't even keep a guitar. Bought a bungalow. Cooked a lot of meat. Got very fat. And I started to say to my family and friends, "I think I'll get a job." My kids all roared laughing at me. Nobody took me seriously.
OCR: What were you going to do?
SO: Housekeeping. I'm very good at cleaning. It was a bit mad, but there you go. But then my friends started to say to me, "You know, you're completely mental if you think you're not gonna make music. Who the (expletive) are you kidding?"
My father was one of them. He kept saying, "Can you go back and look at the reasons why you wanted to be a singer in the first place? Go back and retrace." And when I did I realized that actually it was religious things that made me want to be a singer. I had been singing in choirs in school. That was when I really first got interested in making this record ("Theology"). I was looking at scripture and thinking I would love to put some of that to music.
So it became apparent that I could get back into music but in an arena that was more suitable to me, 'cause I was really like a square peg in a round hole in the other (pop) one. That arena was something that was feeding upon me, rather than actually feeding me.
OCR: "Throw Down Your Arms" plays like a rebirth.
SO: Yeah, it was a turning point. As I had perceived it, I had left the rock and pop arena and then had wanted to come back in a more … what's the word … "inspirational" arena.
OCR: "Spiritual."
SO: Yeah. I don't necessarily like to use the word "religious" because it can put people off.
OCR: How do you define yourself religiously now – or do you?
SO: No, I wouldn't. Here's the thing: I love religion. I was born into a very religious society, so it's part of my DNA, you know? I admire a lot of different religions. But I think religion has weaknesses – the chief one being that it doesn't understand that it is not God a lot of the time. God and religion are two different things, and the blurring of the two that comes from those in power stems from the fact that they don't seem to know themselves that boundary – that there was a God before religion. There is a God despite religion, if you like.
In a lot of religions, rules and regulations have become kind of like walls. God gets held behind them, and the religious people say when It can come out to love someone, and when It's got to go back in and not love someone – which doesn't make any sense, if you understand that God loves everybody unconditionally.
So consequently a lot of people are rejecting the idea of God at all, or rejecting the idea of any kind of spirituality. They're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, if you like. God is underemployed, when there are a lot of problems in the world that could get fixed very quickly if people actually believed in God. I know that sounds very childish.
OCR: But can belief in God alone change anything?
SO: See, I wouldn't even talk about belief in God being the thing that changes things. Asking is the thing. I do believe a whole lot could be changed if we were to ask God to help. But because of religion, people often don't think there is a God – therefore they don't ask.
OCR: But some would say that those who are creating war, often in the name of God, also ask God for help.
SO: Well, yeah, but you know, to me, those people are (bleeping) completely blaspheming. … I reckon – and I know this is harsh – but I really think it's a crime, and it should be an actual listed crime, for anybody to make war or violence and claim God supports it. A Christian is someone who is supposed to ask themselves at any given time: What would Christ do? Christ wouldn't be bombing people.
Look even at the theology of the Crucifixion, for example. These warmongers say they're Christians. Well, look at Jesus: He knew that the Romans were coming to kill him. But he didn't set out to kill them. He could have gotten all his mates to go around and chop their heads off. But he didn't. These people claim to represent a particular theology they don't even understand. And it's treason of the highest level, because it's bringing God into disrepute.
OCR: How could that change?
SO: Well, I'm just a bug, you know. I'm in no position to know, and I can't do anything really to save the universe or change things greatly. But what I can do is make my own expression of how I feel about it, put forth my response to things, which we all need to do.
I think people need to understand how to protest, you know what I mean? We are all complicit in what's happening with this war because we're not protesting against it. Partly because people are afraid – will people get the (crap) kicked out of them if they do protest? Partly it's because of the contradiction that can enter into it – if you're going to protest against war, there's no point in doing it angrily.
So I think people are frightened – frightened of Bush, frightened of Blair, because they are running their countries almost like police states. When those two guys shift off the face of the Earth, I think people are going to be more likely to feel safe in expressing themselves. But again, we're all complicit in it. None of us have a right to complain about it if we're not doing something about it. And I include myself in this. I'm sure I should be sitting out in the streets as much as anyone else should be.
OCR: Last time we spoke, a decade ago, you mentioned you felt people had begun to see you not through media portrayals but strictly through your music. That owed a lot to you withdrawing from the spotlight. The lack of attention now – does that hamper your ability to have your message heard?
SO: No, I think possibly it can help me reach people even more, because I was the type of person I was while in that (rock) arena. I think I might be taken more seriously, because I'm not a Paris Hilton type. Having said that, I like Paris Hilton. I wouldn't want to get involved in the bitchery that's going on at the moment. I just thought it was disgusting, everybody laughing at her going to jail.
But because I'm perceived – and for once it's an accurate perception – as someone who rejected the pop stardom thing … and I don't think there's anything wrong with that, the pop world. It's probably much more valid to people than what people like me do. At the same time, say if Christina Aguilera made a religious record – people might not take it quite as seriously as something from someone who has actually stood for something other than fame and fortune over the years.
That's also why I stuck to the Old Testament for this album. In terms of religious music, there's a terribly spider-web-thin line between corny and cool, and you've got to try to stay on the right side of the line. You have to be clever about it.
OCR: How?
SO: Well, one way is avoid the New Testament altogether, because unfortunately the J-word is off-putting to people. I do have a massive love of that energy – but I'm not stupid. If you don't want to send people running, you have to be aware of those prejudices.
OCR: But do you really think God can be saved from religion?
SO: I do, actually. I think it's something that's beginning to happen slowly but surely. It may not be obvious to people that that's what's happening.
But the real question is, after God's been saved from religion, can religion be saved from religion?
OCR: Sometimes it takes catastrophe to trigger such changes.
SO: Well, I have a feeling that when Bush and Blair get out of office, there will be massive changes. I think at the moment people feel really powerless, but in some ways there is a growing group who remember that the darkest hour is before the dawn. What we see going on in the world, people aren't going to stand for it, by the time this war is finished. People aren't going to put up with it – unjust war, unprovoked war. People are not going to elect people who are going to make war. I really believe that.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
"Christian Drama Movement Soars!"
Fred Eastman, a playwright and professor at Chicago Theological Seminary, conducted a survey of Protestant churches in the United States to determine the strength of the "Christian drama movement." What he found was staggering. Over one thousand congregations reported active dramatic groups presenting full-length plays in their churches or rented facilities. In Chicago alone, 56 of the 65 leading churces produced a total of over 200 religious plays during the year of the survey.
Before getting too excited about this explosion of arts in the church, keep in mind that the year of the survey was 1929. The movement, which started after World War One, continued to surge during the thirties, diminished during World War Two, and mostly disappeared in the fifties. ("TV killed the church drama star?")
Before getting too excited about this explosion of arts in the church, keep in mind that the year of the survey was 1929. The movement, which started after World War One, continued to surge during the thirties, diminished during World War Two, and mostly disappeared in the fifties. ("TV killed the church drama star?")
Regent Summer: Kuhn COTTON PATCH, Shaw BEAUTY, Jones CONCERT, etc, etc
Lots of great arts events "under the green roof" at Regent Colleget this summer, as always. Check these out! (And almost all of it is free!) PT pals in bold.
July 4 - Aug. 3
Lookout Gallery: Margaret Cottle, Watchwords: Caligraphy Exhibition
Opening reception: Wed., July 4, 4:30 pm with the artist present
Thur., July 5 Lunchtime Concert
Miriam Jones and Jez Carr Jazz Vocals
Thur., July 5
7:30 pm
Cost $10
Bruce Kuhn
Cotton Patch Gospel
Tickets available at the Regent Bookstore
Mon., July 9
Maxine Hancock
Tracing Grace in Life’s Transitions: Life and the Literature of Spiritual Pilgrimage
All lectures are free and held from 8:00-9:30 pm in the Regent College Chapel
Tues., July 10 Lunchtime concert
The Rob Decotes Quartet Jazz
Tues., July 10
7:30pm
The Things That Are: Musical Reflections on God and Creation
An Integrative Project in Arts and Theology
Jill Zimmerman
Thur., July 12 Lunchtime Concert
Evelyn Loewen Celtic Harp
Regent College Tradition Conference 2007 (July 14)
Luci Shaw and Sven Soderlund
The Truth of Beauty & the Beauty of Truth
Thur., July 19 Lunchtime concert
Michael Hart and Spencer Capier Celtic-Blues Roots Music
Thur., July 19
8:00pm
Shorts Film Festival
Motel Depot Directed by Murray Stiller; Starring Craig Erickson
9:14 min, Drama/Comedy
A Well Watered Garden Produced and Directed by Elisa and Matthew Leahy
11:18 min, Documentary
The Hitchhiker Directed by Jason Goode; Produced by John Sullivan and Jason Goode; Based on the play by Kathleen Parsons. Starring Aleks Paunovic and Gina Chiarelli, 13 min, Comedy
Panel to include Dave Rempel and other special guests.
Tues., July 24 Lunchtime concert
Catriona Day Solo Cello
Thur., July 26 Lunchtime concert
John Gilliat and friends Flamenco Guitar
Wed., August 1
Lauren Winner
Autobiography of a Bookworm: Notes from My Reading Life
All lectures are free and held from 8:00-9:30 pm in the Regent College Chapel
Thur., Aug 2 Lunchtime concert
Ahna Phillips, Guitar and Mountain dulcimer
July 4 - Aug. 3
Lookout Gallery: Margaret Cottle, Watchwords: Caligraphy Exhibition
Opening reception: Wed., July 4, 4:30 pm with the artist present
Thur., July 5 Lunchtime Concert
Miriam Jones and Jez Carr Jazz Vocals
Thur., July 5
7:30 pm
Cost $10
Bruce Kuhn
Cotton Patch Gospel
Tickets available at the Regent Bookstore
Mon., July 9
Maxine Hancock
Tracing Grace in Life’s Transitions: Life and the Literature of Spiritual Pilgrimage
All lectures are free and held from 8:00-9:30 pm in the Regent College Chapel
Tues., July 10 Lunchtime concert
The Rob Decotes Quartet Jazz
Tues., July 10
7:30pm
The Things That Are: Musical Reflections on God and Creation
An Integrative Project in Arts and Theology
Jill Zimmerman
Thur., July 12 Lunchtime Concert
Evelyn Loewen Celtic Harp
Regent College Tradition Conference 2007 (July 14)
Luci Shaw and Sven Soderlund
The Truth of Beauty & the Beauty of Truth
Thur., July 19 Lunchtime concert
Michael Hart and Spencer Capier Celtic-Blues Roots Music
Thur., July 19
8:00pm
Shorts Film Festival
Motel Depot Directed by Murray Stiller; Starring Craig Erickson
9:14 min, Drama/Comedy
A Well Watered Garden Produced and Directed by Elisa and Matthew Leahy
11:18 min, Documentary
The Hitchhiker Directed by Jason Goode; Produced by John Sullivan and Jason Goode; Based on the play by Kathleen Parsons. Starring Aleks Paunovic and Gina Chiarelli, 13 min, Comedy
Panel to include Dave Rempel and other special guests.
Tues., July 24 Lunchtime concert
Catriona Day Solo Cello
Thur., July 26 Lunchtime concert
John Gilliat and friends Flamenco Guitar
Wed., August 1
Lauren Winner
Autobiography of a Bookworm: Notes from My Reading Life
All lectures are free and held from 8:00-9:30 pm in the Regent College Chapel
Thur., Aug 2 Lunchtime concert
Ahna Phillips, Guitar and Mountain dulcimer
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Sep 15-30: Accomodation for 12 ANGRY MEN actor?
Tim Dixon was a member of the resident company at Pacific Theatre when we opened our new theatre space in 1994. You'll remember him from COTTON PATCH GOSPEL, TRAVELER IN THE DARK, VOICE OF THE PRAIRIE, HOWARD BUYS A MOTORHOME, TALLEY'S FOLLY and other shows. Just one of the most easy-going, great-to-have-around guys to be part of our company's work.
He's coming out from Alberta in September to act in 12 ANGRY MEN, and is looking for accomodation. Anybody got anything to offer?
Here's his note...
He's coming out from Alberta in September to act in 12 ANGRY MEN, and is looking for accomodation. Anybody got anything to offer?
Here's his note...
Hello all:
Hope you're all enjoying the Canada Day weekend. I certainly am! Just finished listening to Roy Forbes' "Snap Crackle Pop - Roy's Oldies" on CBC Vancouver via the web; great old 78's.
I've been looking into hotel prices in the lower mainland in anticipation of my trip down there Sept. 15-30. The cheapest place I could find is still pretty expensive when multiplied by 15 days, so I'm thinking about other options.
Which brings me to this e-mail. I'm wondering if any or all of you might be willing to put me up for a few of those days. I can bring my own bedding, etc. so all I would need is a room to kip and a shower. I'll be happy to contribute in any way I can - groceries, transportation (I'll be driving down so I'll have my own wheels with me).
If you're unable to help, could I impose on you to please pass on this request to someone who knows me that might? If you also know of any other inexpensive options for accommodation (house-sitting, pet-sitting, churches, etc.), it would be great to hear about those as well.
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide, and if you can't, no worries - I'll still see you in about 2.5 months! ...
Happy C-Day!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Tim Dixon
tim@timdixon.ca
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Ear Food: Garrison Keillor & TAL podcasts
Some ear snacks.
You used to have to pay to listen to Garrison Keillor’s “News From Lake Wobegon” monologues, but lately they’re posted free at iTunes as a subscribable weekly podcast. I love the easter one.
And there’s more free stuff from Anoka’s Golden Boy at Writers Almanac (thanks Spencer), a bite-sized daily helping of poetry, birthday nods to authors and bio bits: I’ve posted a nibble from one of them at the Oblations blog, a beguiling little piece of poesy about the movies by Billy Collins. Also free and subscribeable at the iTunes store.
But the best thing on radio may be "This American Life," which even a Canadian can enjoy. If you don't believe me, check it out for yourself: you can stream the shows for free, or download them for 95 cents an episode at the TAL official website My favourites would include;
"Blame It On Art" (#73)
"Who's Canadian?" (#65)
"Music Lessons" (#104)
"Act V" (#218)
None of those particular episodes are particularly Soul Foodish (except in the most general sense), but there are some fascinating pieces about Christians, toward which the often hip-ironic show seems to maintain a sort of respectful affection. I just don't have any of those episode numbers handy at the moment...
And the new bit is that each new episode is now available for one week only as a free, subscribeable podcast through iTunes.
You used to have to pay to listen to Garrison Keillor’s “News From Lake Wobegon” monologues, but lately they’re posted free at iTunes as a subscribable weekly podcast. I love the easter one.
And there’s more free stuff from Anoka’s Golden Boy at Writers Almanac (thanks Spencer), a bite-sized daily helping of poetry, birthday nods to authors and bio bits: I’ve posted a nibble from one of them at the Oblations blog, a beguiling little piece of poesy about the movies by Billy Collins. Also free and subscribeable at the iTunes store.
But the best thing on radio may be "This American Life," which even a Canadian can enjoy. If you don't believe me, check it out for yourself: you can stream the shows for free, or download them for 95 cents an episode at the TAL official website My favourites would include;
"Blame It On Art" (#73)
"Who's Canadian?" (#65)
"Music Lessons" (#104)
"Act V" (#218)
None of those particular episodes are particularly Soul Foodish (except in the most general sense), but there are some fascinating pieces about Christians, toward which the often hip-ironic show seems to maintain a sort of respectful affection. I just don't have any of those episode numbers handy at the moment...
And the new bit is that each new episode is now available for one week only as a free, subscribeable podcast through iTunes.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
June 29: Miriam Jones at the Wired Monk
Visiting at a friend's a couple months back, I was very taken with a cd he played for me, so he sold it to me on the spot and bought himself a replacement copy. Miriam Brown, "Being Here." Favorite tracks are "Always Been Between" and "I Am One." Recorded in Nashville, Charlie Peacock producing. You can hear a few of the tunes at her website. She's somehow part of the Regent community, though I don't believe she's a full time student there.
My pal just sent me this email: "CBC Radio played one of Miriam Jones' songs yesterday afternoon and informed the listeners that she would be performing at the Wired Monk Friday evening. That's 2610 W. 4th Avenue."
Thanks for the tip!
My pal just sent me this email: "CBC Radio played one of Miriam Jones' songs yesterday afternoon and informed the listeners that she would be performing at the Wired Monk Friday evening. That's 2610 W. 4th Avenue."
Thanks for the tip!
Monday, June 25, 2007
July 19: Regent Filmmakers Show Their Shorts!
Thursday July 19, 2007 - 8-9:30pm
Regent College Mini-shorts Film Festival
Regent College Chapel
An evening viewing three original short films with responses by the filmmakers and film industry experts.
MOTEL DEPOT
Directed by Murray Stiller (currently pursuing an MCS in documentary film)
Starring Craig Erickson
On the road, away from his family, a Bible salesman prays for a sale to save his job.
Drama/Comedy
A WELL WATERED GARDEN
Produced and Directed by Elisa and Matthew Leahy (currently pursuing an MCS in documentary film)
In Vancouver's poorest neighborhood, a small group of gardeners choose to bring life to a desolate urban landscape by reclaiming an abandoned lot.
Documentary
THE HITCHHIKER
Directed byJason Goode (former Regent College student)
Produced by John Sullivan and Jason Goode; Based on the play by Kathleen Parsons
Starring Aleks Paunovic and Gina Chiarelli
A beleaguered hitchhiker discovers that getting a ride from the woman who just pulled over may require more than he'd bargained for.
Comedy
PANELISTS
Byron Lamarque (ONCE UPON A TIME ON THE BEACH Best Direction Short Drama LEO Award, HIDE Toronto International Film Festival)
Dave Rempel (THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, MISS POTTER)
Deb Sears (SUPER-ANON shorts film festival winner)
Regent College Mini-shorts Film Festival
Regent College Chapel
An evening viewing three original short films with responses by the filmmakers and film industry experts.
MOTEL DEPOT
Directed by Murray Stiller (currently pursuing an MCS in documentary film)
Starring Craig Erickson
On the road, away from his family, a Bible salesman prays for a sale to save his job.
Drama/Comedy
A WELL WATERED GARDEN
Produced and Directed by Elisa and Matthew Leahy (currently pursuing an MCS in documentary film)
In Vancouver's poorest neighborhood, a small group of gardeners choose to bring life to a desolate urban landscape by reclaiming an abandoned lot.
Documentary
THE HITCHHIKER
Directed byJason Goode (former Regent College student)
Produced by John Sullivan and Jason Goode; Based on the play by Kathleen Parsons
Starring Aleks Paunovic and Gina Chiarelli
A beleaguered hitchhiker discovers that getting a ride from the woman who just pulled over may require more than he'd bargained for.
Comedy
PANELISTS
Byron Lamarque (ONCE UPON A TIME ON THE BEACH Best Direction Short Drama LEO Award, HIDE Toronto International Film Festival)
Dave Rempel (THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, MISS POTTER)
Deb Sears (SUPER-ANON shorts film festival winner)
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
June 22: Panic Squad on North Shore
Well it rarely occurs so I thought it best to let you know that The Panic Squad has a public performance in the Lower Mainland this Friday. It’s been a busy spring with lots of travel and so it will be nice to perform for familiar BC faces. Here are the details:
Friday June 22, 7:30 at West Vancouver Baptist Church. Tickets are $10 or $25 for a family of 4 and are available at the Sign of the Fish bookstore here in North Vancouver or at the door. All the proceeds from the event are going to help send kids to summer camp who might not otherwise be able to afford it.
Should be a fun night. Hope you can join us.
Scott.
scott campbell
the panic squad improv comedy
www.panicsquad.com
Friday June 22, 7:30 at West Vancouver Baptist Church. Tickets are $10 or $25 for a family of 4 and are available at the Sign of the Fish bookstore here in North Vancouver or at the door. All the proceeds from the event are going to help send kids to summer camp who might not otherwise be able to afford it.
Should be a fun night. Hope you can join us.
Scott.
scott campbell
the panic squad improv comedy
www.panicsquad.com
Thursday, June 14, 2007
June 16: 24-Hour Theatre Festival, Pacific Theatre
Hello all!
We would love to invite you to attend Pacific Theatre's 24hr Theatre
Festival, featuring some of PT's favourite emerging artists! There are five
10 minute plays that are being written, directed, and produced in a period
of 24hrs, to be showcased at 8pm on Saturday, June 16th. Tickets can be
purchased through our box office (604 731 5518) for $10 in advance, or
pay-what-you-can at the door. Please remember that this is only a one night
event with A LOT of participants, so if you would very much like to
guarantee a seat, it would be advisable to pay the $10 and book a ticket in
advance. Thank you!
Kirsty Provan
Apprentice
____________________
Box Office | Pacific Theatre
Pacific Theatre | pacifictheatre.org
1440 West 12th Ave Vancouver, BC V6H 1M8
Charitable Registration: 11891-8556 RR0001
Phone: 604.731.5483 | Fax: 604.733.3880 | Box Office: 604.731.5518
June 16: 24-Hour Theatre, Pacific Theatre
Hello all!
We would love to invite you to attend Pacific Theatre's 24hr Theatre
Festival, featuring some of PT's favourite emerging artists! There are five
10 minute plays that are being written, directed, and produced in a period
of 24hrs, to be showcased at 8pm on Saturday, June 16th. Tickets can be
purchased through our box office (604 731 5518) for $10 in advance, or
pay-what-you-can at the door. Please remember that this is only a one night
event with A LOT of participants, so if you would very much like to
guarantee a seat, it would be advisable to pay the $10 and book a ticket in
advance. Thank you!
Kirsty Provan
Apprentice
____________________
Box Office | Pacific Theatre
Pacific Theatre | pacifictheatre.org
1440 West 12th Ave Vancouver, BC V6H 1M8
Charitable Registration: 11891-8556 RR0001
Phone: 604.731.5483 | Fax: 604.733.3880 | Box Office: 604.731.5518
Saturday, June 09, 2007
June 10: Concert & Benefit for Rwanda
A note from Kathleen Nisbet about a swell concert she'll be playing, for a good cause.
hey folks!
This is a fundraiser I'm playing at for my friend's Mona and Ezra who do great work in Rwanda. They're back in Canada, just had a new baby boy and are heading back to Africa soon. Ezra is a wonderful songwriter and musician, he'll be joined by a few of us Canadians for a great evening of music. Please come out and support!
Kathleen
Kathleen also plays with Viper Central, a bluegrass outfit that'll be part of "Whiskey Hollow Bound" at St James Hall, June 17. Details about the gig at the Rogue Folk Club site. And while you're surfing, check out Kathleen's site.
This is a fundraiser I'm playing at for my friend's Mona and Ezra who do great work in Rwanda. They're back in Canada, just had a new baby boy and are heading back to Africa soon. Ezra is a wonderful songwriter and musician, he'll be joined by a few of us Canadians for a great evening of music. Please come out and support!
Kathleen
Kathleen also plays with Viper Central, a bluegrass outfit that'll be part of "Whiskey Hollow Bound" at St James Hall, June 17. Details about the gig at the Rogue Folk Club site. And while you're surfing, check out Kathleen's site.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Help us find venues for "Fools Tongue" (Luke Ertman)
Hey soulfoodies,
You probably know that Morris Ertman has been my creative partner at Pacific Theatre since the very earliest days, directing so many of Pacific Theatre's most memorable shows. His son Luke is a gifted musician, doing a BMus at U of Alberta. He did the sound design for HUNGRY SEASON and THE QUARREL, and will be lined up to do the same on either THIS WONDERFUL LIFE or THE WOODSMAN next season.
And he has a band. "Fools Tongue." He plays the stick (Bruce Cockburn fans will need no explanation: for others of you, it's sort of a bass with a bunch of extra strings so you can do a whole lot of other stuff, percussive and melodic and all that), the other guy plays guitar. I've heard their demos, am very eager to hear them live.
They're booked for July 19 at The Nelson Cafe in Vancouver. So, all you musoids out there, where else can they play? Can any of you put Luke in touch with folks at, I don't know, The Railway Club, that Arts Club venue, places on Commercial Drive, whatever?
Thanks for any help you can offer.
Ron
*
Here's the note Luke sent me, with links...
Ron,
Not quite sure if you?re able to help with this but it doesn't hurt to ask. My band Fools Tongue is playing a show on July 19 in Vancouver at The Nelson Café. We are currently trying to set up some last minute shows around that date to make the trip out there more worthwhile (and cost effective). I'm e-mailing you in hopes that you may be able to lend a hand and put me in contact with venues, people etc - anything really. I know that this may not be possible but it doesn't hurt to ask. If you need more information or just want to see and hear what is happening with us you can check out our new website.
Thanks so much,
Luke Ertman
Fools Tongue
www.foolstongue.ca
info@foolstongue.ca
You probably know that Morris Ertman has been my creative partner at Pacific Theatre since the very earliest days, directing so many of Pacific Theatre's most memorable shows. His son Luke is a gifted musician, doing a BMus at U of Alberta. He did the sound design for HUNGRY SEASON and THE QUARREL, and will be lined up to do the same on either THIS WONDERFUL LIFE or THE WOODSMAN next season.
And he has a band. "Fools Tongue." He plays the stick (Bruce Cockburn fans will need no explanation: for others of you, it's sort of a bass with a bunch of extra strings so you can do a whole lot of other stuff, percussive and melodic and all that), the other guy plays guitar. I've heard their demos, am very eager to hear them live.
They're booked for July 19 at The Nelson Cafe in Vancouver. So, all you musoids out there, where else can they play? Can any of you put Luke in touch with folks at, I don't know, The Railway Club, that Arts Club venue, places on Commercial Drive, whatever?
Thanks for any help you can offer.
Ron
*
Here's the note Luke sent me, with links...
Not quite sure if you?re able to help with this but it doesn't hurt to ask. My band Fools Tongue is playing a show on July 19 in Vancouver at The Nelson Café. We are currently trying to set up some last minute shows around that date to make the trip out there more worthwhile (and cost effective). I'm e-mailing you in hopes that you may be able to lend a hand and put me in contact with venues, people etc - anything really. I know that this may not be possible but it doesn't hurt to ask. If you need more information or just want to see and hear what is happening with us you can check out our new website.
Thanks so much,
Luke Ertman
Fools Tongue
www.foolstongue.ca
info@foolstongue.ca
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Fieldwork, a novel by Mischa Berlinski
Spencer Capier recommended this one to me and, obedient servant (to Mr Capier) that I am, I bought it quick and read it. He was right.
Here's what Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times had to say;
Here's what Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times had to say;
February 7, 2007
MISCHA Berlinski's first book, "Fieldwork," is that rare thing — an entertainingly readable novel of ideas.
Berlinski's narrative is brilliantly plotted and builds to a shattering but entirely credible conclusion. There's a particular authenticity attached to the settings and to the lives of the Dyalo, though they are a fictional people. [W]hat sets Berlinski's book apart from others like it is its utterly contemporary evocation of a compelling old dichotomy: faith and reason. Martiya, the anthropologist, speaks for that latter tradition, the missionary Walker family for the former. Both make their cases in an entirely American idiom, and it is the great strength of Berlinski's novel that he lets them do so on an intellectually level playing field on which two competing ways of understanding the world and its people contend. Berlinski, however, is too interested in both viewpoints to caricature either, and the result is a genuinely unsentimental empathy that gives his narrative its real propulsive force.
"Fieldwork" is a notable piece of first fiction — at once deeply serious about questions of consequence and refreshingly mindful of traditional storytelling conventions.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Jun 29 to Jul 1: Two night poetry retreat on Bowen Island
Richard Osler sends this. If you think you might be interested, please contact him right away as he needs to determine if there might be enough potential participants to carpe this particular diem.
“Poetry, for me, is a way to converse with my experience of raw, complex reality in the midst of all the rationalizations I use to try to understand it. It is really a response to a call, and a calling out. It is a way of making noise to keep the bears away, of speaking to the deep spirit of cow dung and snotty babies, of arguing with her, singing in the dark, trying to out-shout the yapping, yowling all night-dogs outside my hotel window, calling the light, demanding her ministrations, until finally she comes and I awake, exhausted, nervous, and full of hope, for another day.” David Waltner-Toews.
No longer shy, feet crossed in nervousness, finger nails chewed to the quick, Summer
has arrived, full-bodied, hips swinging as she walks, struts across the long-grassed lawn.
Do I stay here inside peering out or (was that a wink) join her on that promising lawn.
I think I will join Summer out on that lawn! but before I do I wanted to throw out an idea for a different way of welcoming Summer this year.
There is a good chance that Rivendell Retreat Centre (www.rivendellretreat.org) here on Bowen might have enough rooms available for Friday and Saturday night of the July long weekend to make possible a poetry reading and writing retreat. Not just any old retreat but one that could be a feast of community, words and contemplative reflection. Rivendell sits on the top of Cates Hill on Bowen affording a panoramic view of Bowen, Howe Sound and the North Shore Mountains.
Here’s the opportunity. The group that was looking to take up the 12 or so first-class rooms is having a struggle filling them. I have agreed to be the back up if that group cancels. There is a strong liklihood they will.
If I can gather up to 10 of us I think we would have a great chance of grabbing this incredible facility and enjoying a time of great fellowship and poetic exploration.
Weekend Structure. We would start with dinner on Friday and a one and a half hour session on Friday night. Using the words of some of the outstanding poets of the past century as a way to trigger our own thoughts and words we would begin to write.
We would continue this journey through a morning and evening session on Saturday and a final time together on Sunday morning. Retreatants could be on the 12:35 ferry off Bowen. We would prepare our meals together and have lots of down time for writing, walking and great conversations.
Retreat facilitator. That would be me, Richard Osler. I am a poet and semi-retired businessman living and working here on Bowen. I hosted and facilitated a successful weekend retreat at Rivendell among 16 participants this past January. Using poetry as the prod for an exhilarating plunge unto our own words the retreat fished out memorable words, lines and poems for all of to feast on. So much so I would love to do it again! Since that retreat I have led a number of morning workshops at a recovery centre on Bowen, again using poems as way to open others to the great wonder of discovering a conversation with the selves of the self they may have never known was possible.
Cost. As cheap as possible. The cost of the rooms at Rivendell is by way of donation with a suggested range of $20 to $50 per night. Since we will be preparing our own food it should be no more then $100 per person. For those who live close by or on Bowen we will ask one or two people per meal to bring and prepare a meal. Including facilitation and organization fee, food and accommodation the cost should not exceed $250 per person and could be as low as $190 per person. The idea is to make it as low as possible! The return ferry cost to Bowen (car and driver) is $22.40. Foot passenger : $7.10.
Who should come? Anyone who has a pen! Whether you are an accomplished poet or accomplished in the art of living this time will be for you: safe, yet as challenging as you choose, invigorating and life giving.
Who to Contact: Email or phone Richard Osler (osler@shaw.ca) or 604 947 2247.
Response Time. ASAP! Since I only heard about this opportunity on Friday! I would like to get a fast sense as to whether or not there is enough interest at this late date to try and make a go of this!
“Most people…think that writing means writing down ideas, insights, visions. They feel that they must first have something to say before they can put it on paper. For them writing is little more than recording a pre-existent thought. But with this approach true writing is impossible. Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals what is alive…The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know. Thus, writing requires a real act of trust. We have to say to ourselves, ‘I do not yet know what I carry in my heart, but I trust that it will emerge as I write.’ Writing is like giving away the few loaves and fishes one has, trusting that they will multiply in the giving. Once we dare “to give” away on paper the few thoughts that come to us, we start discovering how much is hidden underneath…and gradually come in touch with our own riches.” Henri Noewen
No longer shy, feet crossed in nervousness, finger nails chewed to the quick, Summer
has arrived, full-bodied, hips swinging as she walks, struts across the long-grassed lawn.
Do I stay here inside peering out or (was that a wink) join her on that promising lawn.
I think I will join Summer out on that lawn! but before I do I wanted to throw out an idea for a different way of welcoming Summer this year.
There is a good chance that Rivendell Retreat Centre (www.rivendellretreat.org) here on Bowen might have enough rooms available for Friday and Saturday night of the July long weekend to make possible a poetry reading and writing retreat. Not just any old retreat but one that could be a feast of community, words and contemplative reflection. Rivendell sits on the top of Cates Hill on Bowen affording a panoramic view of Bowen, Howe Sound and the North Shore Mountains.
Here’s the opportunity. The group that was looking to take up the 12 or so first-class rooms is having a struggle filling them. I have agreed to be the back up if that group cancels. There is a strong liklihood they will.
If I can gather up to 10 of us I think we would have a great chance of grabbing this incredible facility and enjoying a time of great fellowship and poetic exploration.
Weekend Structure. We would start with dinner on Friday and a one and a half hour session on Friday night. Using the words of some of the outstanding poets of the past century as a way to trigger our own thoughts and words we would begin to write.
We would continue this journey through a morning and evening session on Saturday and a final time together on Sunday morning. Retreatants could be on the 12:35 ferry off Bowen. We would prepare our meals together and have lots of down time for writing, walking and great conversations.
Retreat facilitator. That would be me, Richard Osler. I am a poet and semi-retired businessman living and working here on Bowen. I hosted and facilitated a successful weekend retreat at Rivendell among 16 participants this past January. Using poetry as the prod for an exhilarating plunge unto our own words the retreat fished out memorable words, lines and poems for all of to feast on. So much so I would love to do it again! Since that retreat I have led a number of morning workshops at a recovery centre on Bowen, again using poems as way to open others to the great wonder of discovering a conversation with the selves of the self they may have never known was possible.
Cost. As cheap as possible. The cost of the rooms at Rivendell is by way of donation with a suggested range of $20 to $50 per night. Since we will be preparing our own food it should be no more then $100 per person. For those who live close by or on Bowen we will ask one or two people per meal to bring and prepare a meal. Including facilitation and organization fee, food and accommodation the cost should not exceed $250 per person and could be as low as $190 per person. The idea is to make it as low as possible! The return ferry cost to Bowen (car and driver) is $22.40. Foot passenger : $7.10.
Who should come? Anyone who has a pen! Whether you are an accomplished poet or accomplished in the art of living this time will be for you: safe, yet as challenging as you choose, invigorating and life giving.
Who to Contact: Email or phone Richard Osler (osler@shaw.ca) or 604 947 2247.
Response Time. ASAP! Since I only heard about this opportunity on Friday! I would like to get a fast sense as to whether or not there is enough interest at this late date to try and make a go of this!
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Jun 30, Jazz Festival: Jim Byrnes & The Sojourners / Blind Boys Of Alabama
Jim Byrnes & The Sojourners / Blind Boys of Alabama
June 30, 7:30
The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts, 777 Homer Street
Ticket information
Jim Byrnes 'House of Refuge'
A local legend in both music and television, blues guitarist/vocalist Jim Byrnes is one of Vancouver’s most respected and beloved entertainers. With the release of Fresh Horses (Black Hen Music) in 2004, a fantastic collaboration between Jim and well-known “strang-sters” Steve Dawson and Jesse Zubot was born. A refreshing project, the ensemble mixed tunes by Neil Young and Bob Dylan with some country blues and original instrumentals. With the recent release of his CD House of Refuge (Black Hen), Jim has come up with arguably the most inspired and soulful project of his career. This is gospel-tinged music filled with deep reverence and passionate expression. Whether it’s the gorgeous Of Whom Shall I Be Afraid (a nod to the 27th Psalm) or the ghostly conjuring of Robert Johnson’s Last Fair Deal Gone Down, Byrnes takes us on a stirring musical journey. With Keith Lowe bass, Elliot Polsky drums, Marcus Mosely, Will Sanders, Ron Small vocals. A double bill with the Blind Boys of Alabama.
The Blind Boys of Alabama
“Call it catharsis, call it testifying…but by whatever name you wish to call it…[it’s] one big, barn-burning, roof-raising, heaven-rocking, jubilation-generating show.”—Chicago Tribune
The Blind Boys of Alabama have spread the spirit and energy of gospel music for over 60 years. These living legends predate Elvis, Little Richard, and Al Green, yet even in their 70s they’re still at the top of the gospel charts and have won four consecutive Grammy Awards (2001–2004). In recent years, the Blind Boys have proven themselves masters of bringing out the most spiritual aspects of mainstream music, while at the same time bringing the music of the church straight to the roadhouse. They’ve recorded moving renditions of songs by everyone from Tom Waits to Prince side by side with their traditional material, and they’ve appeared as guests on record and stage with an equally diverse array of artists, from Peter Gabriel to Ben Harper. Led by founding members Ben Moore and Billy Bowers, this nine-piece vocal powerhouse is set to shiver your timbers and sear your soul with the gospel truth. Amen!
June 30, 7:30
The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts, 777 Homer Street
Ticket information
Jim Byrnes 'House of Refuge'
A local legend in both music and television, blues guitarist/vocalist Jim Byrnes is one of Vancouver’s most respected and beloved entertainers. With the release of Fresh Horses (Black Hen Music) in 2004, a fantastic collaboration between Jim and well-known “strang-sters” Steve Dawson and Jesse Zubot was born. A refreshing project, the ensemble mixed tunes by Neil Young and Bob Dylan with some country blues and original instrumentals. With the recent release of his CD House of Refuge (Black Hen), Jim has come up with arguably the most inspired and soulful project of his career. This is gospel-tinged music filled with deep reverence and passionate expression. Whether it’s the gorgeous Of Whom Shall I Be Afraid (a nod to the 27th Psalm) or the ghostly conjuring of Robert Johnson’s Last Fair Deal Gone Down, Byrnes takes us on a stirring musical journey. With Keith Lowe bass, Elliot Polsky drums, Marcus Mosely, Will Sanders, Ron Small vocals. A double bill with the Blind Boys of Alabama.
The Blind Boys of Alabama
“Call it catharsis, call it testifying…but by whatever name you wish to call it…[it’s] one big, barn-burning, roof-raising, heaven-rocking, jubilation-generating show.”—Chicago Tribune
The Blind Boys of Alabama have spread the spirit and energy of gospel music for over 60 years. These living legends predate Elvis, Little Richard, and Al Green, yet even in their 70s they’re still at the top of the gospel charts and have won four consecutive Grammy Awards (2001–2004). In recent years, the Blind Boys have proven themselves masters of bringing out the most spiritual aspects of mainstream music, while at the same time bringing the music of the church straight to the roadhouse. They’ve recorded moving renditions of songs by everyone from Tom Waits to Prince side by side with their traditional material, and they’ve appeared as guests on record and stage with an equally diverse array of artists, from Peter Gabriel to Ben Harper. Led by founding members Ben Moore and Billy Bowers, this nine-piece vocal powerhouse is set to shiver your timbers and sear your soul with the gospel truth. Amen!
Saturday, June 02, 2007
REMNANTS: Bits and pieces
Hey Ron!
Just in from seeing Remnants this evening with a very dear friend. Wow. Fabulous production. Fascinating layering of stories, brilliantly woven together. Interesting cross gender play - or ignorance of gender! And loved having a woman of colour play King. Brilliant. One of my all time favourite PT productions. Well....there are so many favourites!
Kudos.
Laurie
*
Just thought I should tell you how impressed I am with Remnants. The production really comes together with strong acting, beautiful lighting and a killer script. I frequently found myself in that ideal theatregoing position of thinking "Wow, OK what happens next?" And even with all the cross-gender casting, everyone seemed very well suited to their roles.
Very powerful, affecting stuff.
Kudos,
Adam Bergquist
Just in from seeing Remnants this evening with a very dear friend. Wow. Fabulous production. Fascinating layering of stories, brilliantly woven together. Interesting cross gender play - or ignorance of gender! And loved having a woman of colour play King. Brilliant. One of my all time favourite PT productions. Well....there are so many favourites!
Kudos.
Laurie
*
Just thought I should tell you how impressed I am with Remnants. The production really comes together with strong acting, beautiful lighting and a killer script. I frequently found myself in that ideal theatregoing position of thinking "Wow, OK what happens next?" And even with all the cross-gender casting, everyone seemed very well suited to their roles.
Very powerful, affecting stuff.
Kudos,
Adam Bergquist
Thursday, May 31, 2007
May 31 Soul Food: REMNANTS, IDIOTS, Hart and Soul Food Movies
REMNANTS (A FABLE) at Pacific Theatre
Must close June 9
The problem with putting your heart and soul into creating a piece of theatre is that there may not be enough of either left over to also get around to letting people know about the darn thing! As you may have noticed, Soul Food has been quiet lately while the head chef was off in pre-Holocaust Poland and Depression-era Canada, deep in rehearsals for REMNANTS (A FABLE) which runs this week and next at Pacific Theatre. Very proud of this epic story that brilliantly interweaves the biblical tale of Joseph and his brothers with Canada's little-known history of anti-Semitism in what is ultimately the journey of a human soul toward hard-won reconciliation.
I've posted further details (and excerpts from a glowing Vancouver Sun review) at the Soul Food Vancouver blog, and over at the Pacific Theatre blog you'll find a Langley Times profile of a couple of our Emerging Artists. I'll likely add more bits and pieces over the next week or so.
(Oh, and did you know? Pacific Theatre led the Small Theatre category in 2007 with eight Jessie Richardson Award nominations, including a heap for GRACE.)
VILLAGE OF IDIOTS at Gallery 7
Jun 1-16
I always think of Abbotsford's Gallery 7 Theatre as something of a community theatre counterpart to Pacific Theatre. This weekend they open a show that's sort of a comic counterpart to PT's production of REMNANTS (minus the Joseph part): both works are by acclaimed Canadian playwrights, and deal with the persecution of Jews in eastern Europe in the early part of the 20th century. (But REMNANTS closes a week earlier, so you know which one you need to see first....) Details here.
MICHAEL HART CONCERTS
Jun 9: Nanaimo
Jul 19: Regent College (with Spencer Capier)
Upcoming opportunities to hear Michael, as well as a free downloadable instrumental mp3: details here.
SOUL FOOD MOVIES
Pacific Cinematheque brings us three certified Soul Food Movie masterpieces as part of their retrospective on arthouse distributor Janus Films: SEVENTH SEAL, DAY OF WRATH and WILD STRAWBERRIES are neatly clustered from June 15-18, details here. There's not a lot on regular screens right now with a distintly spiritual flavour, but I've got some tips at the Soul Food Movies blog about a handful of other films that are worth seeing, in amongst the requisite summer blockbusters and sequels of sequels.
Must close June 9
The problem with putting your heart and soul into creating a piece of theatre is that there may not be enough of either left over to also get around to letting people know about the darn thing! As you may have noticed, Soul Food has been quiet lately while the head chef was off in pre-Holocaust Poland and Depression-era Canada, deep in rehearsals for REMNANTS (A FABLE) which runs this week and next at Pacific Theatre. Very proud of this epic story that brilliantly interweaves the biblical tale of Joseph and his brothers with Canada's little-known history of anti-Semitism in what is ultimately the journey of a human soul toward hard-won reconciliation.
I've posted further details (and excerpts from a glowing Vancouver Sun review) at the Soul Food Vancouver blog, and over at the Pacific Theatre blog you'll find a Langley Times profile of a couple of our Emerging Artists. I'll likely add more bits and pieces over the next week or so.
(Oh, and did you know? Pacific Theatre led the Small Theatre category in 2007 with eight Jessie Richardson Award nominations, including a heap for GRACE.)
VILLAGE OF IDIOTS at Gallery 7
Jun 1-16
I always think of Abbotsford's Gallery 7 Theatre as something of a community theatre counterpart to Pacific Theatre. This weekend they open a show that's sort of a comic counterpart to PT's production of REMNANTS (minus the Joseph part): both works are by acclaimed Canadian playwrights, and deal with the persecution of Jews in eastern Europe in the early part of the 20th century. (But REMNANTS closes a week earlier, so you know which one you need to see first....) Details here.
MICHAEL HART CONCERTS
Jun 9: Nanaimo
Jul 19: Regent College (with Spencer Capier)
Upcoming opportunities to hear Michael, as well as a free downloadable instrumental mp3: details here.
SOUL FOOD MOVIES
Pacific Cinematheque brings us three certified Soul Food Movie masterpieces as part of their retrospective on arthouse distributor Janus Films: SEVENTH SEAL, DAY OF WRATH and WILD STRAWBERRIES are neatly clustered from June 15-18, details here. There's not a lot on regular screens right now with a distintly spiritual flavour, but I've got some tips at the Soul Food Movies blog about a handful of other films that are worth seeing, in amongst the requisite summer blockbusters and sequels of sequels.
June 1-16: Village Of Idiots at Gallery 7
Gallery 7 Theatre & Performing Arts Society presents
Village of Idiots
by John Lazarus
June 1 & 2, 7–9, 14–16 @ 7:30 PM
Discount Matinees: June 2 & 9 @ 2:00 PM
MEI Secondary School Theatre
4081 Clearbrook Road, Abbotsford
Tickets - House of James: 604-852-3701
Journey to the Village of Idiots for a Theatrical Adventure
Which is better – to have all the street smarts in the world or to love with all the innocence of a child? Such is the unique question raised in Gallery 7’s final production of the 2006/2007 theatre season, Village of Idiots, written by Canadian playwright, John Lazarus.
A witty and charming theatre experience suitable for the entire family, Village of Idiots tells the story of a young Russian Army deserter named Yosef who stumbles into the Polish town of Chelm, also known as the legendary Village of Idiots. Concerned that the hamlet will be run-over by Russian invaders if the townsfolk don’t wise up to the ways of the outside world, Yosef attempts to help the seemingly apathetic village prepare for the worst.
Old habits are hard to break, however, and Yosef soon discovers that the inhabitants of Chelm operate at a completely different social and intellectual level, one that appears inherently backwards and infinitely ridiculous. The villagers, possessing a passionate but child-like vision of the cosmos, seem more concerned with local municipal matters such as how not to walk on the first snow of winter, how to protect the synagogue collection box from thieves by hanging it from the ceiling and how to sell borscht to the next door village by dumping it in to the river upstream.
While overseeing the rebuilding the town synagogue, Yosef rubs shoulders with an eclectic and colorful community of people. He meets the local woman’s firefighting auxiliary team, a strange traveler who arrived from another, but strangely similar town of Chelm and a husband and wife team who earn a living by selling Schnapps to each other. Only after spending nearly a year in town does Yosef begin to discover that the villagers’ outward appearance of ignorance and backwards wisdom actually reveals a deeper truth regarding the value of a loving and caring community and the importance of child-like innocence and simplicity.
Village of Idiots was first commissioned by the Young People’s Theatre of Ontario and received its first production in 1985. Since then, the play has been performed on numerous professional, college and community stages through-out the country. The play is based on a beloved tradition of Jewish story-telling as found in such books as The Wise Men of Helm and their Merry Tales by Solomon Simon and other anthologies.
Playing the role of the deserting Russian soldier, Yosef, is J.D. Dueckman, whose previous performances include Beau Jest for Gallery 7 and The Taming of the Shrew for UCFV Theatre. Caszie Schoeber, who last appeared on the Gallery 7 stage in Little Women, plays the skeptical yet empathetic Miriam. Rounding out the cast is a talented crew of both new and veteran Gallery 7 performers including Andrew Abrahams, Julie Brooks, John Dawson, Quentin Flokstra, Patrick Jolicoeur, Heather Muth, Dave Peters, Richard Toots and Stephanie Roukema.
Directing Village of Idiots is Gallery 7 newcomer, Robyn Roukema. Roukema recently graduated from Trinity Western University with a degree in drama and is supported by an equally talented team of designers. Set design for Village of Idiots is by UCFV Theatre Department wardrobe manager, Heather Robertson. Costume design is by Dani Rebain, lighting design is by Lora-Lynne Frewing and sound design is by Rick Havinga. Stage management is provided by Jenn Wittrup.
For more information about Gallery 7 Theatre, please visit their website
Village of Idiots
by John Lazarus
June 1 & 2, 7–9, 14–16 @ 7:30 PM
Discount Matinees: June 2 & 9 @ 2:00 PM
MEI Secondary School Theatre
4081 Clearbrook Road, Abbotsford
Tickets - House of James: 604-852-3701
Journey to the Village of Idiots for a Theatrical Adventure
Which is better – to have all the street smarts in the world or to love with all the innocence of a child? Such is the unique question raised in Gallery 7’s final production of the 2006/2007 theatre season, Village of Idiots, written by Canadian playwright, John Lazarus.
A witty and charming theatre experience suitable for the entire family, Village of Idiots tells the story of a young Russian Army deserter named Yosef who stumbles into the Polish town of Chelm, also known as the legendary Village of Idiots. Concerned that the hamlet will be run-over by Russian invaders if the townsfolk don’t wise up to the ways of the outside world, Yosef attempts to help the seemingly apathetic village prepare for the worst.
Old habits are hard to break, however, and Yosef soon discovers that the inhabitants of Chelm operate at a completely different social and intellectual level, one that appears inherently backwards and infinitely ridiculous. The villagers, possessing a passionate but child-like vision of the cosmos, seem more concerned with local municipal matters such as how not to walk on the first snow of winter, how to protect the synagogue collection box from thieves by hanging it from the ceiling and how to sell borscht to the next door village by dumping it in to the river upstream.
While overseeing the rebuilding the town synagogue, Yosef rubs shoulders with an eclectic and colorful community of people. He meets the local woman’s firefighting auxiliary team, a strange traveler who arrived from another, but strangely similar town of Chelm and a husband and wife team who earn a living by selling Schnapps to each other. Only after spending nearly a year in town does Yosef begin to discover that the villagers’ outward appearance of ignorance and backwards wisdom actually reveals a deeper truth regarding the value of a loving and caring community and the importance of child-like innocence and simplicity.
Village of Idiots was first commissioned by the Young People’s Theatre of Ontario and received its first production in 1985. Since then, the play has been performed on numerous professional, college and community stages through-out the country. The play is based on a beloved tradition of Jewish story-telling as found in such books as The Wise Men of Helm and their Merry Tales by Solomon Simon and other anthologies.
Playing the role of the deserting Russian soldier, Yosef, is J.D. Dueckman, whose previous performances include Beau Jest for Gallery 7 and The Taming of the Shrew for UCFV Theatre. Caszie Schoeber, who last appeared on the Gallery 7 stage in Little Women, plays the skeptical yet empathetic Miriam. Rounding out the cast is a talented crew of both new and veteran Gallery 7 performers including Andrew Abrahams, Julie Brooks, John Dawson, Quentin Flokstra, Patrick Jolicoeur, Heather Muth, Dave Peters, Richard Toots and Stephanie Roukema.
Directing Village of Idiots is Gallery 7 newcomer, Robyn Roukema. Roukema recently graduated from Trinity Western University with a degree in drama and is supported by an equally talented team of designers. Set design for Village of Idiots is by UCFV Theatre Department wardrobe manager, Heather Robertson. Costume design is by Dani Rebain, lighting design is by Lora-Lynne Frewing and sound design is by Rick Havinga. Stage management is provided by Jenn Wittrup.
For more information about Gallery 7 Theatre, please visit their website
Jun 9 / Jul 19: Michael Hart concerts - Nanaimo, Regent College
Michael Hart is well-known to all of us Soul Food types: he's a mainstay at Pacific Theatre's CHRISTMAS PRESENCE, as well as other of our anthology evenings like PASSION, TESTIMONY and CONFESSIONS. And lots of us are fans of the string of celebrated recordings he's crafted over the years - the title track of his most recent, "Desire," is one of the most memorable new tunes I've heard in recent years, a gorgeous piece of writing, with maybe a tip of the musical hat to Neil Young tune like "Harvest Moon"? Just beautiful. That cd was recently named "independent album of the year" in England's "Never For Nothing" webzine, and the title track nominated Best Folk Roots Song at the annual Gospel Music Association awards.
There are a couple chances to hear Michael live in the next couple months. He'll be playing a house concert in Nanaimo June 9 - admission is $12, phone 250 751-0805 or email grant.corriveau@telus.net for information or to reserve yourself some of the limited seats at this very intimate event.
And then there's a free outdoor lunchtime concert at Regent College Thursday July 19, where Michael will be joined by Spencer Capier on violin, mandolin, and who knows what other array of intsruments - anything with strings on it, Spencer can make music! 224-3245 for more information.
But if you don't live in Nanaimo, and can't wait a month and a half for the Regent gig, here's something to tide you over. Michal has posted a free mp3 of a gorgeous instrumental track on his website - just go to the Biography page and click on the "Instrumental Medley" link just below "House Concerts" in the middle of the page.
There are a couple chances to hear Michael live in the next couple months. He'll be playing a house concert in Nanaimo June 9 - admission is $12, phone 250 751-0805 or email grant.corriveau@telus.net for information or to reserve yourself some of the limited seats at this very intimate event.
And then there's a free outdoor lunchtime concert at Regent College Thursday July 19, where Michael will be joined by Spencer Capier on violin, mandolin, and who knows what other array of intsruments - anything with strings on it, Spencer can make music! 224-3245 for more information.
But if you don't live in Nanaimo, and can't wait a month and a half for the Regent gig, here's something to tide you over. Michal has posted a free mp3 of a gorgeous instrumental track on his website - just go to the Biography page and click on the "Instrumental Medley" link just below "House Concerts" in the middle of the page.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
June 9: REMNANTS Closes At Pacific Theatre!
I got so engrossed in REMNANTS rehearsals (I directed) that I completely neglected all my blogs, emails... The whole international Soul Food conglomerate came crashing to a halt! I'm surprised civilization itself didn't collapse.
Anyhow, the show's up, I've had a week and a half to recuperate, and I'm firing up the old computer once again to get back in the swing.
What a fascinating show! Spanning three decades, Jason Sherman interweaves three of the Great Stories into a compelling epic tale, transposing the Joseph story from Genesis to pre-Holocaust Poland and Canada in the Great Depression. In the months leading up to rehearsal, I marvelled at Sherman's brilliance, the sheer cleverness and invention involved in combining these three elements to shed new light on each. It wasn't until we were deep into rehearsal that we found the story's heart: Sherman finds in Joseph's journey the challenge of forgiveness, the choice between the harsh judgment of his father and some other, harder way. What a deeply moving story it ends up becoming!
I'll post more on the Pacific Theatre blog when I can steal the time, but for now let me give you the vitals, and pass along bits from Peter Birnie's glowing review.
REMNANTS (A FABLE)
by Jason Sherman
Closes June 9
Wed-Sat 8pm
Sat matinee 2pm
Tickets 731-5518 or purchase online
More information at the Pacific Theatre website
*
And here's Mr Birnie...
STUDENTS STAGE A SOLID PRODUCTION OF REMNANTS
Play shines through excellent staging, dedication of Trinity Western cast
Peter Birnie, Vancouver Sun
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Jason Sherman's innovative take on the Biblical story of Joseph and his brothers makes an interesting piece of theatre... an engaging transference of the tale from ancient times to Canada's recent past. For its annual showcase of emerging artists, Pacific Theatre joins forces with the theatre department at Trinity Western University. The result is a student production of Remnants that offers excellent staging and solid ensemble work from the young cast.
In his 1998 play Patience, Sherman used the Biblical story of Job in a fairly tangential way. Remnants, by contrast, parallels Joseph's journey from start to finish. Sherman's cleverness comes in the many ways he has found to transfer old to new.
In 1925, Joseph's jealous brothers drive him from their Polish village, forcing him on to a ship to America. Instead he disembarks at Halifax, and his Canadian adventures come, by 1932, to include an interpretation of a dream that brings him to the attention of Mackenzie King.
That infamously clairvoyance-obsessed politician is between gigs. Ousted as prime minister in 1930, he'll be back in power in 1935 thanks to the prophecies of his young Polish aide. King's rabid anti-Semitism leaves Joseph unable to admit he's Jewish. Yet the lad is now in charge of deciding the fate of a boatload of European refugees, including the 10 brothers who gave him the boot.
Ron Reed has done a terrific job of dealing with a big cast in a small space. The play is filled with shifts in time and mood and place, but Reed's steady direction of this epic keeps confusion to a minimum. In what is perhaps a mark of the growing bonds between Jews and Christians, Reed and his crowd of Christian students also embrace the play's many specific references to Jewish religious rites and mores.
Stancil Campbell's set is similarly clear-cut, with wooden platforms and benches easily adapted for the play's many settings. This stage is framed by two big windows built with subtle design references delineating one as Old World Jewish and the other as Canadian Presbyterian.
...everyone's work (is) good, especially Kirsty Provan's engaging performance as Joseph. The palpable sincerity of everyone's effort to make this production of Remnants a memorable one has me hankering for the same dedication from a professional troupe willing to tackle this fascinating fable.
Sun Theatre Critic
pbirnie@png.canwest.com
Anyhow, the show's up, I've had a week and a half to recuperate, and I'm firing up the old computer once again to get back in the swing.
What a fascinating show! Spanning three decades, Jason Sherman interweaves three of the Great Stories into a compelling epic tale, transposing the Joseph story from Genesis to pre-Holocaust Poland and Canada in the Great Depression. In the months leading up to rehearsal, I marvelled at Sherman's brilliance, the sheer cleverness and invention involved in combining these three elements to shed new light on each. It wasn't until we were deep into rehearsal that we found the story's heart: Sherman finds in Joseph's journey the challenge of forgiveness, the choice between the harsh judgment of his father and some other, harder way. What a deeply moving story it ends up becoming!
I'll post more on the Pacific Theatre blog when I can steal the time, but for now let me give you the vitals, and pass along bits from Peter Birnie's glowing review.
REMNANTS (A FABLE)
by Jason Sherman
Closes June 9
Wed-Sat 8pm
Sat matinee 2pm
Tickets 731-5518 or purchase online
More information at the Pacific Theatre website
*
And here's Mr Birnie...
STUDENTS STAGE A SOLID PRODUCTION OF REMNANTS
Play shines through excellent staging, dedication of Trinity Western cast
Peter Birnie, Vancouver Sun
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Jason Sherman's innovative take on the Biblical story of Joseph and his brothers makes an interesting piece of theatre... an engaging transference of the tale from ancient times to Canada's recent past. For its annual showcase of emerging artists, Pacific Theatre joins forces with the theatre department at Trinity Western University. The result is a student production of Remnants that offers excellent staging and solid ensemble work from the young cast.
In his 1998 play Patience, Sherman used the Biblical story of Job in a fairly tangential way. Remnants, by contrast, parallels Joseph's journey from start to finish. Sherman's cleverness comes in the many ways he has found to transfer old to new.
In 1925, Joseph's jealous brothers drive him from their Polish village, forcing him on to a ship to America. Instead he disembarks at Halifax, and his Canadian adventures come, by 1932, to include an interpretation of a dream that brings him to the attention of Mackenzie King.
That infamously clairvoyance-obsessed politician is between gigs. Ousted as prime minister in 1930, he'll be back in power in 1935 thanks to the prophecies of his young Polish aide. King's rabid anti-Semitism leaves Joseph unable to admit he's Jewish. Yet the lad is now in charge of deciding the fate of a boatload of European refugees, including the 10 brothers who gave him the boot.
Ron Reed has done a terrific job of dealing with a big cast in a small space. The play is filled with shifts in time and mood and place, but Reed's steady direction of this epic keeps confusion to a minimum. In what is perhaps a mark of the growing bonds between Jews and Christians, Reed and his crowd of Christian students also embrace the play's many specific references to Jewish religious rites and mores.
Stancil Campbell's set is similarly clear-cut, with wooden platforms and benches easily adapted for the play's many settings. This stage is framed by two big windows built with subtle design references delineating one as Old World Jewish and the other as Canadian Presbyterian.
...everyone's work (is) good, especially Kirsty Provan's engaging performance as Joseph. The palpable sincerity of everyone's effort to make this production of Remnants a memorable one has me hankering for the same dedication from a professional troupe willing to tackle this fascinating fable.
Sun Theatre Critic
pbirnie@png.canwest.com
Jun 15-18: Soul Food Classics in Janus Film Series
Fabulous chance to see many of the great films on the big screen, most in pristine new 35mm prints, as Pacific Cinematheque does a retrospective of Janus films, the acclaimed distributor of cinephile specialties. First a list of what's showing, followed by detail on the specifically "soul food" titles.
The 400 Blows
Jules and Jim
Antoine and Colette + Zéro de conduite
Cléo from 5 to 7
Summer with Monika
The Earrings of Madame de…
Walkabout
Death of a Cyclist
Cría Cuervos
The Seventh Seal
Day of Wrath
Wild Strawberries
Fires on the Plain
The Organizer
The Lady Vanishes
High and Low
Rashomon
The Cranes Are Flying
Ballad of a Soldier
Viridiana
W.R. - Mysteries of the Organism
The Seventh Seal
Friday, June 15 – 7:30 pm
Saturday, June 16 – 9:30 pm
Sunday, June 17 – 7:30 pm
Sweden 1957. Director: Ingmar Bergman. A very modern meditation on the absence of God, presented in the guise of a medieval morality play, The Seventh Seal cemented Ingmar Bergman's reputation as a Serious Artist, and remains one of cinema's most famous (and most parodied) works. Max von Sydow stars as Antonius Blok, a battle-weary knight who returns from the Crusades to find his native Sweden ravaged by plague. Observing the horrors around him – disease-ridden peasants dying gruesome deaths, religious zealots parading in orgies of self-flagellation, fear-crazed vigilantes burning “witches” at the stake – the once-pious knight begins to doubt the existence of a God who would permit such suffering. When the white-faced, black-robed figure of Death finally comes for him also, Blok gains a brief reprieve by challenging the spectre to a game of chess he must inevitably lose. The Seventh Seal has achieved iconographic status in the popular imagination, and contains some of film's most unforgettable images. It was also something of a milestone in “intellectual” or “serious” cinema, and was instrumental in creating the art house vogue for Bergman's work. “Bergman's most ambitious film” (Georges Sadoul). B&W, 35mm, in Swedish with English subtitles. 95 mins.
Day of Wrath
Friday, June 15 – 9:20 pm
Saturday, June 16 – 7:30 pm
Monday, June 18 – 9:20 pm
Denmark 1943. Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer. Perhaps the greatest film ever made by one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived” (2006 New York Film Festival), this 1943 drama, made during the darkest days of Denmark's Nazi occupation, exemplifies the deliberate, intense, beautifully austere style for which Dreyer's films are celebrated – a style Paul Schrader famously described, with that of Ozu and Bresson, as “transcendental.” In a small Danish village in the early 17th-century, an aging pastor has an elderly woman burned at the stake as a witch, and is cursed by her as she dies. The pastor's young wife is unhappy Anne (Lisbeth Movin, in an extraordinary performance), daughter of an accused witch he once spared. When Martin, the pastor's son by a previous marriage, returns from sea, Anne falls in love with him – and finds herself accused of witchcraft. Many of Dreyer's key concerns here find expression: questions of faith, problems of good and evil, suffering and martyrdom, the psychology of victimized women. (Dreyer's own mother died a horrible death after an unsuccessful abortion). “The masterpiece of a genius of cinema ... The use of extended silences and ambiguity, the portrayal of states of being, and the poetic inflections of the whole presage the modern cinema and set it a standard of excellence seldom surpassed” (Amos Vogel). B&W, 35mm, in Danish with English sub-titles. 105 mins.
Wild Strawberries
Sunday, June 17 – 9:20 pm
Monday, June 18 – 7:30 pm
Sweden 1957. Director: Ingmar Bergman. Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin in 1958, and now often cited as one of Bergman's greatest films, Wild Strawberries is an intensely moving, lyrical work of affirmation and reconciliation. Victor Sjöström, Sweden's pre-eminent director before Bergman, gives “the finest performance in any Bergman film” (James Monaco) as Isak Borg, an aging, eminent professor travelling by car from Stockholm to Lund, where he is to receive an honorary degree. Accompanying him is daughter-in-law Marianne (Ingrid Thulin), whose marriage to Borg's son Evald (Gunnar Björnstrand) is deeply troubled. A flood of memories, daydreams, and nightmares assails the elderly protagonist along the way, forcing him to take stock of his life, re-evaluate his relationships, confront his shortcomings, and accept his mortality. The drama unfolds over a 24-hour period; the dream sequences are amongst the most memorable in the Bergman canon, while the single-shot transitions, from present to past and back again, are impressive. “In every respect a great film ... a profoundly modern work of art” (Eugene Archer). “The best Bergman film of the Fifties, much closer to a true philosophical tragedy than his more ambitious The Seventh Seal ” (Georges Sadoul). B&W, 35mm, in Swedish with English subtitles. 94 mins.
The 400 Blows
Jules and Jim
Antoine and Colette + Zéro de conduite
Cléo from 5 to 7
Summer with Monika
The Earrings of Madame de…
Walkabout
Death of a Cyclist
Cría Cuervos
The Seventh Seal
Day of Wrath
Wild Strawberries
Fires on the Plain
The Organizer
The Lady Vanishes
High and Low
Rashomon
The Cranes Are Flying
Ballad of a Soldier
Viridiana
W.R. - Mysteries of the Organism
The Seventh Seal
Friday, June 15 – 7:30 pm
Saturday, June 16 – 9:30 pm
Sunday, June 17 – 7:30 pm
Sweden 1957. Director: Ingmar Bergman. A very modern meditation on the absence of God, presented in the guise of a medieval morality play, The Seventh Seal cemented Ingmar Bergman's reputation as a Serious Artist, and remains one of cinema's most famous (and most parodied) works. Max von Sydow stars as Antonius Blok, a battle-weary knight who returns from the Crusades to find his native Sweden ravaged by plague. Observing the horrors around him – disease-ridden peasants dying gruesome deaths, religious zealots parading in orgies of self-flagellation, fear-crazed vigilantes burning “witches” at the stake – the once-pious knight begins to doubt the existence of a God who would permit such suffering. When the white-faced, black-robed figure of Death finally comes for him also, Blok gains a brief reprieve by challenging the spectre to a game of chess he must inevitably lose. The Seventh Seal has achieved iconographic status in the popular imagination, and contains some of film's most unforgettable images. It was also something of a milestone in “intellectual” or “serious” cinema, and was instrumental in creating the art house vogue for Bergman's work. “Bergman's most ambitious film” (Georges Sadoul). B&W, 35mm, in Swedish with English subtitles. 95 mins.
Day of Wrath
Friday, June 15 – 9:20 pm
Saturday, June 16 – 7:30 pm
Monday, June 18 – 9:20 pm
Denmark 1943. Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer. Perhaps the greatest film ever made by one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived” (2006 New York Film Festival), this 1943 drama, made during the darkest days of Denmark's Nazi occupation, exemplifies the deliberate, intense, beautifully austere style for which Dreyer's films are celebrated – a style Paul Schrader famously described, with that of Ozu and Bresson, as “transcendental.” In a small Danish village in the early 17th-century, an aging pastor has an elderly woman burned at the stake as a witch, and is cursed by her as she dies. The pastor's young wife is unhappy Anne (Lisbeth Movin, in an extraordinary performance), daughter of an accused witch he once spared. When Martin, the pastor's son by a previous marriage, returns from sea, Anne falls in love with him – and finds herself accused of witchcraft. Many of Dreyer's key concerns here find expression: questions of faith, problems of good and evil, suffering and martyrdom, the psychology of victimized women. (Dreyer's own mother died a horrible death after an unsuccessful abortion). “The masterpiece of a genius of cinema ... The use of extended silences and ambiguity, the portrayal of states of being, and the poetic inflections of the whole presage the modern cinema and set it a standard of excellence seldom surpassed” (Amos Vogel). B&W, 35mm, in Danish with English sub-titles. 105 mins.
Wild Strawberries
Sunday, June 17 – 9:20 pm
Monday, June 18 – 7:30 pm
Sweden 1957. Director: Ingmar Bergman. Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin in 1958, and now often cited as one of Bergman's greatest films, Wild Strawberries is an intensely moving, lyrical work of affirmation and reconciliation. Victor Sjöström, Sweden's pre-eminent director before Bergman, gives “the finest performance in any Bergman film” (James Monaco) as Isak Borg, an aging, eminent professor travelling by car from Stockholm to Lund, where he is to receive an honorary degree. Accompanying him is daughter-in-law Marianne (Ingrid Thulin), whose marriage to Borg's son Evald (Gunnar Björnstrand) is deeply troubled. A flood of memories, daydreams, and nightmares assails the elderly protagonist along the way, forcing him to take stock of his life, re-evaluate his relationships, confront his shortcomings, and accept his mortality. The drama unfolds over a 24-hour period; the dream sequences are amongst the most memorable in the Bergman canon, while the single-shot transitions, from present to past and back again, are impressive. “In every respect a great film ... a profoundly modern work of art” (Eugene Archer). “The best Bergman film of the Fifties, much closer to a true philosophical tragedy than his more ambitious The Seventh Seal ” (Georges Sadoul). B&W, 35mm, in Swedish with English subtitles. 94 mins.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Jessie Richardson Awards 2007
Pretty proud of our Pacific Theatre artists, for all the kudos this year. GRACE has been nominated not only as outstanding production and Angela Konrad for her direction, but all four members of the cast for actor Jessies! - Craig Erickson, Alexa Devine, Kerry van der Griend and Duncan Fraser. Most remarkable. Nicole Bach was nominated for her costumes for A BRIGHT PARTICULAR STAR, and Kevin McAllister for his set design on CARIBOO MAGI - remember the boat that turned into a camel, then became a gold rush stage? (All of these in the "Small Theatre" category.)
Congratulations also to PT artists who've been honoured for their work on other stages. Craig Erickson was nominated for his performance in PEER GYNT for Blackbird Theatre (that company, a very welcome recent additon to the Vancouver theatre community, garnered a remarkable [b]11[/b] nominations for their productions this past season, which I believe is only their second in operation): Anthony Ingram was nominated in the same category for his memorable performance in THE BIRTHDAY PARTY. Kerry van der Griend has another chance at a Jessie (Significant Artistic Achievement) as part of the Ensemble Chorus for the Pangaea Arts production of THE GULL. And how gratifying that the first production of Anthony Ingram's new company Tempus Theatre garnered a Jessie nomination, Teryl Rothery for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, in A DELICATE BALANCE.
You can check out all the nominees at the Jessie Richardson site: here's a rundown of the PT-related nods.
SMALL THEATRE
Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Lead Role, Small Theatre
Craig Erickson, Grace, Pacific Theatre
Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Lead Role, Small Theatre
Alexa Devine, Grace, Pacific Theatre
Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Small Theatre
Duncan Fraser, Grace, Pacific Theatre
Kerry Van Der Griend, Grace, Pacific Theatre
Outstanding Set Design, Small Theatre
Kevin McAllister, Cariboo Magi, Pacific Theatre
Outstanding Costume Design, Small Theatre
Nicole Bach, A Bright Particular Star, Pacific Theatre
Outstanding Direction, Small Theatre
Angela Konrad, Grace, Pacific Theatre
Outstanding Production, Small Theatre
Grace, Pacific Theatre
LARGE THEATRE
Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Lead Role, Large Theatre
Craig Erickson, Peer Gynt, Blackbird Theatre
Anthony F. Ingram, The Birthday Party, Blackbird Theatre
Significant Artistic Achievements, Large Theatre
Richard Emmert, Ari Solomon, Michael Robinson, Kerry Van Der Griend, Minoru Yamamoto;
Ensemble Chorus, The Gull, Pangaea Arts
Congratulations also to PT artists who've been honoured for their work on other stages. Craig Erickson was nominated for his performance in PEER GYNT for Blackbird Theatre (that company, a very welcome recent additon to the Vancouver theatre community, garnered a remarkable [b]11[/b] nominations for their productions this past season, which I believe is only their second in operation): Anthony Ingram was nominated in the same category for his memorable performance in THE BIRTHDAY PARTY. Kerry van der Griend has another chance at a Jessie (Significant Artistic Achievement) as part of the Ensemble Chorus for the Pangaea Arts production of THE GULL. And how gratifying that the first production of Anthony Ingram's new company Tempus Theatre garnered a Jessie nomination, Teryl Rothery for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, in A DELICATE BALANCE.
You can check out all the nominees at the Jessie Richardson site: here's a rundown of the PT-related nods.
SMALL THEATRE
Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Lead Role, Small Theatre
Craig Erickson, Grace, Pacific Theatre
Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Lead Role, Small Theatre
Alexa Devine, Grace, Pacific Theatre
Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Small Theatre
Duncan Fraser, Grace, Pacific Theatre
Kerry Van Der Griend, Grace, Pacific Theatre
Outstanding Set Design, Small Theatre
Kevin McAllister, Cariboo Magi, Pacific Theatre
Outstanding Costume Design, Small Theatre
Nicole Bach, A Bright Particular Star, Pacific Theatre
Outstanding Direction, Small Theatre
Angela Konrad, Grace, Pacific Theatre
Outstanding Production, Small Theatre
Grace, Pacific Theatre
LARGE THEATRE
Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Lead Role, Large Theatre
Craig Erickson, Peer Gynt, Blackbird Theatre
Anthony F. Ingram, The Birthday Party, Blackbird Theatre
Significant Artistic Achievements, Large Theatre
Richard Emmert, Ari Solomon, Michael Robinson, Kerry Van Der Griend, Minoru Yamamoto;
Ensemble Chorus, The Gull, Pangaea Arts
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