BY SARAH BERMAN, VANCOUVER SUN

Sometimes we want what we can’t have. For Vancouver-based filmmaker Katrin Bowen, these words have rang true for sex and television.

“I was raised very religiously and raised without much technology,” the director says of her Mennonite upbringing in rural Alberta. “I didn’t see a TV until I was about 12.” On set of her latest film Random Acts of Romance, Bowen feels she’s come a long way to the sharp-tongued social media jockey she is today.

“I’m directing a film about sex, which is something I didn’t talk about ever until I was 18, and learning all these new technologies,” she explains. “I thought maybe the repression makes you go there. It’s like you kind of rebel against it.”

In her sophomore film, Bowen has set out to expose all those obsessive human behaviours that arise when love, sex, desire and repression pull us in conflicting directions. Shooting inside an Oakridge home with a small crew, Bowen watches the monitors from a toilet seat.

“It’s my director’s throne,” she laughs.

Lead actors Amanda Tapping (Sanctuary) and Vancouver local Zak Santiago (Amazon Falls) work through a hangover-fuelled argument in the adjacent kitchen. Their characters Dianne and Matt are fashioned after one of Bowen’s own unhealthier past relationships.

“It’s the sort of situation where you can’t help but try to mould them and make them who you want them to be,” Bowen recalls of an ex who was 10 years her junior.

Along the same lines, Tapping plays Santiago’s older wife and former teacher — two roles she seems to exchange and confuse without warning. “She’s always trying to fix him and get him to go to school and inspire him,” Bowen says. “That’s definitely been something I’ve done in the past.”

Check out the Vancouver Sun website for video footage of our interviews and set visit.

Later joined by actors Katherine Isabelle (Endgame), Robert Moloney (The Odds), Laura Bertram (Andromeda), Ted Whittall (Once Upon a Time) and Sonja Bennett (Young People F—ing), Santiago and Tapping weave together several snapshots of modern romance complete with frankness, humour and the occasional abduction.

“Everyone will see themselves in one or more or these people,” says Santiago, minutes after the particularly heated scene.

“Perfect Zak! Perfect Amanda!” Bowen announces as crew make their way to a backyard lunch table. The team wrapped up three weeks of shooting Friday.

Over the long days spent inhabiting his underachieving character Matt, Santiago found elements of himself reflected throughout the script. “When I watch some of these actors and the way they’re bringing their characters to life I just feel it,” he says. “I see myself in one of the girls, I’m like ‘I know what’s up!’” Fans have written in to say they “know what’s up” too. From her website and Twitter feed, Bowen solicited first date horror stories.

Such playful social media interactions won her adoring fans during the production of her debut film Amazon Falls. “With Amazon Falls we didn’t have a budget to hire a real publicist. It was just me,” Bowen recalls. “I’d never tweeted before. I’d learned all this stuff to promote the film.”

Luckily Bowen is a quick study, and soon culled somewhat of a cult online following. “I call them my army of bloggers,” says Bowen of the young women around the world who took a shining to the director’s biting, cynical approach. This blend of Internet buzz and virtual community came in handy when production funding for Random Acts of Romance was threatened.

“We were getting ready to do this about two years ago, and a piece of funding fell through,” Bowen says. Undeterred, she wrote Amazon Falls in two weeks, and used the already-assembled cast and crew to craft the tale of a struggling B-movie actress on a shoestring. The result was an indie success, that went on to tour festivals and win awards.

It wasn’t until August 2011 that Telefilm picked up the original Random Acts story Bowen co-wrote with Scottish Vancouver Film School grads Jillian Mannion and Kevin McComiskie, “We thought when we got Telefilm on board we’d hit the lotto,” says Bowen. “But they only give you 50 per cent of the budget, so you’re still really scrambling.”

BY SARAH BERMAN, OPENFILE

UPDATE: At 9:00 a.m. on February 9th, B.C. Minister of Energy and Mines Rich Coleman announced that the province will now allow multi-use venues like the Rio to screen films outside liquor license hours.

“The change allows license holders to screen films and broadcast pay-per-view programs outside the hours outlined in their liquor license,” reads part of the press release. “License holders will still not be permitted to serve liquor during the screening of movies.”

Coleman said venues will be able to choose the days of the week and hours of the day they wish to have liquor service, and that screenings may occur on the off times. This change is effective immediately.

The single screen theatre has also been forced to cease its participation in the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival, which was scheduled to premiere at the Rio on Friday. The festival screenings have since been relocated to Denman Cinemas in the west end.

NDP MLA Jenny Kwan joined Lea at the news conference earlier this week and proposed a quick fix. Kwan suggested B.C. Solicitor General Shirley Bond could sign an order-in-council that would establish a new category of license for multi-use venues. She urged the provincial government to “cut the red tape and get on with it.”

Think you know BC’s arcane liquor laws? OpenFile’s contributing editor Sarah Berman quizzed fans of beer and movies (and beer-and-moves) at a recent event to support the Rio—listen to find out how they did.

Lea says she’s been losing an average of $2,000 per day since the LCLB served a condition that prevents the Rio from screening films, live sporting events and other visual projections. Her business will take another $12,000 hit because of the Mountain Film Festival’s relocation. Lea maintains she does not wish to serve alcohol during film screenings—only during live events.

“We were aware that you can’t show movies with bar service in B.C., but we did not anticipate the LCLB would strictly enforce a ban on movies without alcohol at our venue,” reads an open letter to premier Christy Clark written by Lea on Tuesday. “The Rio is the only theatre in B.C. that has this condition added to its license.”

The LCLB, which imposed the condition on January 19, says it is not able to reverse the ruling. “At the present time the LCLB does not have the legal authority to permit the Rio to do what it is asking,” says LCLB spokesperson Terry Rowsell.

Although the liquor control branch has been considering a change in its liquor policy, Rowsell says it is up to the B.C. legislature to make a final decision. “The LCLB has been working on options for reforming and modernizing several liquor laws in the province and has presented those options [to government] for consideration,” he says. “The licensing of movie theatres is one of those laws.”

Rowsell says the government “will be in a position to make their decision public in the near future.”

In her open letter to the premier, Lea implored the province to make the “near future” arrive in time to save her struggling business. “Would you let people lose their jobs over an outdated bureaucratic rule that lacks common sense? Would you let your community lose its last remaining vibrant single-screen theatre and watch it turn into a darkened empty shell?

“Christy Clark if you won’t stop the LCLB from shutting us down, then who will?”

Originally published Feb. 9, 2012. Photo by Patrick Shannon (via Flickr).

Photo: Michelle Ford | Hair/Makeup: Jenna Kuchera
Styling: Mila Franovic | Clothes: F as in Frank

BY SARAH BERMAN, DISCORDER MAGAZINE

It wasn’t so long ago that Claire Boucher—a.k.a. Grimes—released a miniscule run of 30 cassettes for her breezy electro-goth debut Geidi Primes. Just over a year ago, the Vancouver-born, but then Montreal-based artist played to a modest crowd at the Astoria with the help of local jack-of-most-trades, Cameron Reed.

“Cam set up my first show in Vancouver, which was really nice of him,” Boucher recalls of the de facto show promoter, who also crafts glitchy atmospherics under the banner Babe Rainbow. On the line from her parents’ place in town, Boucher reflects on how far she’s come. “I think it was last Christmas—sometime back in the day before I was a real musician, or something.”

Since then, the “realness” of Boucher’s career has undeniably rocketed skyward. For starters, she recently signed with the esteemed English imprint 4AD. Though she’ll stay on Montreal’s Arbutus Records within Canada, the international distribution deal places her in the past and present ranks of St. Vincent and the Cocteau Twins. Boucher’s also coming off a well-received tour with Lykke Li, and her upcoming record,Visions, is enjoying critical adoration from all corners of the indie music blogosphere.

And with good reason. The album’s airtight production allows Boucher’s signature falsetto to soar over each curious arrangement of vintage hip-hop loops, dancing Casio synths, occasional Nintendo chimes and ever-breathy harmonies. As her third solo release, Visions marks a graduation from bedroom composing into the world of avant-pop tastemaking. It’s realer than real, you might say.

Since her return to Lotusland in November, Grimes has immersed herself in the sushi and musical scenery she left behind in 2006. Reached a few days before playing a collaborative DJ set with Reed at the Waldorf, Boucher reflected on the hippy vibes, potential alien correspondence and chemically-induced all-nighters she’s experienced on the West Coast.

“We did a bunch of Dexedrine and drank a bunch of gin and made the sleaziest pop song of all time,” Boucher recalls of a very recent collaboration with Blood Diamonds’ Mike Tucker. The resulting track, “Phone Sex,” will be released later this year.

“It’s like a K-pop version of ‘We Found Love’ by Rihanna,” Grimes says, adding that the all-night creative burst escalated into absurdity pretty quickly: “It’s kinda psychedelic and has really weird lyrics that maybe imply an incestuous relationship, or something.”

It’s with this tongue-in-cheek deadpan that Boucher seems to chide all of her accomplishments and tastes. Whether we’re discussing a teenage obsession with Tool or her skyscraping vocal range, Boucher bookends her replies in self-deprecating humour.

“I think people think I’m much more serious than I am,” she muses. “Most of the music I’ve ever made, I’ve been so baked when I made it. Like, really stoned.”

Perhaps for similar self-preserving reasons, Boucher doesn’t get too personal in her song lyrics. While a spare few phrases can be deciphered, most Grimes songs are comprised of wordless flowing vocal hooks.

“I just don’t listen to lyrics much myself,” she explains.

Instead, Boucher finds herself emulating TLC and Mariah Carey-style R&B singing techniques (“Maybe that’s totally taboo or not cool, but the idea of combining R&B and goth is like everything I could ever want,” the vocalist gushes), but without the straightforward romantic plotlines. “I don’t want to evoke anything super specific,” she says. “If I’m writing about something sensitive to myself, I don’t want it to be cheesy, or something. I feel like being abstract is a little more tasteful and less embarrassing.”

Without earthly lyrics to pin down, Grimes tunes are repeatedly branded “ethereal” and “spacey”—the latter being a descriptor Boucher both enjoys and embraces. “I’m really into sci-fi; I’m really into space,” the musician exults. “I believe in aliens.”

One might even guess her otherworldly style of art-pop is an attempt to connect with other planets. “Circumambient” begins with spacey digital transmission, and album closer “know the way” offers another round of buoyant, celestial echoes.

“I would send this record to aliens,” she says. “But I don’t know if I was trying to speak to aliens on this record.”

Conversely, Boucher says Vancouver has also brought out her grounded, nature-loving side. “It’s a little weird but kind of refreshing,” she says of the familiar landscape. “I think I’ve become more of a hippy since I’ve returned. I’m appreciating nature I think for the first time.”

In her formative years, Boucher says she wasn’t too concerned with Vancouver’s natural assets. “I feel like I never looked at the mountains and felt like ‘those are really beautiful’ or anything. As a kid, I was just like ‘oh, I hate my parents’ or something.”

If you missed Grimes’ DJ set at the Waldorf in January, fret not. Before she embarks on a solid year of touring, Grimes will headline the Fortune Sound Club later this month. But when asked if the West Coast will be her creative destination once the promotion cycle for Visions winds down, Boucher was quick to suggest otherwise.

“I think I want to move to Berlin or Shanghai,” she says, describing the former as “the Montreal of Europe.” The German capital has swiftly become a mecca for creative Canadian ex-pats looking to escape the real estate market: “Super cheap equals a lot of art,” Boucher says, “because people can actually do shit and not work all the time.”

Though 2012 looks to be booked solid, it’s only a matter of time before we see Grimes’ next vision. Or something.

Grimes kicks off a world tour at Fortune Sound Club on February 18.

After one too many ‘Ziggy Stardust meets Tiny Tim’ comparisons, performer turns the tables

BY SARAH BERMAN, VANCOUVER SUN

It is possibly the first and only drag show born out of lazy journalism.

With sequin-encrusted eyes and a sharp tongue, PuSh Festival veteran Taylor Mac brings a unique musical mash-up to the Performance Works stage this weekend, called Comparison is Violence or The Ziggy Stardust Meets Tiny Tim Songbook.

The mouthful of a title arises from repeat descriptions of Mac’s larger-than-life persona. When Mac toured The Be(A)st of Taylor Mac—a solo piece he brought to Vancouver in 2009—theatre writers across the globe seemed to be of one mind.

“A writer in the U.K. described it as Ziggy Stardust meets Tiny Tim,” the New York performer recalls, adding that the first comparison seemed innocuous and even clever. “Suddenly all these other journalists started describing me in this way, and I thought: is this a coincidence, or are they just cutting and pasting?”

Sure, David Bowie and Mac are both expert gender-benders, and the 1960s oddball Tiny Tim (known for his falsetto rendition of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”) shares a penchant for the ukulele. But Mac attests the similarities ended there.

“I understand why journalists compare you to popular things. They’re describing the show in terms of what everyone would know,” Mac says. “Was it just so obvious I was the combination of these two icons? Will I be defined this way all my life?”

In effort to reclaim his originality, and perhaps in mock protest, Mac has put together a biting whirlwind performance composed exclusively of Bowie and Tiny Tim numbers. From “Lady Stardust” to Tiny Tim’s apocalyptic gem “The Other Side,” Mac puts his own spin on their shtick.

“For this show, I wanted to see what happens, and talk about comparison,” he says. “I realized comparison is something that defines our lives, but it’s not something we talk about much.”

Like many of Mac’s previous performances, there’s a sharp cultural criticism underlying the glitz and face paint. By embodying the media-imposed labels, Mac reclaims his own image.

“If something is threatening to take away the story from the storyteller, the storyteller’s job is to incorporate this into the story,” he explains. “That’s exactly what I’ve done.” Mac cites the way members of the queer community choose to “own” slurs leveled against them as another way of reclaiming identity.

But through “owning” the pigeonhole descriptor Ziggy-Stardust-meets-Tiny-Tim, Mac unexpectedly gained a great deal of respect for the two performers.

“I didn’t have a disrespect before,” he says, “but I learned we have quite a lot more similarities than the ukulele and glitter.”

Beyond an androgynous take on glam rock, Mac says the 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust is an engaging slice of commentary. “When you explore some of his songs, the conversation he was having in the work is way more interesting than just glam rock.”

And even Tiny Tim—whom Mac previously described as cringeworthy—has an endearing boundary-pushing side. “It was performance art, and I talk about it in the show,” says Mac. “I’m a huge fan now, and I never was.”

Rather fittingly, the intersection of these artists brings Mac into extraordinary new territory. “I don’t want to give too much away, but I will say both David Bowie and Tiny Tim come from a vaudeville sound,” he says. “You may not think it when you hear Bowie, but it’s there.”

As the social hub of the PuSh Festival, Mac promises his Club Push appearance will be a light-hearted and interactive evening. “I’m really looking forward to coming back having some fun,” says Mac.

“And hang out afterwards,” he adds. Much like Lady Stardust, Mac hopes to keep his song going all night long.

Special to The Sun. Photo by Ves Pitts.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/PuSh+Festival+Drag+phenom+Taylor+reclaims+image/6091442/story.html#ixzz1lfatHQF7

BY SARAH BERMAN, VANCOUVER SUN

What do you do when a man from Beirut’s ministry of finance disappears with a suitcase full of cash? Lebanese visual artist and performer Rabih Mroué decided to follow the paper trail—the newspaper trail, that is.

“I play the role of a detective who looks for a missing employee, but with a special trajectory,” explains Mroué, reached by phone from a performance festival in Minneapolis. “I only follow the newspapers. I don’t go to other sources.”

In his PuSh Festival performance Looking for A Missing Employee, Mroué follows the true story of a man who disappears from a low-level post in the Lebanese government, never to be seen again. With wit and visual sensibility, he brings to light issues and events that are often considered taboo in the Middle East’s political climate.

“It started with a very tiny report,” says Mroué of the clippings he’s kept since 1996. “At first I followed this case by accident. Then I just followed day by day and kept all the news and articles.”

Mroué’s collection blossomed into a complex network of speculation, propaganda, half-truths and false reports published in Lebanon’s daily press. It was a confusing puzzle, he says, particularly because none of the pieces fit together.

“I had collected these for six years without knowing what to do with this material,” Mroué says. Finally in 2003, the theatre director, actor, writer and artist developed the case into a solo performance, and will bring his show to the Roundhouse theatre on Thursday.

While the subject matter is quite heavy, Mroué is able to make light of the absurdity caused by bureaucracy and government censorship.

“For me it’s always important to give the audience this distance to allow them to think, not only feel,” Mroué says of his tongue-in-cheek approach. “It’s a strategy to deal with a very hard and horrible story.”

Mroué says his aim is not to blame the Lebanese government. “I play the role of a detective, but I am not really looking for who is guilty or innocent,” he says. “We all know there’s corruption in the Middle East and everywhere in the world, but what interests me is how this information filters through our daily life and through the media.”

Mroué also chooses to sit among the crowd while projections of his face and the contents of his desk inhabit the traditional stage area.

“I decided to sit with the audience and to project my images on the stage—a live transmission,” he says.

This isn’t the first time Mroué has toyed with the edifice of live performance. His previous work has explored Lebanon’s street posters, his own grand-father’s political assassination and the video testimony of suicide bombers through a similar multimedia lens. In 2010, he won the Spalding Gray Award for his groundbreaking art and performances.

Such controversial work brings out curiosity and discourse, particularly among Western viewers. “After the performance, there is always this desire to meet with me and to discuss,” Mroué says of his recent shows in New York.

“I’ve had meetings with audience members, and it was quite interesting conversation—and I insist on this word ‘conversation’ because it’s not always questions,” he says. “They also give opinions, remarks, and add some ideas.”

To show his commitment to lively discussion, Mroué is appearing for a meet-and-greet event at the grunt gallery on Saturday. As well, local artist Vanessa Kwan will be leading a post-show “talkback” on Friday.

Mroué will also be showcasing a free work-in-progress about the use of mobile phone technology in Syria’s revolution. Called The Pixelated Revolution, the lecture performance at the Contemporary Art Gallery will take an inside look at digital videos created by protesters.

“It is in a way very sensitive, because the event is still going on today,” he says. It may be a story without an ending, but to Mroué, that’s exactly why the revolution needs to be shared.

Originally published January 26, 2012. Photo by Houssam Mchaiemch.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Newspapers+merry+chase+Middle+Eastern+mystery/6051406/story.html#ixzz1mTg3yF5J

BY SARAH BERMAN, OPENFILE.CA

Vancouver has a tradition of local forward-thinking record labels, from Nettwerk to Mint to Scratch Records. But the latest imprint to launch in this city has a new, untested idea: Sizzle Teen Records will forgo the CD format and focus on vinyl and digital sales exclusively.

“If you look at the big guys in the music industry, from Warner Brothers to HMV, they’re all pretty much failing,” says label founder Richie Fudalewski. “From our experience, CDs are not worth it.”

Fudalewski says the Sizzle Teen-signed band Previous Tenants discovered they could barely give away CDs while on tour in 2011. “They just toured Canada, and kids were spending 20 to 30 bucks on vinyl, yet [the band] had a free box of CDs that nobody even looked at.”

“Clearly people don’t want to listen to music that way,” he says.

Meanwhile, on January 23rd, one of British Columbia’s largest CD manufacturers announced it would no longer be producing CDs. The Burnaby-based Spin Digital will shut down operations this month.

“We don’t see a future in the compact disc,” says the company’s director David Jewer. “It’s pretty much run its course.”

After sales dropped off heavily in 2011, Jewer says he’ll refocus his business on mixing and mastering. “It’s disappointing because this is the end of a major era in recording,” he says. “There’s no physical media to replace it.”

While Fudalewski sees a future in pressed vinyl, Jewer says it’s merely a passing fad. “They’re making a big mistake in my opinion, because nobody’s going to be able to play it,” Jewer says, adding that turntables are not common household items anymore.

“Vinyl’s not serious. It makes up less than one half of one percent of global sales.”

But at Zulu Records in Kitsilano, where 12-inch records line the walls, sales are shifting in favour of vinyl. “The vinyl side of things is definitely growing, as the CD side is definitely shrinking,” observes Nicholas Bragg, general manager of Zulu.

Bragg estimates his vinyl sales have risen 10 percent since last year. “But the CD market, believe it or not, actually does still have some strength,” he says.

“To give you an idea, something like Adele—a hugely popular record, sold a million copies in Canada—over 60 percent of their sales are physical. If I had to guess what percentage of that was vinyl, I’d say very little,” he says. “For the demographic that’s into Adele, the logical conclusion is to buy the CD.”

Fudalewski says his label isn’t interested in producing megastars like Adele. With only four bands currently signed to its roster, the start-up is focused on a niche market.

“A lot of bands are just spinning their wheels playing Vancouver bars with 30-year-olds who just want to buy beer and are thinking about their rent,” says Fudalewski. “We want to connect those bands with youth again.”

Last year, rumours circulated that major labels were aiming to phase out the CD format by the end of 2012—reports that Bragg says were unfounded. “We met with the record companies at the beginning of 2012, and they’ve assured us they have no intentions of phasing out the CD,” he says.

Still, Bragg says he believes the future of music and entertainment will reside on the web. “It’s still relatively early days,” he says, citing the recent shutdown of Megaupload. “Certainly it’s an exciting time for young bands to get their name and music out a lot easier on the internet.”

Fudalewski predicts a system of subscription-based music sharing, where customers will pay a lump sum to receive digital albums and merchandise as a package. “It’s a digital era, and people just want honest music.”

Diamond Dancer and Previous Tenants will play a Sizzle Teen launch party at the Railway Club on February 11.

Photo by Carolyn Coles (from Flickr).

BY SARAH BERMAN, OPENFILE.CA

Sure, Vancouver’s got a cut-throat real estate industry—we’ve heard that one before. But down below all the empty towers and backroom deals lies an even more mercenary racket: the fight for postering supremacy.

Yes, all those brightly coloured rectangles populating our city’s traffic poles and construction sites are actually pawns in a decades-long battle hidden in plain sight. And the hands-down winner of Vancouver’s visual real estate war, for the last fifteen years at least, has been a group known ominously as “the poster mafia.” Seriously.

In an effort to clean up visual clutter, the city maintains 330 public poster cylinders along main arteries like Granville, Main, Broadway and Commercial. These 4-foot tall poster spots are meant to house everything from advertisements to community notices to unsolicited public art.

But thanks to the Poster Mafia (okay, the company is officially called the Poster Guy), nearly all of these city-sanctioned spaces are reserved for promotions companies that have the cash for high-volume postering campaigns. By setting out on bikes a few times per day, the company literally cuts out its competition—and posters right over the evidence.

OpenFile decided to investigate by putting up our own posters along Vancouver’s high-traffic areas. We put up 100 posters on Friday morning (the unlucky 13th) and by dinnertime our ads had already began disappearing.

View Vancouver Poster Cylinder Locations in a larger map

“Posters get covered up really quickly,” explains Adam Cathey, an independent posterer in Vancouver. As one of the few people who competes with the monopoly, he says posters can be slashed and re-posted within a couple of hours.

“We noticed our posters were being taken down pretty militantly—not just a couple days later,” recalls a member in a popular Vancouver pop-punk band, who asked to remain anonymous. The musician was distributing event posters for his band years ago when he discovered the monopoly.

“We asked around, and ended up hearing about this guy Poster Pete, who turned out not to be just a guy, but a whole team of people.” Poster Pete began his Poster Guy business in the mid-80s, and has since been replaced by Richard Chapin, who did not return multiple requests for comment. Although the group has changed hands, their turf and customer base remains largely the same.

The musician says he paid the poster mafia for years, just to protect his posters from being covered up. “As time went on, we would just pay them a lump sum and say ‘here’s a couple hundred; don’t take these down this month,” he says. “It was really the only thing that worked.”

The city, for its part, claims it’s not aware of a long-standing postering monopoly. “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” says Vancouver’s street activity branch manager Scottt Edwards. “Space isn’t guaranteed,” he says. “People can of course post on top of others.”

While there’s nothing inherently illegal about guarding public property in this way, it’s a situation that’s tough on independent performers and community groups who are trying to get a message out without a big budget.

“I’m just a guy with some friends who are show promoters,” explains Cathey, who has also done postering for events at the Waldorf, the Astoria and Pat’s Pub. “I mainly just do local, smaller shows.” Cathey says the monopoly pushes some small-time posterers to post on unsanctioned spaces like telephone poles and bus stops. “There’s steep fines for doing that kind of stuff,” he says. If caught red-handed, penalties can be as high as $2,000.

Neither source expects outright violence from the so-called mafia, but both question the aggressive tactics. “I’m not the kind of guy to pick fights with anyone,” says the musician. “I respect their drive—they’re savvy business men.”

BY SARAH BERMAN, VANCOUVER SUN

Kim Collier has a hectic few days ahead of her. When the Vancouver-based director wraps her latest production at the Queen Elizabeth on Saturday, she’ll kick off another performance at the Playhouse at the same time.

“I had to give my brain a shake to even think about Red,” Collier says. “This week coming is extraordinarily busy.”

Collier has already poured gallons of paint, sweat and tears into Red: John Logan’s play about abstract expressionist artist Mark Rothko. The Tony award-winning script chronicles a tumultuous few days inside Rothko’s New York studio as the painter struggles with a famous commission.

Actor Jim Mezon brings Rothko into harsh, bellowing focus, while newcomer David Coomber plays his fictionalized studio assistant Ken. After a month-long run in Toronto, the two-hander will spend three weeks on the Vancouver Playhouse stage.

Some background: Rothko set the 1950s art world abuzz with his vast canvases of floating colour. At the time, middle-class incomes were on the rise and America was searching for a new postwar identity. For many, Rothko was it.

“Rothko came at this perfect moment in history,” Collier says. “There were endless discussions about the fact his work represented America and democracy and freedom.”

But with popularity came immense self-criticism, says Collier. Feeling both threatened and displaced by contemporaries like Jackson Pollock, Rothko fell into a deeply alienated state.

This is where the story Red begins, in 1958. At what seems like the height of his career, Rothko hires Ken to help complete a $35,000 series for the Four Seasons restaurant on Park Avenue. At the time, it was the largest commission in the history of modern art.

Tormented by his artistic principles and intellectually prodded by an idealistic assistant, Rothko ultimately rejects the commercial offer, although not without learning a few hard lessons from Ken, the subordinate he’s meant to teach.

Months before rehearsals began, Collier immersed herself in the theory and habits of her research subject.

“I looked up every reference to Nietzsche or the Seagram Building,” she says.

Along with her cast, Collier learned Rothko’s personal techniques for brush strokes, mixing paint and stretching canvas.

“I also had the special privilege of spending a few days in the Rothko room of the Tate Modern,” Collier says. “Those paintings are the subject matter at the heart of this play.”

The nine large panels of deep maroon and black stand as a bold visual metaphor for Rothko’s distressed mental state. Enveloped by reproductions of these pieces, Mezon and Coomber unravel the painter’s prickly character.

Much like the artist he portrays, Mezon has spent decades mastering his craft. A 35-year veteran of the Shaw Festival, he’s performed in more than 100 plays, yet it makes sense that Mezon shares a stage with wide-eyed Coomber. Fresh out of Ryerson University’s theatre school, he’s a fitting apprentice to Mezon’s mastery.

“It’s a complete mirror,” Collier says of the pair’s master-apprentice relationship. “We really celebrated that in the production.”

Collier herself had much to learn, too. Known for multimedia visual pieces, Collier says she pushed herself to focus on the script’s dialogue.

“It was really different to work with a single set, two actors, and not a lot of moving parts,” she says. “It’s been a challenge and a pleasure.”

Collier’s work with the Electric Company — a group she co-founded in 1996 — specializes in physical theatre and movement. Plays like Tear the Curtain and Studies in Motion show her commitment to innovation and spectacle.

While there are a few moments of AV in Red — cinematographer Brian Johnson offers an art history refresher via video projection — the production’s magnetism is rooted in subtlety.

“Red just allowed me a great deal of time to think about what is happening between those two characters,” Collier says.

It’s complex characters like Rothko that hold particular value for Collier. “In my career I’ve looked at some obsessive, intelligent and uncompromising individuals,” she says. Collier’s previous plays have explored the minds of Nikola Tesla and Eadweard Muybridge: eccentric figures in the worlds of engineering and photography, respectively.

“It’s a real pleasure to expand yourself each time you do this,” Collier says.

One might even say she has it down to an art.

Special to The Sun

Photo by Bruce Zinger.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Theatre+preview+Paint+sweat+tears+make/5981160/story.html#ixzz1jfmS8fFG

BY SARAH BERMAN, VANCOUVER SUN

On the heels of the holidays, theatre director Kim Collier has reunited with her Electric Company kin. Best known for genre-bending works of multimedia spectacle, Collier’s latest work is a stripped-down familial affair.

“In this production we’ve brought together a family, literally,” Collier says of All the Way Home, her company’s intimate reimagining of Tad Mosel’s Pulitzer-winning script.

Close-knit is an understatement. Collier is married to cast member Jonathon Young, while Young’s father George plays the part of his dad. Lead actors Meg Roe and Allesandro Juliani are offstage life partners, while young brothers Jordan and Aidan Wessels round out the cast.

Roe says the result is a deep yet relaxed set atmosphere.

“Allessandro plays my brother, which sounds strange,” she says. “But we already have such intimate relationships with each other, the performance is richer for it.”

Blood relations aside, the production’s main draw is its lack of production. Lighting is minimal and voices are largely unamplified.

Most notably, the audience will join the cast on the Queen Elizabeth Theatre stage.

“The furthest you could be is 30 feet away from the action,” Collier says of the embedded audience. Adventurous viewers may easily find themselves sharing a couch with a character or peering across the stage piano. “It’s close enough to see what’s happening in their eyes.”

Because of space limitations, only 150 people will inhabit the house benches and chairs each night. By mixing seats and sight lines, Collier aims to transform the stage into the lived-in rooms of a family home. “The young and nimble will tuck in onto pillows on the floor,” she says.

“You can sit right next to my feet,” Roe says.

The story, adapted from the James Agee novel A Death in the Family, is a tough one to take in. With a focus on grief and the unexpected loss of a family member, the detail-driven plot picks at a universal notion of suffering. Taking place over three days yet spanning generations, the piece is a razor-sharp slice of life.

It’s the type of small-scale human tragedy that lends itself to the Electric Company’s personal interpretation. With the setting relocated to First World War-era interior British Columbia, the play may hit closer to home in Vancouver. Traditional songs from Roe’s family tree are woven throughout the script.

Collier had been itching to play with the audience-performer relationship in this way for a long time.

“I’ve had an immersive piece in mind for years now,” she says. “It’s not easy to get a show funded and going. I think it’s been five or six years I’ve been thinking about it.”

The result is a significant break from the tech-heavy productions that have shaped her career. Tear the Curtain, Collier’s last Electric Company undertaking, was an acclaimed hybrid of theatre and film. But you won’t see any of the same dazzling multimedia at the Queen Elizabeth.

Collier’s scrapped the projected video interludes and hydraulic-powered sets this time. Instead, All the Way Home promises a cappella choruses and candlelit moments of bald heartache. (Maybe a glimmer of hope, too.)

It might be a new direction for the Electric Company, but All the Way Home remains in keeping with the group’s innovative spirit.

“We often want to move toward territory that we haven’t visited in awhile,” Collier says.

“In some ways it’s a much simpler production technically, but in a lot of ways it’s not that low-tech.”

Collier cites the difficulty of scoring voice-only refrains without the aid of recorded cues. Then there’s the acting precision required to emote under such close scrutiny. Not easy tasks to accomplish, she says, regardless of gadgets. “This way we can position people inside the actions and put attention into the reality.”

With seven shows over five days, Collier says there are site-specific surprises tailored to the venue.

“It’s a reversal from where the audience normally is,” she says. “A couple moments we own the site.”

Roe says it’s this kind of inventiveness that won Collier Canada’s prestigious Siminovitch prize in 2010. “She creates theatrical magic, either with a whole bunch of toys, or just a bunch of great actors.”

“It’s been a real pleasure to work with a different set of rules,” says Collier.

For this theatre company, it seems rules are meant to be broken.

At a glance

All the Way Home

When: Tuesday, to Jan. 14

Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre, 649 Cambie

Tickets: $20-30 from tickets.vancouverplayhouse.com or call 604-873-3311

Photo by  Michael Julian Berz. Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Home+keeps+family/5947037/story.html#ixzz1izHi0N6I

BY SARAH BERMAN, THE TYEE

The year is 1949. British reporter Noel Monks walks into the Hotel Vancouver and orders a pint. The barman turns him away—not because he’s intoxicated or even poorly dressed—Monks was bounced for standing on two feet.

The journalist later wrote Canada is “a tremendous, virile country… Yet you’ve apparently let yourselves be legislated into a state of adolescence when it comes to the use of alcohol.”

Monks had reason to be miffed. At the time, B.C.’s beer-serving establishments outlawed music, dancing, food of all kinds, unescorted women and standing upright with a beer. Wine or whisky weren’t on the menu, and mocking the rules by crawling from one table to the next was presumably more than frowned upon.

In other words, fun was synonymous with contraband.

Local historian Robert Campbell (author of Sit Down and Drink Your Beer) explains these laws were a reaction to the “wild west” era before prohibition. “There was intense debate. The government wasn’t necessarily against liquor, but against the 24/7 public drinking and drunkeness in saloons.”

Following the First World War (a brief time of temperance in Canada), B.C. axed its prohibition laws and brought back booze under heavy government control. “They banned all the trappings of the former saloons,” says Campbell. “Anything that might encourage one to drink.”

We’ve come a long way since those puritanical days, but change has been astonishingly slow. Despite a culture predisposed to bonding over bevvies, B.C.’s liquor laws remain among the most archaic and outdated in North America.

1. No beer on stage!

An example: until earlier this year, it was against the law for performers to sip beer on any stage in the province. For rock bands touring anywhere from Nanaimo to Vancouver to Prince George, liquid courage was technically off limits.

It’s a rule still enforced by many B.C. bar owners who fear inspections and penalties. The Astoria pub in Vancouver is one such venue: “You can’t drink or even dance on the stage with a drink,” confirms Astoria bouncer Buck Lafontaine. “We tell them before they go up: water, but nothing else.”

“I want to drink a beer in between songs,” shrugs musician David Rogria after a recent show at the pub. Rogria books live gigs for the Astoria and plays in a band called Basketball. “Security [staff] have a lot more important things to do than bother musicians drinking on stage.”

Campbell says the law was likely a “hangover” from the post-1920 restrictions on entertainment. “It has very deep roots, I suspect.” After the better part of a century, this relic of screwy prohibition-era logic was finally laid to rest.

But the historical hangover doesn’t end here. Among B.C.’s entrepreneurs, culturites and politicians, there’s an emerging critical voice.

“We’re looking at some deeply antiquated policies,” Vancouver Councillor Heather Deal says of B.C.’s Liquor Control and Licensing Act. “It’s not about being permissive to the point of encouraging abuse, but bringing legislation into the modern age.”

2. No wine with that movie!

For starters, movie theatres cannot sell liquor in British Columbia.

It’s an old law, thrown into question by an equally ancient theatre: the 1938 Rio in East Vancouver. Functioning as a single-screen multimedia venue for many years, the theatre has been locked in liquor licence limbo for nearly a year.

The City of Vancouver has endorsed the Rio’s application for a full-time licence, but the provincial government has ruled the heritage space would have to stop functioning as a theatre.

“That’s what the province has told us. They’ve made it very clear,” owner and general manager Corinne Lea says. “With this application process we must now be a live venue exclusively.” It’s a strange violation, considering the Rio has regularly served drinks at live events using temporary licences.

That news came as quite a shock back in September — eight months into Lea’s application — after she’d spent $100,000 on a 3-D projector. “We’re fully equipped for film. Our fans like to see movies here. It’s a big blow to our business.”

Liquor Control and Licensing Branch general manager Karen Ayers says the law is in place to prevent minors from accessing alcohol. Kids like movies, she says, and aren’t easily monitored in a dark theatre.

“I have seen letters from individual people wanting government to change regulations to permit the Rio Theatre to serve liquor and screen films.” Ayers confirms. “Our response so far has been that the regulations don’t permit what they’re looking for.”

Lea insists there’s a demographic difference between a Toy Story 3 matinee at Cineplex and the Rio’s midnight screenings of Rocky Horror Picture Show. “It seems to be very black and white,” says Lea. “They tend to make sweeping rules that don’t take care of the subtleties. It really ends up affecting the arts.”

An online petition calling for the law to be repealed has collected a couple thousand signatures since October. With the City and public in full support, the Rio must wait for legislation to catch up.

3. No cross-border boozin’!

Alberta can be forgiven for its lack of wine country. But as visitors, British Columbians might be tempted to bring over a bottle or two from Canada’s oldest wine region.

However, thanks to the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act, doing so is a federal offense. No liquor is allowed to cross provincial borders without express consent from each province’s liquor board.

“It’s not right that someone from the United States has an easier time shipping wine home,” says Okanagan-Coquihalla MP Dan Albas, who has spearheaded a private members’ bill to amend the 83-year-old law. Albas says the legislation hurts his constituents’ family-run wineries and the region’s tourism industry.

“I don’t think they normally bother people like you and me,” Campbell says of the limits on cross-provincial imbibing. Liquor boards in Alberta and Ontario have both issued statements that give allowance for personal use. “But it certainly doesn’t encourage inter-provincial trade.”

Albas’ Bill C-311 has passed through two readings, and will undergo committee scrutiny sometime in the new year.

He hopes the amendment will help B.C.’s small-scale wineries reach bigger markets. “They’re not permitted to market their wares outside the province unless they sell to a provincial liquor authority,” says Albas, adding that most artisan wineries don’t yet have the capacity to sell large orders.

If all goes according to plan, consumers will even be allowed to—gasp—purchase B.C. wine online within Canada. Craft breweries, of course, would still be inhibited by the outdated rule. (That might take another half century to fix).

4. Cheese only, party planners!

They can choose your cheeses, but under current laws, catering companies are unable to stock or distribute the wine to match. Party planners across the province are calling for change.

“Right now caterers are not eligible for licence,” says Ayers. “The government is considering that request along with other requests.”

The law caused a stir earlier this month, when a California-based company planned a retreat at one of Whistler’s Olympic legacy venues.

It was the first time the Whistler Olympic Plaza was reserved for a private function. According to Whistler’s weekly independent news mag Pique, roughly 650 people flew in from across the continent for a six-night stay at the Fairmont.

With a week of Olympic-themed activities planned, the uninitiated ex-pats got a taste of B.C.’s liquor laws. It was dry. Very dry.

It had to be. If the group wanted a special occasion liquor licence, the foreign company would have had to apply in advance, transport the booze and take on responsibility for the liquor service. It’s a job usually reserved for event planners.

Organizer Joanne Burns Millar, president of the catering business Pacific Destination Services, told Pique the incident was embarrassing. “It’s crippling our business. It is absolutely crippling our ability to deliver to international corporate conference and incentive groups.”

But until the provincial government comes up with a new class of liquor licences for caterers, B.C.’s cheese stands alone.

5. No happy hour!

They’re allowed in Washington and Alberta, but you won’t find a half-priced afternoon drink in B.C.

British Columbia is one of the most expensive places to buy alcohol. There’s a set 123-per-cent markup on every bottle of wine and a 170-per-cent markup on every bottle of spirits sold in the province. No bars or restaurants are offered wholesale discounts.

Government price-fixing affects restaurant bottle sales, pushing competitive advantage south of the border. As one Vancouver Magazine guide points out, to get the best restaurant price on a B.C. wine, you have to travel to Berkeley, California.

Taking a look at the labyrinth of legalese known as the Liquor Control and Licensing Act, it’s no wonder many local businesses hire consultants to navigate provincial restrictions. And unfortunately for Vancouver’s cultural entrepreneurs, change is neither fast nor easy.

“We’ve almost gone out of business just getting this to happen,” says Lea. “If they don’t hurry up and do something, there’s not going to be a business to give a liquor licence to.”

It’s like waiting for happy hour, when happy hour never comes.

Published December 30, 2011. Photo of Ernest Hare via the Library of Congress.