You Are Very Star
At H.R. MacMillan Space Centre until June 29
Tickets: youareverystar.brownpapertickets.com
This eagerly-awaited offering from Electric Company is so far from what I expected that the day after opening night Im still in a state of disbelief.
I anticipated You Are Very Star, on location at the H.R. Macmillan Space Centre, would be lights and lasers and everything spacey and hi-tech. But the first hour after we opening nighters, clutching hand-drawn maps and milling around the foyer in a state of confusion for 10 or 15 minutes was spent in the lower level auditorium where creative writing professor Dougie (Michael Rinaldi) goes off on spaced-out tangents in front of his students Rachel (Dalal Badr), Winnie (Kathleen Duborg), Esther (Marsha Regis) and Frank (Chirag Naik).
The date is Dec. 21, 1968 at 4:55 a.m. and Apollo 8 is just about to be launched. But due to the power being turned off by the building custodian (Patti Allan), Dougie misses the televised take-off. A fight breaks out and we go whirling back 10 minutes, then 10 days earlier, six weeks prior, three days earlier. A puffed-up Earle Birney (Allan again) makes an appearance, Dougie tries to seduce the already pregnant Winnie, Esther goes on a rant about how stupid the class is and Im so lost. Best lines from the first hour: The Georgia Straight is looking for reporters comfortable with obscenity and Allan (as Earle Birney) announcing, Im all into women stepping into mens roles.
After a 20-minute Interlude during which we are encouraged to complete stations (like sticking your hand in a bag to feel your personality) we climb three flights of stairs to the big dome. Best part of the stations: Skyping with a woman who, after telling her how old you are, is supposed to recount what she had been doing when she was that age. Turns out she and I were exactly the same age so we talked about dogs.
Up, up to the Big Dome. Starry skies. Three hundred and sixty degree horizon. Comfy tilt-back chairs with legroom that goes on forever. Its now 2048. Humans are augmented they can read minds. Communication with old, pre-augmented Starr (Allan in clear plastic raingear and carrying a clear plastic umbrella) is difficult because language as we know it, seems to have gone extinct. Who needs it when you can read minds? Actor Rinaldi has become Neil, Avas dead (I think) father (I think). But no, he comes back to life. I guess in 2048 everything is possible.
My guest, discovering Ive fallen asleep, is just about to nudge me awake when I come to. Soft reclining seats under a huge star-filled sky will do it to me.
Best thing about this part of the program is the emergence of Harold, the gigantic star-projector from deep in the bowels of the planetarium. He rises, turns slowly and the dome fills with stars and asteroids streaking across the sky. Oh, if only the music had been Pink Floyd I would have gone hurtling back, back in time, to my younger, firmer self and to a concert of truly cosmic proportions.
Part One, written by Craig Erickson with story development by Kevin Kerr, is called Orbiting the Cusp of Greatness. The Interlude is created by Georgina Beaty (with Kerr, Naomi Sider and Veronique West). Part Two, Transcendence, is written by Kerr with Sarah Sharkey. David Hudgins directs.
You Are Very Star is, apparently, the name of a song by the Rheostatics; Rusty Ford, featured for what seems to be a very long time in a video clip, is a self-taught, amateur guitar player of whom Ive never heard.
Sorry, Electrics, but except for the fantastic online promo at yavs.electriccompanytheatre.com/, I fear youve experienced a brown out.
For more reviews, go to joledingham.ca
