M/HOTEL
At the Holiday Inn downtown (1110 Howe St.) until Dec. 10 Tickets: ticketstonight.com or at the door
Don't worry. What strangers often do in hotel rooms is not what you'll be doing-or watching-in Room 319 at the Holiday Inn downtown. Once in that room, however, you can't run and you can't hide. I suppose you could, but you won't.
M/HOTEL, battery opera's latest site-specific work and written by the company's co-founder David McIntosh, is a compelling piece that incorporates music, dance and storytelling-but each of those features separate and in sequence: first dance, then story, then music.
There are 12 loosely linked, 45-minute "episodes." Each night, beginning at 6 p.m. and continuing until 10 p.m., five of the vignettes, in order, are performed. The performers include Paul Ternes, Alana Gerecke, Jay Hirabayashi, Alison Denham, Aryo Khakpour and Cai Glover with original music by Aleister Murphy.
After getting the room key from host McIntosh in the Lobby Bar, you proceed with the other "guests" (anywhere from one to five) up to Room 319 and let yourself in. Absolutely ordinary: big bed, TV, side tables, lamps, bland art, surgically lit bathroom. Eventually someone arrives and the show begins.
It's strange, but also strangely riveting. Slightly reminiscent of Wallace Shawn's The Fever, the two stories I heard involved a privileged, white Western traveller in Third World situations. Strange, too, is that when the performers exit the room, the guests are left alone for five or 10 minutes before the phone rings and you are asked to vacate the room. In that space of time, the group's reaction to the experience is almost as interesting as the performance itself: discomfort, amusement and reflection-in equal measure.
M/HOTEL reaffirms battery opera's reputation for fearless iconoclasm with a sociopolitical twist.
BLOOD BROTHERS
At the Arts Club Granville Island Stage until Dec. 31 Tickets: 604-687-1644/artsclub.com
Why am I not surprised to read that Willy Russell wrote Blood Brothers (in 1981) for the Merseyside Young People's Theatre? It's relentlessly melodramatic, overly earnest and calls for a bunch of young actors in short pants. Two years later, Blood Brothers went mainstream but the kiddie roles were now played and sung by adults. I don't care how well grown-ups do children's parts-skipping, somersaulting or playing cowboys and Indians, with rare exceptions I just find it creepy.
However, under the excellent co-direction of Bob Frazer and Sara-Jeanne Hosie, Adam Charles (as Eddie), Shane Snow (Mickey), Ashley O'Connell (Sammy), Lauren Bowler (Linda) and several others in the ensemble do their best to convince us that they are the young offspring of working class Mrs. Johnstone (Terra C. MacLeod), a woman whose husband has recently abandoned her and their half-dozen or so kids but not before leaving her with twin buns in the oven.
Mrs. Johnstone's despair at having two more mouths to feed results in a pact to give one of the newborns to childless, upper-class Mrs. Lyons (Meghan Gardiner) for whom Mrs. J. cleans house. Since Mr. Lyons (Warren Kimmel) is away on an extended business trip, Mrs. L. is able to fake a pregnancy and the birth of a baby boy. Upon his return shortly after the babies are born and Baby Eddie is now in Mrs. Lyon's arms, Mr. Lyons doesn't seem to notice that she has none of the usual postpartum symptoms. Like lactation, for starters.
The good news is that the voices and the performances are excellent. Ted Roberts' set is nicely grubby-almost Dickensian although it's set in Liverpool, 1960-1980- and the three musicians (Sasha Niechoda, Ken Cormier and Buff Allen) provide terrific musical accompaniment.
Highlights of this production are definitely MacLeod and her powerful voice and John Mann as the narrator, a sinister Faustian character who (more times than are necessary) reminds us that the bargain will come back to haunt the Missus Lyons and Johnstone.
