Canadian premiere features classical guitar

Dr. Alexander Dunn, classical guitar
Faculty Concert Series, University of Victoria
Philip T. Young Recital Hall
March 15, 2013

Reviewed by Konstantin R. Bozhinov

Despite the professional rendition of four contemporary works in Canadian premiere, I did not leave humming any of the tunes I had heard. All four compositions displayed impressive effects, and I literally mean sound effects, but I still cannot recall a single melody. Much contemporary music tends to be quite unmelodic in nature. But one of the works, written for Alexander Dunn by local composer Liova Bueno, stood out because of its beautiful harmonies and passionate rhythms. Although the whole program featured classical guitar, no work was for the solo instrument. The different instrumentation varied between a guitar quarter, percussion, bass clarinet, mezzo-soprano voice and double bass. The guitar was always given a different function; sometimes accompaniment, sometimes soloist, and sometimes background colour instrument.

George Crumb’s The Ghosts of Alhambra was performed by baritone Steven Price, the wonderful Jay Schreiber on percussion and Alex Dunn on classical guitar. This piece demanded almost extreme awareness and sensitivity among the players, since Price had to drastically shift between almost a whisper, to a loud shout which filled the entire hall. The guitar here served the function of an equal soloist and not accompanist, while, as much as that is possible, the percussion played a supportive role. About a third of the stage was taken up by percussion instruments and, despite the extensive use of those, the balance was tastefully perfect. Everybody seemed aware that the guitar is the quietest instrument there.

Peter Maxwell Davies’s Dark Angels, performed by mezzo-soprano Susan Young and Alex Dunn, featured both parts as equally vocal and lyric. The guitar was not bound to its usual submissive accompanying role. The musicians took turns leading, alternating between brief solo guitar moments, as the suite unfolded. Overall, the music had a much more melodic quality, compared to the previous composition. The mezzo-soprano was much more expressive than the previously heard baritone, not because of the nature of the music, but because of what she did with it. The different musical gestures were much more balanced and transitions between different parts were made seamlessly. Because of this, a rather long composition was presented as a coherent whole.

Liova Bueno’s Poema Mistico bears the perfect title; just like a lyric poem, Bueno’s piece flowed from one character to another. At times, the listener was lead to believe that a certain pattern of rhythm and harmony had been established, but almost always that quickly faded.  Between these alternating episodes, more active and transitional parts took place, just like a play narrated by an actor. My initial comparison was to the structure of 17th century opera seria–passive arias provided emotional reflection on the action that was narrated in the connecting recitatives. In this way, the different episodes implied a grand structure.

At times I was reminded of the colourful harmonies of the king of tango, Astor Piazzola. Guitar, percussion, clarinets and double bass delivered varied tonal colours, but balanced writing prevented the dominance of any individual instrument. Overall, Liova Bueno’s composition stood out from all others on the program with its unique character. Definitely a local composer to keep an eye out for.

 

Konstantin R. Bozhinov is a PhD student in historical musicology at UVic, as well as a professional performer on the lute, the orbo and baroque guitar

Twilight Horizon sparkles with artistic vision

Solipsis
Twilight Horizon (2012)
Written, recorded, and produced by Eric Hogg at Soma Sound.

Reviewed by Chris Ho

After releasing his debut full-length album, ‘Twilight Horizon,’ this January, Solipsis, a.k.a. Eric Hogg, is now up for two well deserved Vancouver Island Music Award nominations: one for Island Producer of The Year, and one for Island Pop/Rock Album of the Year.

Given the tightly knit instrumental layering and overall cohesiveness of the album, it’s clear that Twilight Horizon is the culmination of a remarkably pointed artistic vision. Everything from the reversed guitar riffs to the sweeping vocal harmonies and impeccable guitar tones are carefully crafted and consistently balanced throughout the entire record. Nearly every track has just the right amount of twists and turns in between the inventive, yet accessible, vocal melodies. Even after a casual first listen, I was immediately drawn into the album’s soundscape, which seemed to be its own entity, separate from everything around me.

Twilight Horizon begins with a choir of voices, combined with ambience, bells, clean guitar and bass, which serves as an intro that smoothly transitions into the next brilliantly produced track, “Along the Way.” Among the ambient noise, an acoustic guitar gradually emerges and is joined by a distant voice, easing the listener into the journey they are about to take: the buildup is gradual, but the payoff is loud and glorious as the electric guitar and cymbals come crashing in for the finale. Normally I wouldn’t be this corny and refer to an album as a “journey,” but this seems appropriate here. In the same way that a story challenges you to look at the world differently and indulge in the archetypal journey of the protagonist, this record invites you to open up your mind, engage with the full spectrum of sound and indulge in its meaning.

Yet again, the ambient trail off of the second song takes us right into the next track, further establishing that sense of cohesiveness. The vocal melodies are inventive and yet accessible, but not in the way of modern pop, per se. Alternatively, they resemble the melodic charm of The Beatles, Radiohead, and especially Elliot Smith. This is particularly apparent in songs like “Over the Falls,” “End of the Rainbow,” and “Falling.” I won’t be at all surprised if Eric Hogg’s masterpiece wins him an award for both Island Producer of The Year and Island Pop/Rock Album of The Year.

Chris Ho is a UVic graduate and Victoria-based singer-songwriter.

Poet explores Garry Oak’s vitality

Gardens Aflame
Garry Oak Meadows of B.C.’s South Coast
By Maleea Acker
New Star Books, 108 pages, $19

Reviewed by Susan Hawkins

“A Garry Oak meadow is a garden,” states Maleea Acker. And, according to Acker who cites local ethnobotanist Nancy Turner  “. . . they were constructed landscapes, created and managed through use of fire and species selection, in order to enhance their productivity and maintain their structure.” This understanding has gone mostly unrecognized since the arrival of Captain James Cook in 1718 until fairly recently as the consequences of aggressive development and environmental destruction have resulted in our current ecological crisis.

Acker lives in Saanich on Vancouver Island, where she has transformed her yard into a small Garry Oak meadow. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Victoria, and is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists. Her first book, The Reflecting Pool (poetry), was published in 2009; Gardens Aflame is her first nonfiction book.

What can the pre-settlement, First Nations’ relationship with Garry Oak ecosystems teach us today? In Gardens Aflame, Acker explores this terrain through a combination of personal narrative, historical research, botanical referencing and regional politics, resulting in an effective overview of the remaining Garry Oak meadows of south Vancouver Island and the challenges faced by those dedicated to their restoration and preservation.

The relationship of First Nations Peoples with their environment on Vancouver Island, and globally, is indisputable. Deep soil charcoal deposits reveal that fire as a traditional ecosystem management technique has been widely utilized for millennia. But to what extent Garry Oak meadows represent “constructed landscapes” is not yet certain and remains a topic of much current research. According to Nancy Turner and Richard J. Hebda, in their 2012 publication Saanich Ethnobotany, Culturally Important Plants of the WSÁNEC People, Garry Oak meadows were “managed” in plots containing camas bulbs. Selective clearing and practices of controlled burning were limited to areas of harvest, not the entire ecological system.

Marguerite Babcock describes camas plot cultivation:

“. . . The plot from which the bulbs were to be gathered would be cleared of stones, weeds, and brush, but not of trees.  The stones would be piled up in a portion of the plot where there were no camas plants growing, and the brush would be piled up on one side, left to rot or to be burned… The brush was actually uprooted, not just cut down… The purpose of the clearing, said Christopher Paul, was to make the camas easy to clear [sic: dig?] when the camas was gathered intensively.”

The history of oak-prairie ecosystems throughout North American is inextricably linked with fire, both human and lightning generated, and some low-intensity fires have been used in Garry Oak locations. Nonetheless, in the 2001 publication, Towards a Recovery Strategy for Garry Oak and Associated Ecosystems in Canada, Marilyn A. Fuchs argues, “The efficacy of fire as a restoration tool is equivocal because some invasive plants are favoured by fire,” and ”invertebrates are vulnerable to direct fire-caused mortality.” Hence, Omar McDadi and Richard J. Hecha in, Change in historic fire disturbance in Garry oak (Quercus garryana) meadow and Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) mosaic, University of Victoria, (2008), recommend adopting an approach that involves restoring landscapes to “mosaics of patches having different species compositions.” This requires “restoring patches of alternate stable states on the landscape such as Douglas-fir forests, rather than just one ecosystem variant such as a Garry Oak meadow.” Understanding ecosystems, like our relationship with nature, as Acker attests, “is complicated.”

Garry Oak meadows are one of Canada’s most endangered ecosystems occurring uniquely in the province of British Columbia on southeast Vancouver Island, adjacent Gulf Islands, and in the Fraser Valley. Urban encroachment, changes in landscape management practices and the introduction of exotic species threaten the ecosystem. A Garry Oak meadow is vested with a range of biological and cultural values conferring great significance and urgency to ecosystem conservation. Understanding and implementing Coast Salish ecological management processes along with the hard work of numerous volunteers will help insure their continued survival.

Gardens Aflame is an informative and thoughtfully written book, but it contains a comment that I feel must be addressed. Introduced species of flora and fauna are playing havoc on ecosystems throughout North America and the House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) is no exception. These birds found a niche in farms and towns and quickly multiplied, competing for food and nest sites, but the practice of catching sparrows, and “crushing them between two logs” is an unethical act of cruelty that should not be condoned.

 

Susan Hawkins is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Victoria and a Landscape Horticulturist.

 

Good Grief! Someone Get These Kids Some Ice Cream

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown
The Phoenix Theatre
Based on the comic strip “Peanuts” by Charles M. Schulz
Book, Music, and Lyrics by Clark Gesner
Directed by Fran Gebhard
Ends March 23

Reviewed by Leah Callen

From the first puffy cloud, there was something unsettling about this musical take on the Peanuts gang. As the characters sang, “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown,” they took turns slinging playful insults at him. Freud would have a field day with this play. The story is a strange sundae with childlike cheer and rousing musical numbers layered on top of existential angst. Characters struggle against childlike melancholy in the pursuit of happiness, as each ice cream scoop in their lives falls off the cone to the sidewalk. As Charlie suffers from unrequited love pangs for the Little Red-Haired Girl and bangs his head against a tree, Sally sees the futility in skipping, and Linus’s addiction to his blue blanket causes a full-blown Busby Berkeley-esque intervention. Lucy charges Charlie to console him, reminding us that friendship costs.

Like the comic strip upon which it is based, the story runs in a series of vignettes. The striking lighting, costumes, and set had a fantastic, surreal feel. Their sculpted, slick wigs reminded me of the homicidal, plasticine-haired people in the film Heavenly Creatures, a nice touch since these cartoon children are a strong mix of bitter and sweet. Live musical accompaniment on a grand piano, the energetic choreography, and musical numbers ranging from operatic to jazzy were the sprinkles and cherry on this musical treat.

Kale Penny sang with gentle artistry as the frustrated Charlie Brown. My childhood crush on dramatic, intellectual Schroeder remained intact.   Derek Wallis wore that wig and conducted the rest of the cast masterfully in the number “Beethoven Day,” a staggered chorus piping out the composer’s Fifth–pure magic. Francis Melling played Linus like a depressed Buddha who is under-appreciated.

Kevin Eade’s Snoopy was a howl, exposing the dark underbelly of the cartoon canine as he confesses his secret desire to bite someone. He was the cool, aloof guy in the pack, a beagle beatnik. I really just wanted to pet his furry head. Snoopy’s suppertime serenade was sung with charismatic soul, like a puppy version of the Rum Tum Tugger. And Snoopy’s flying doghouse scene, as he cursed the Red Baron, was a highlight.

This play has a one-dimensional take on female characters, even for cartoons. Lucy and Sally are written as overbearing princesses constantly bullying others. In a classic scene, Tea Siskin as Lucy perches on Schroeder’s piano like a frilly barfly, trying to make him into the man of her dreams–every man’s nightmare. Christie Stewart was a spring as tightly wound as her yellow ringlets in the role of Sally. Both actresses are clearly talented singers. However, the intentional helium-squeak in their voices was a gimmick that wore thin for me; it only added to shrillness of their characterization. It limited them from truly showing off their voices while singing and I, frankly, worried about their vocal cords. The male leads did not have to suffer the same vocal gymnastics.

Athletic, forthright, Peppermint Patty, played by spritely Veronique Piercy, was the one female role that could have been a refreshing contrast to the stereotyping, but she never got to be centre-stage. I really wish she had. As amusing and imaginative as the play was, the story seemed to be less about Charlie and more of a comment on gender. This could be very clever if not for the sexist overtones. After a while, I was silently wishing Snoopy would lose control and bite someone. This version of the famous comic is a cynical one, but the song and dance are the delightful chocolate sauce that sweeten the bananas.

 

Leah Callen is a budding poet-playwright-screenwriter studying at the University of Victoria.

 

Wong’s ambitious journey in Escape to Gold Mountain

Escape to Gold Mountain
By David H.T. Wong
Arsenal Pulp Press, 239 pages, $19.95

Reviewed by Andrea Routley

Many readers are probably familiar with some of the history of Chinese settlers in North America. Maybe they think of racist policies like the Chinese Head Tax, or the Chinese Immigration Act in Canada, which effectively banned all Chinese immigration for a quarter of a century. In Escape to Gold Mountain, David H.T. Wong tells this story through a narrative which spans generations of one family, from an aging father in 19th century Qing Dynasty China, the Opium wars, the construction of the Transcontinental railroad in the USA and the CPR in Canada, violent oppression including a massacre of Chinese miners in Wyoming, lynchings in San Francisco, through to the pioneering achievements of Chinese-Canadians and Americans in government, political activism and more. Sound like a big story? It is.

Although a fictional graphic novel, Escape to Gold Mountain is based on historical fact, and on Wong’s own family history. The character readers follow most is Wong Ah Gin, who endures a barrage of predicaments and situational conflicts. We gleam only a little insight into his personality through his relationship with an adopted son, but we must soon leave him behind. Maybe this reflects all histories: the way we touch here softly for a short time, then die, another faint stroke on the past, faint memory for the future. But this may disappoint readers looking to become emotionally invested in the life of one character. Indeed, as the novel progresses and the family tree expands, it is hard to keep up with who is who.

Still, Wong’s drawings do much of the work of individuating characters. The illustrations have a dynamic cinematic quality, with variation in the layout and dimensions of frames, close-ups and aerial views that reflect the scope of the story and the pace of change.

Of course, any story spanning these historical events would be the stuff of an epic novel, but I love this form—the graphic novel—for the way it reconstructs a pictorial history. There is a shortage of images from this time—how many photos have we seen of Chinese workers blasting the side of a mountain, or working at saw mills in places like Port Alberni? And to follow so many generations, each confronted with yet another kind of legislated hate or violent backlash, is exhausting. Even in reading this dynamic graphic narrative I thought, “Not another tax increase!” or “Not another attack!” as if the story were becoming repetitive. But that is exactly the point, of course. Even from my comfy spot on my couch with my coffee and decades (not to mention cultural heritage) between myself and many of these events , I am exhausted by them, a frank reminder of the persistence and endurance necessary for early Chinese Canadians to live in Canada.

I admit I have a soft spot for the historical graphic narratives. In high school, I was a big fan of shoplifting books like Nietzche for Beginners, Fascism for Beginners, or Maus. I can still picture Wagner and Nietzche on the same page, Wagner with his wild hair and “Humph!” expression on his face, having their man-crush fall-out. Okay, so maybe I missed some of the bigger picture. But any book that can make a teenager steal for History is doing something pretty remarkable. If I were 17 again, I might have stolen Escape to Gold Mountain, too.

(Don’t worry, I paid for it.)

 

Andrea Routley is a writer and musician based in Victoria, BC.

Milestone performance for early music scene

Victoria Baroque Players
J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion
Guest director Timothy Vernon
Church of St. John the Devine
March 12, 2013

Reviewed by Konstantin R. Bozhinov

Victoria’s period-instrument ensemble, under guest conductor Timothy Vernon, recently gave a unique and memorable performance of a baroque gem. Both the choir and orchestra were filled almost entirely with local talent: most of the musicians were professionals, but the minority of students could not be differentiated as to skill. I was lucky to get the last vacant seat in the church.

The ensemble was comprised of period instruments only, including the rarely heard oboe d’amore and oboe da caccia. The vocal soloists are just as important as the instrumentalists in such a performance. Leading them was Benjamin Butterfield, head of the vocal department at the University of Victoria, in the role of the Evangelist. His recitatives always provide the important joints between individual movements.

St. John’s Chamber Singers were well prepared and appropriately sized for the venue; the opening chorus presented a lot of contrapuntal detail, especially from the lower voices and the overall sound was in balance with the orchestra. The short, simple choral phrases that Bach wrote offer rare moments of reflection. I still wonder how this quality was retained when almost forty people came in together. The relatively dry but still resonant acoustics of the church, apart from providing clarity, made these moments intimate without diminishing them.

Bass soloist Nathan McDonald sang the role of Jesus with rich tone with no struggle for volume or textual clarity; he skillfully portrayed his part’s dramatic elements. Countertenor Mark Donelly, singing the first solo aria, filled every corner of the church with his clear and assured sound. This was not achieved with volume, but rather with projection and lack of hesitation. After a short recitative, this was contrasted by Emma Hannan’s soprano aria accompanied by two flutes, which produced unparalleled sweetness. It was unfortunate that this combination never came back in the entire performance. Perhaps this is why Bach only featured it once.

Kiiri Michelsen’s lyric voice enjoyed intimate dialogue with the viola da gamba during the “Es ist vollbracht!” section, appropriately intimate and delicately sung because it depicts the final moments of Jesus’s life.

I noted awkwardness in the placement of the pause between the two parts. Because it was asymmetrically about a third in, it made the second part too long in comparison. Overall, the conductor paid clear attention to minute dynamic contrasts to which the musicians unfailingly  responded. This was a milestone performance on the West coast early-music scene. The Victoria Baroque Players have established themselves as THE group on the island.

Konstantin R. Bozhinov is a Ph.D. student in historical musicology at UVic, as well as a professional performer on the lute and baroque guitar.

Immigrant narrator packs punch

Giant
By Aga Maksimowska
Pedlar Press, 211 pages, $22

Reviewed by Judy LeBlanc

Reading Giant, Aga Maksimowska’s debut novel, I quickly found myself immersed in a world similar to the one inhabited by David Bezmozgis’ boy narrator in Natasha. Both books are infused with an Eastern European allure complete with culinary details, snippets of best-loved phrases in the native tongue, religious iconography and ritual, and a fraught political/ historical backdrop from which emerges the immigrant’s raw and courageous efforts to adapt to a new culture.

While Bezmozgis’s narrator is a Jewish Latvian male, Maksimowksa’s is an eleven-year old Polish girl named Gosia from a family divided by divorce. At age eleven, Gosia lives with her sister, her outspoken cognac-guzzling grandmother and communist grandfather in Gdansk, Poland during the 1980s while the solidarity movement simmers in the background. The sister’s teacher-mother (the only one in the family with a university degree) has emigrated to Canada two years before. Their hard-drinking father works on a container ship and appears sporadically bearing cheap gifts from Asia. The first half of the book chronicles life in Gdansk complete with pubescent angst and the usual firsts: bra, period, sexual encounter, all coloured by Gosia’s relationship with her grandmother and longing for her mother. If it weren’t for tragic-comic scenes like the one where a portrait of the pope and the black Madonna look down on a violent argument between the grandparents or another where a monstrous carp swims in the bathtub awaiting grandmother’s cleaver, I might feel trapped in an early teen book. Sometimes the voice – first person present – rings with an implausible maturity and language, generally plain and unsentimental, is peppered with too many flat, over-used expressions.

These problems are resolved in the second half of the book when I felt finally that I joined Gosia and her sister in their new life in Toronto with their strong-willed mother. Here, the story unfolds as the immigrant story does: the love/hate relationship with the adopted culture and its new language, menial work and the everlasting struggle to make ends meet, prejudice and ignorance. One of Gosia’s classmates carves a swastika into a bench where she sits. “It’s tiny but the grooves of its lines are deep.” Gosia’s loathing of her overlarge body, while emphasized to excess in the early part of the book is now symbolic of her general social awkwardness. Ultimately, it is the women in this story who triumph. Their strength is most evident in a memorable scene where Gosia and sister with mother and her Polish women friends celebrate the election of Walesa, heralding a new era of freedom. It is evident again when Grandmother urges Gosia’s mother to “stop waffling” and choose between Poland and Canada. On a personal level, the women in Giant, like Poland, choose freedom, complete with its confusions and pitfalls. These women have depth, gusto, and deep affection for one another, so much so that their presence lingered with me long after I had finished the book.

 

Judy LeBlanc is a fiction writer and a recent grad of UVIC’s MFA program.

Author explores Israeli-immigrant experience

Reviewed by Will Johnson

Ayelet Tsabari didn’t want to write about Israel.

Although she grew up there, and visited regularly, she didn’t feel prepared to tackle such a weighty subject. While completing her MFA at the University of Guelph, she toyed with the idea of writing a novel. Then she started a collection of stories that explored the immigrant experience. But nothing was working out as she planned, and she found herself obsessing over her homeland.

“I was scared to go there, because it’s such a loaded place. It’s almost impossible to write about Israel in a way that would not be perceived as political, and I wasn’t sure I wanted the responsibility,” Tsabari said.

But after some gentle encouragement from her mentor Camilla Gibb, she decided to tackle Israel head-on. “Once I committed to it, my writing really started to flow,” she said.

That manuscript ultimately became The Best Place on Earth, a collection of short fiction that will be released in March by Harper Collins.

Tsabari knew early on that she wanted to finish the collection with the title story “The Best Place on Earth” because she liked the idea of ending with the image of two Israeli sisters on a Gulf Island in the Pacific.  This theme of travel and displacement flows through the book. Tsabari has spent a large amount of her adult life travelling, in India as well as the Middle East, before settling in Toronto.

“I’ve always been fascinated, and somewhat envious, by how some immigrants are able to move on and embrace their new homes fully. I have friends like that. For some reason, I’ve always been torn between my two homes, and I don’t know how to reconcile this dichotomy. I love Canada; it has been extremely good to me and I’m happy with my life here. But Israel continues to haunt me,” Tsabari said.

“The protagonist of the stories are mainly Israelis of Mizrahi (North African and Middle Eastern) descent and the majority of the stories take place in Israel. Like most writers I write about subjects I’m obsessed with: family relationships, loss, displacement, gender dynamics. I think many of my characters feel exiled in some way and are searching for a home.”

One story that has special significance to Tsabari is “Warplanes.” She said it was the first story in which she consciously tackled an aspect of Israeli life she’d been nervous to write about. “It also has a strong autobiographical element, unlike most of my stories,” she added. “I, too, lost my father to illness during the Lebanon War and I remember feeling like his death was overshadowed by the death of soldiers at the front.”

“It wasn’t a rational thought, but I was ten and obviously couldn’t comprehend or cope with his loss,” she said.

Tsabari said she prefers not to think about her audience too much while writing, because it has the potential to paralyze her process. However, she would have written her book differently if it was intended for an Israeli readership rather than the Canadian audience that might be unfamiliar with some of the customs, place names and events she’s writing about.

“Still, I’d like to believe that literature has the power to transcend the boundaries of land and race and citizenship, and that people can relate to stories from everywhere,” she said.

Tsabari is now working on a novel that tells the story of the Yemeni community and the hardships they face when they immigrated to Israel in the 1950s.

 

Will Johnson has just completed his master’s degree in writing at UBC.

Vollebekk shows prowess in North Americana

North Americana
Leif Vollebekk
Released by Outside Music
Produced by Howard Bilerman and Tom Gloady

Reviewed by Noah Cebuliak

Montréal poet-crooner Leif Vollebekk’s sophomore offering North Americana is a strong evolution from his 2010 debut Inland. Recorded to tape in a variety of locations and with the ideal of capturing the perfect take, the album showcases Vollebekk as a rambling, half-crazed genius with a gift for turning deft phrases and milking his harmonica dry. It’s simultaneously more focused and relaxed than his first, and if slightly less playful (no songs about the Faroe Islands here), more confident in tone and scope.

It’s not difficult to parse Vollebekk’s influences–Dylan, Waits, Kerouac–but he taps this inspiration more subtly on this album than he did on his debut. Perhaps it’s a result of a maturation in life and music, coming into his own sonic intent, but North Americana manages to sound familiar and fresh at once, a rare feat in any era. The combination of a tight backing band, a clever lyric book and his unique, milky voice keeps the record turning.

That said, most of the songs on NA do sound the same–Vollebekk’s not exactly breaching any new frontiers here. His images and stories are well told, and the production is warm and welcoming, but if the listener is permitted one quibble, it’s lack of strong melody. North Americana falls into the category of an “atmospheric” album–that is, you play the whole thing and are transported into Vollebekk’s southern summer highway dream for a while. That’s a fantastic thing for  music to do.

But this isn’t an offering full of hooks or passages that keep you up in the dead of night. Most of the songs’ twists and turns are relatively predictable, because it seems that Vollebekk’s following a formula, albeit one that works, and has worked for the past 100 years or more–the lineage of folk. While there’s nothing too wild in terms of arrangement and instrumentation, a real sense of space dominates the record. Space is generally an underused element in today’s releases, and Vollebekk demonstrates his mastery of it here. 

Leif Vollebekk has made a highly listenable album, especially for those packing their bags to hit the road–leaving behind an old lover, or going in search of a new one. It’s sultry, it’s hopeful and sly, and after a few listens, you can feel you really “get” where Vollebekk’s at. On North Americana, Leif Vollebekk has established himself as the next great eastern folk-poet.

 

North Americana is available on iTunes and through www.leifvollebekk.com.

 

Noah Cebuliak is a Montréal-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who leads the indie-folk-pop trio Ghost Lights. He independently released his debut EP in November 2012. Check out www.ghostlights.ca.

 

Actors enhance suspense with slapstick

The 39 Steps
Langham Court Theatre
Directed by Keigh Digby and Cynthia Pronick
Adapted by Patrick Barlow from Alfred Hitchcock and John Buchan
Ends March 23, 2013

Reviewed by Leah Callen

Langham Court’s The 39 Steps is North by Northwest meets Laurel and Hardy. One part old Hollywood and two parts vaudeville, it gives a self-conscious nod to both stage and screen magic.  As the audience got lost in fog and the laughter of the lady next to me ran off the tracks, I flashbacked to knee-slapping pantomimes I saw while growing up in England.  Gorblimey. In fact, I’m typing this review with one hand and sipping Earl Grey with the other.

A falsely accused man-on-the-run escapes into and out of the arms of the wrong women. Richard is dying of bachelor boredom in wartime London when he and a seductive secret agent hit it off with a bang at the theatre. His excitement begins. This production winked at us with charming Hitchcockian allusions, from a bad guy who sports a wig from Psycho to a police chase that exists through the rear window. It would make a fun drinking game, raising a glass each time one of Hitchcock’s movies flashes us – if drinking were allowed in the theatre. One has fun spotting them nonetheless. Film projections were a delightful, theatrical element here; the medium is perfect for a play adapted from a movie. I wish it had been used more throughout.

The play also pokes fun at the limits of theatre with self-destructing props, intentionally missed queues and phones that ring long after they’re answered.  The slapstick made up for some inevitable predictability in plotting for the genre. The tongue-in-cheek approach is the marmalade that makes all the cloak-and-dagger easier to swallow.

The actors wore many fedoras and grew more comfortable with madcap character changes as the play galloped along. Alan Penty played the lead, Richard Hannay, who gets more dashing as he’s chased across countries. Handcuffed against his will to button-faced Pamela, he is forced to face his deepest fear: commitment. In a clever, mute moment, Richard has no choice but to caress her legs with his cuffed hand while she removes her stockings one-by-one, and he holds a sandwich. Talk about restrained appetites. Penty was humorously human as craziness rained down on him.

Karen Brelsford took on the Vertigo-esque challenge of portraying with chameleon ease prim Pamela,  Annabella the spy and man-hungry Margaret. It was fascinating seeing her adapt her energies to match each new wig.  Nick Sepi and Toshik Bukowiecki were masters of quick change, playing everything from the milkman to dancing Nazis. Nick was straight out of Monty Python as he juggled accents and gestures.  He was so hilarious that I wanted to take him home as my dinner guest. Toshik was at ease in both skirts and kilts. He handled outrageous characters with unbelievable naturalism. He was the favourite of the man sitting behind me.

Some transitions were inspired and others a bit clunky, but it’s forgivable since the play is so darn funny. One scene ending featured a train-whistle scream that shifted us into a train car. The choreography that followed was simply brilliant. Hitchcock would be proud. The strobe light effect seemed an unnecessary staging device and just gave me a headache. But overall, this was a successful marriage between theatre and film. I give it two guns up.

 

Leah Callen is a budding poet-playwright-screenwriter studying at the University of Victoria.