Kim's Convenience

Cast Photo: Cylla Von Tiedemann

 Lurene and I are an unlikely pair to have a night out together.

Not that we don’t have similar interests. We just don’t find ourselves in the same places much, and especially at the theatre ... unaccompanied by anyone else.

Yes to finding us at a folk festival or a blues show, but not at the regular Theatre Calgary presentations.

Lurene wanted to see Kim’s Convenience by Ins Choi and I was an available date.

We got there early and waited for rush seats for the performance.  Ten minutes early, is the earliest they will sell what is left of the seating for the night.

“I had no idea there would be a full house on a Wednesday night so early in the run,” she said as we were heading for home, noting that the show does run until the end of the month, so there is still lots of time to see it. We were seated one row and a few seats apart. There couldn’t have been more than 20 seats left in the whole theatre by the time we selected our seats. A full house mid-week and a standing ovation. That probably says it all.

Not having sat together, I didn’t know when she had laughed and she didn’t know when I had winced. We experienced both emotions. “I thought this was a comedy,” I heard myself thinking at one point, “So why are they doing this to me.” And in the comedic moments I was laughing so hard at the slapstick humour. Such a charming play. I read the Herald Review before I went and I watched a video clip. But when the show began, I wasn’t sure if I was going to understand much of it. Mr. Kim’s accent had to be sustained through the whole show and it took me a while to get an ear for the Korean-Canadian accent. I like it when a play starts out making me work that hard.

Theatre Calgary presents A Soulpepper Production

Lurene and I had an animated conversation on the way home – surprised, first, that we were together at at a performance where there was no music. There was a charming lullaby in the middle of the play, a segue to more complications in the plot than had been initially presented. Nicely sung. This play pressed forward in an unusual way, investigating the lives of two complicated children of an immigrant family and underlining the humanity in all of our families -- letting us see ourselves through a Korean immigrant family. That gave enough distance that the pain of it wasn’t quite so big.


Here are my top three “likes” about the play.

1. A lot of fun to see the setting – a Toronto convenience story, complete with characters who steal and those who don’t steal, the problem of selling the new drink on the counter, the issue of parking illegally outside of the store, even trouble over who does or doesn’t take out the garbage.

2. Just loved the zany character(s) played by Andre Sills – a real estate agent, a shop lifter, a policeman – great comic relief and yes, as goofy as they were, I was laughing. 3. Thought it was nice to introduce the brother (Jung) who left home at 16 and to give him a complicated character and history before we were introduced to him near the end of the play. Nice touch.

3. The evening would have perfect if we had gone out for Korean food before we went to the play. Lurene laughed and when I said that and replied to the idea, “Yes. A perfect touch in your world. In my world I am just lucky to get to the theatre and back. But to tell the truth, I may go out three evenings this week. A miracle for me.

Arta

Gabe & Gypsy

Gabe will be in the production of Front Row Centre's GYPSY at the Pumphouse Theatre, May 25 to June 9.

He has 3 small parts, and enjoys each one of them.

The hardest part for me was teaching him clarinet so he could play for 10 seconds.

I feel like I deserve a medal. It just doesn't work when I try to teach him instruments. I should have remembered when I tried to teach him piano for 6 months.

Marcia

Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout

... good entertainment ... free for U of C Students ...
$15 for others

Thomson Highway’s Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout is playing at 7:30 pm at the Reeve Theatre until December 10.

I am going to slip over and see it again this week.

The last names of the protagonists represent B.C. First Nations tribes: Ernestine Shuswap, Isabel Thompson and Annabel Okanagan.

The figures wear Greek masks – really abbreviated masks that only cover their cheeks and forehead, the rest of their faces heavily painted.

The coyote, raven and otter appear as trickster figures. The big kahuna of the play is Sir Wilfred Laurier, who made a visit to the First Nations people in B.C. in 1910. He promised to take action on their concerns. A few months later he lost the federal election and their troubled relationship with the federal government is still a point being addressed.

The play is a mix of Greek, Christian and native mythology and the mix kept me on my toes all evening.

Mak and I looked at the stage setting before the play began. I couldn’t figure out why there was a large five dollar bill on the curtain, until half-way through the play when I figured out – yes, Sir Wilfred Laurier’s face is on that bill. The play is fun and vivacious ... and also political and sad.

Hard not to be laughing when you hear that Ernestine Shuswap is to cook a rainbow trout for the banquet, since no one from the east wants to eat salmon.

Isabel Thomson is to bring 624 Saskatoon pies so she spends a lot of time onstage, picking berries.

Annabel is boiling beaver for the feast but tells us at the end of the play, her food really stinks and she finally admits she should have stuffed the beaver with berries.

And Delilah Rose Johnson wonders why she has to hem table clothes for the event since she and her people have been sitting on the ground and eating their food for 6,000 years.  Why the change now?

Did I like the play?

I am going again before the weeks is out – trying for tomorrow night.  Here is a review from a 2009 production in Vancouver if you wish to read more about the play.

Email me if you can join me.

Chess by Ulvaeus and Andersson

Front Row Centre Players is the name of the company that is presenting Chess at the Pumphouse Theatre.

Wyona, Greg, Charise, Gabriel and I went to see the opening performance last night to watch Lurene on stage and to hear Tim in the 10 piece orchestra. “One Night in Bangkok” is the tune most people know from the musical.

The themes are love, home, betrayal and identity, all of which Svetlana (Lurene) had to embody as the wife of the Russian chess player.

Her bio reads “Lurene plays a mean trombone and a terrifying accordion (it’s new). You can frequently find her marching with the Kings Own Calgary Regimental Band or sitting in with the Southern Stardust Big Ban. She would like to thank Tim, her siblings and her parents for their love. Obicham te.!”

And about about the show? Lurene had two numbers – duets that hushed the house. She and the female lead have voices that blended perfectly, every note in tune, her body in character, attention focused on the way the song was moving the plot along, and eliciting a few tears from the people in the audience. A show highlight.

“Where did you get that wonderful costuming,” I asked.

“From other theatre companies, from second-hand stores and whatever the costume designer could find for us. I wasn’t all that happy with one of the dresses I wore, but it had been dry-cleaned for me.”

I had looked at that dress carefully. So had Wyona. A busy Russian purple print, a large square collar trimmed with lace that really didn’t work but that was meant to feminize the dress. The dress captured the look of the stereotype of an abandoned Russian wife. And Lurene played the part perfectly. Not the dress that anyone would want to wear but perfect costuming to bring us a character whom Lurene then softened and humanized. She had her cameo on stage as an actress as well – two duets and an acting vignette. Even Svetlana' crying gave echos of a realism no one wants to experience.

The floor of the set was painted like a chess game, and the chess board broke apart and was moved to create different scenes. Much of the costuming was in the black and white (and greys) of a chess set.

There was a reception on the opening night. The black and white checkered table cloth on which the perogies were served after the performance kept to the theme. The music for Chess is by Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, two of the Bs from ABBA. So ABBA music was played during the post-show reception. I watched the people in line – everyone’s feet tap or shoulders move or fingers are snapping when ABBA is the background sound they hear.

I saw a new Lurene costumed in the “One Night in Bangkok” song. Black and white and grey, a fabulous hat, large grey stipes, contrasting leg warmers, black leather boots, and all of those dancing moves. Check them out if she ever gets under the mirror ball at the lake.

Oh yes, Tim’s bio read “Tim’s only in the show because he has a crush on the estranged wife of the Russian chess champion.”

Many reviews give the bloopers. One of the stage steps broke in half just as one of the characters left it. No harm there. The lead female character fell and hurt herself, but she made it look like it was part of the act. And poor Lurene, she had to lug on a suitcase in a scene at the airport. It made her husband look bad, the only flaw in his character – making her cart that suitcase around.

“Oh, that wasn’t supposed to be that way. He went backstage and when he came out it was our cue and he said, ‘Come on. Let’s go’, but he forgot to pick up the suitcase that he was supposed to carry. So I just lugged it in and made it look like I was having trouble.”

"I was worried," said Wyona. "It looked so heavy."

"It weighs about one pound," said Lurene. "What you saw was just part of my act."

The show has two matinees – Saturday and Sunday and runs for 3 weeks at the pumphouse, at 7:30 pm. There is a language warning for children, but I think Gabe has heard his grandmother say worse.

Arta