My Top 15 Favourite Shows of 2012

15. King John (Bard on the Beach) – Bard on the Beach killed it with this rarely produced Shakespeare play. The acting, across the board but particularly by Todd Thomson and Scott Bellis, was raw and natural.

14. Peter and Chris Explore their Bodies (Fringe) (twice)- Peter Carlone and Chris Wilson expand their story-telling chops with every show. This is their fourth ‘feature’ and it really moves the duo forward in their ability to craft a narrative. The jokes are still so fresh they almost seem off the cuff and they build a world and represent cutting edge special-effects with their unparalleled physical work.

13. Bike Trip (Fringe) – Martin Dockery is a story teller who specializes in digression. If he stayed on subject his shows would only be ten minutes long but, thankfully, he delves into minutiae and sticks around longer. This one is about his travels following in the path of the man who first invented, and dropped, LSD. It is also, of course, about many other things.

12. Fear Factor Canine Edition (Fringe) – Attention to detail goes farther than I’ve ever seen before. John Grady used to be in the blue man group and you can kind of tell. The gestures that accompany the heartbreaking tale of a man preserving the dignity of his best friend – his dog – are exact. And with those gestures, he hugs us until we let go. Bonus points for the humanity of standing outside after your show and thanking each person for coming. Extra bonus points for engaging and caring for these he moved further than others; those who are embarrassed or surprised or suffering from recent losses. He was hard for me to look at him at the fringe bar afterwards without feeling emotional. That’s a powerful performer.

11. Underbelly (Fringe)(Coming to the Cultch) – Another one-man show, Jayson Macdonald made me think I liked William S. Burroughs more than I do. His show is presented as a fragmented, poetic journey through Burroughs biography, but the poetry is written by Macdonald instead of borrowed. And it’s rich and engaging but not nearly as satisfying as Macdonald’s acting. There’s a moment where he goes from Burroughs to Kerouac in a somersault that I wanted to rewind over and over again to catch the subtleness in the total change. This one’s coming to the Cultch later this year and is well worth seeing.

10. Shakespeare’s Impro-Musical (Fringe) (playing at the Presentation House) – It was almost impossible to put the last five shows in order. Each was a fringe show that knocked my socks off and each (despite many of them being one man shows) was so different it felt like rating fruits to meats. I don’t like improv. The other improv shows on this list were probably better than I gave them credit for but I have a hard time not getting up and leaving as soon as I see an improv performer bound on stage with a water bottle in hand and bow in a joking-flourishy manner. And they all do that. Even These guys (several vets from Vancouver Theatre sports who subbed in and out depending on the night). But holy shit, to see a group of character improvise in iambic pentameter and classical verbiage, and to burst out in song and collectively create group numbers, AND to tell a cohesive and exactly timed 60 minute show, was pretty special. And it was ACTUALLY laugh out loud funny. They’re playing again at the Presentation House in North Van this year and I’d highly recommend it to anyone.

9. The Meal (PI Theatre/Pacific Theatre) – Half concert half performance, The Meal was leaning in the direction of an idea I have about where theatre needs to go to stay relevant (http://mackgordon.tumblr.com/post/4215559631/step-two). A gorgeous retelling of the last supper, filled with incredible and moving performances from artists who are truly multi-disciplined. I hope they bring this one back.

8. Chelsea Hotel (Firehall Arts Centre) – A true virtuoso performance, the cast of six pull instrument after instrument out of their beautiful set and sing the songs of Leonard Cohen. Steve Charles’ arrangements of the classic tunes should win a grammy. I went home and listened to Leonard Cohen and was disappointed the songs weren’t as good Tracey Power’s dynamite cast.

7. Doubt (twice) (Pacific Theatre) – Jon Patrick Shanley’s script is as sharp as broken glass. I’d avoided any previous contact with Doubt because the premise seemed played out. Jean Cocteau has a quote that I can’t find online so I’ll paraphrase what it means to me: “You shouldn’t dislike a painting of a flower because you’re allergic to roses. It is the painting that is important, not the subject.” I didn’t want to read or watch a story about nuns but I had no idea how well it could be executed. Despite the Arts Club’s staging of it a few years ago, Ron Reed of Pacific Theatre decided he had to take a crack at painting Doubt the way he saw it. Each scene, each line, each breath has a purpose. There were zero lazy choices by the actors and the play culminated slowly, meekly, and perfectly.

6. Plasticity Now (Fringe) – Very much akin to Koyaanisqatsi, one of my favourite movies ever, Plasticity Now is the craziest, most inventive puppet show I’ve ever seen. The two women in Mind of a Snail use garbage a projector screen and two overhead projectors to tell the story of creation in full color and imagination.

5. Three More Sleepless Nights (Fringe) – My friend Jamie had been inviting me to see the show she and her friends put together for some time now. Each time it hadn’t quite worked for me to see it and, if I’m being honest, I didn’t try overly hard to make it work. At the fringe this year I finally got around to it. I wish I’d gotten to see it more than once. Three More Sleepless Nights takes the conceit of intimacy in the theatre and runs a million miles away from anyone else thinking about it. Now I know what you’re thinking – sounds like actors sitting on audience’s laps and getting in their faces and looking them in the eye and all sorts of other things that scare the shit out of most people. Under Conor Wylie’s direction though, the cast pulls their task off with dignity beyond their, or anyone else’s, years. When a theatre actor is looking for a new film and tv agent, there is always a stupid conversation about the actor being able to cope with the intimacy of film. Film is quiet and understated and more subtle than 9/10's of theatre. But this show takes it a step further. Audiences are invited, along with actors, into a stranger’s home. The rules are laid out: you are a camera. Go where you need to in order to get the angle and view you’d like. Get as close as you like or stay as far back as you like. There was a point I wanted to climb into bed with the actors and pretend that I was the one Jamie was talking to because it would’ve been, literally, the closest approximation to real life I’d ever experienced in a fictional setting.

4. Medicine (TJ Dawe - Little Mountain Studio) (Playing now at the Firehall) – For those who don’t know, TJ Dawe is the master of the autobiographical one man show. Other’s do them well too (you’ll meet them further down the list), but no one crams so many disparate ideas and shear words into ninety minutes with so much unity and clarity. So when he wrote a show about Dr. Gabor Mate, HBO’s The Wire, and the 9-point Enneagram personality test, it only made sense that Dr. Mate would turn from a 2-dimensional, hypothetical muse into a real life friend and mentor. Mate invited TJ to one of his experimental Ayahuasca group therapy retreats. Never one to turn down an experience (psychedelic or otherwise), TJ accepted. And of course, when it was all said and done, he wrote an autobiographical one man show about it. But Medicine is different from other Dawe’ fare. He always goes deep but here he goes microscopic. He feels the emotion like he’s never felt it before and evolves as a storyteller in a simple and profound way: he undoes the artifice and injects a new and moving pathos.

Medicine is playing right now through Sunday at the Firehall Arts Centre. Don’t be a dummy. Go get tickets. http://www.firehallartscentre.ca/onstage/medicine/

If you’ve read this far you’re probably curious so I’ll just come out and say it. My least favourite show of the year was Slut Revolver from the Fringe Festival. It was really popular and the woman who wrote and performed it was tenacious with her marketing. I was looking forward to it and ended up shades away from walking out. Not because it was explicit or offensive but because it was boring and terribly structured and atrociously written. That’s all the bile you’ll get here. You earned it!

3. Clybourne Park (Arts Club – The Stanley) – I had a moving experience due in large part to the acting by Andrew Wheeler and the best song choice I saw all year to end an act on. Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone by Chet Baker, coupled with Wheeler and Deb Williams cuddled up next to each other reflecting on their home that they’re leaving and a trunk full of their deceased son’s belongings was totally debilitating for me. I was weeping in the third row and it was only intermission. You don’t get to live experiences of emotion like that very often, let alone witness art as powerful.

2. Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Pound of Flesh/Pacific etc – The Cultch) – The first time I saw this show was as a staged reading at Pacific Theatre. The script pulverized me. A Vindictive defence lawyer brings the case of Judas Iscariot before a purgatorial court. Seeing it again, I got even more snippets of ideology and debate. The acting didn’t have much higher to go from the staged reading but the cast continued to vault higher and higher. One of my favourite scripts.

1. All The Way Home (Electric Company/Playhouse – Queen Elizabeth Theatre) – There are rumours that Electric Company may bring this sold out, smash hit back to Vancouver but I haven’t heard much in the past few months. If they do, snap your tickets up right away. For my money, it was far more subversive and creative, and certainly more powerful, than their previous hit, Tear the Curtain. All the Way Home is a Tad Mosel adaptation of the James Agee classic, A Death in the Family. Director, Kim Collier, along with a killer production team (especially Alessandro Juliani on music and vocal arrangement), takes a potentially dry story and opens its mouth, reaches in and pulls all the guts of human life out on the floor. The one hundred some odd audience members sit on benches and the huge curtain pens the Queen E. stage off from its normal 2,781 seat house for a very intimate experience. As the show moves towards its finish, the Electrics pull off one of the simplest and most moving reveals I’ve ever seen.