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Early in September the following
letter was received at the Other Press
office: ‘‘The Vancouver Playhouse
would like to extend an invitation to

by DAVE WATSON

 

 

you and a guest to attend the opening
night performance of A Man For All
Seasons by Robert Bolt. A reception
will be held in the upper lobby of the
theatre following the performance’!
felt | was qualified to review the
production even though my theatre
going experience has been limited to a
few Langara College Studio 58 shows
(all with a-friend in the cast) and a
grade 6 class trip to Anne of Green
Gables. However my reception ex-
perience has been extensive, mostly at
weddings where ‘‘reception’’ is de-
fined as free booze. Normally a staff
meeting democratically decides who
gets the complimentary reviewer tick-
ets, but | saw the letter first and
decided this was the perfect oppor-
tunity to expand my knowledge in both
areas.

Showtime was 8:00 pm sharp so we
arrived at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre
40 minutes early. Unfortunately, the
play was being presented at the Queen
Elizabeth Playhouse. Only the fact that
the Playhouse is in the same building
prevented us from being complete
fools. No sooner had we checked in at
the VIP desk than our second mistake
became obvious--we were terminally
underdressed. My friend was wearing
the only pair of jeans in the building. |
had decided to dress up: grey flannel
pants, black dress shirt, acceptable
Scottish plaid tie and dark socks but
my $20 Zellers runners revealed my
middle class upbringing. No one else
in the lobby wore clothes more than a
week old. | doubt if they had ever
heard of Eatons. Wall to wall Socreds.
| immediately headed for the bar,
where | stayed until it was time to take
our seats which were as far left of
center as possible. (1 wonder how they
knew?)

The play begins in 1529. Henry the
VIII wants the Pope’s permission to
divorce Catherine of Aragon. All their
male children had died in infancy and
the sole surviving daughter is an
unsuitable heir if the Tudor dynasty is
to continue. Henry interprets this as a
divine punishment for marrying his
brother’s widow and wants to marry
Anne Boleyn (if you’d been paying
attention in History class you'd al-
ready know this). Cardinal Wolsey, the
Lord Chancellor, aspires to be Pope
and stalls Henry who replaces him
with Sir Thomas More, a writer and
lawyer renowned for his fairness and
wit. More, a devout Catholic refuses to
appeal to the Pope for Henry's
dispensation to divorce Catherine,
whose nephew, Charles V of Spain,
controls Italy and thus has the Pope by
the short hairs. Henry breaks from the
church in 1532 to establish the
Anglican religion with himself as its
head. More, as a man of conscience,
resigns. More is reduced to poverty
and refuses to sign the Oath of
Supremacy which proclaims Henry the
spiritual head of English religion.
Despite his silence, even to his own
family, of his opinion of the break with
Rome, More is arrested for treason in
1534.

As a lawyer Sir Thomas is careful to

THE OTHER PRESS”

Henry Heads Off Opposition

avoid the traps a Royal Commission of
former friends and acquaintances set
for him, maintaining that his silence,
and the reasons for it, are his own
business. Only the perjury of Richard
Rich convicts him of treason and More
is subsequently executed.

Sir Thomas More is played by
William Hutt, Canada’s most disting-
uished actor, perhaps most familiar for
his portrayal of John A. MacDonald in
the CBC’s production of The National
Dream. Hutt is pretty good. He
projects More’s dry and subtle wit
with a twinkle in his eyes that sparkles
into the rafters. More comes across as
an ‘‘English Socrates’’, the epitome of
logical 16th century moral and _reli-
gious belief. Something is lacking in
Hutt’s portrayal as More comes across
less as a sympathetic Catholic martyr
than as a stubborn old fool who is a
little too self-satisfied with his right-
eous stance. All he has to do is sign a
piece of paper to save his life but his
adherence to his principles prevents
him. Admirable as this is the sym-
pathy of a cynical 20th century
audience doesn’t naturally fall with a
man who won’t lie even to save his ass.
Even if the average Renaissance man
of reason on the street possessed this
aloof arrogance, a humbler and more
human characterization would make
More’s inevitable death more tragic.

I’m not sure if theatre critics are
supposed to mention this sort of thing
but Hutt flubbed a couple of lines, but
recovered well and | don’t expect he
does it every night.

The most realistic role (and the best
performance) is Simon Webb’s por-
trayal of the Common Man. The
Common Man plays many parts--the
narrator, More’s household servant, a
jailer and a middle class merchant. He
performs the important function of
putting events in perspective for the 99
per cent of us who are not members of
the ruling elite. Royal decisions affect
him but don’t substantially change his
life. He is the steady state the other
characters are evaluated by. As a
narrator he opens the play by declar-
ing the 16th century the ‘‘century of
the common man...just like every
other century.’’ Simon Webb receives
many of the most amusing lines in the
play, the lines that cut through the bull
and pettiness of court intrigue.

All the performances are good, as
one would expect in professional
theatre. Leon Pownall as Henry VIII is
a capricious, autocratic ruler switching
from humor to Royal command in the
blink of an eye.

Despite minor flaws the production
is entertaining, interesting and
thought provoking historical drama
with a sense of the lives of nobles in
Tudor England.

Speaking of nobles, after the show
we went to the reception briefly. Most
of the audience was there. We mixed
like oil and water--we literally oozed to
a deserted neutral corner. The drinks
were not free or even on sale. We
queued up with the ‘‘beautiful peo-
ple’ in the chow line (the food was
good) and left.

| recommend A Man For All Seasons
as an amusing and revealing look at
the culture of another era. It is running
until Oct. 20 at the Queen Elizabeth
Playhouse which is around the side of
the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Some
‘people have been known to confuse the
two.

 

October 5th, 1984" ’

Liquid Sky
Sex drugs and other
assorted decadence

Liquid Sky
directed by Slava Tsukerman

Not all outer space beings want to
conquer our world. Some are just
looking to score a bit of smack.

The invisible aliens in question,

-by RANDY CANTERA

reprinted from the CHARLATAN
by CANADIAN UNIVERSITY PRESS

 

seeking the coveted drug heroin,
descend upon New York City in their
flying saucer and attach themselves to
a female unit named Margaret. This
fashion model, with her New Wave
clothing and lifestyle, is a good choice
for the aliens because heroin is a
popular stimulant among her circle of
peers.

But, we soon learn these alien
junkies hunger for another type of
high--a chemical produced by the
brain during orgasm. Once again,
Margaret proves to be a dependable
supplier as she, through her radiant,
slightly emaciated and androgynous
appearance, attracts a steady number
of sexually-motivated suitors of both
genders.

A funny thing, however, happens to

these lady and gentlemen callers when
they are feeling the earth move.
Without warning, they evaporate. And
quite colourfully at that, with an
accompanying orange - blue - green
shaded explosion. Margaret revels in
the discovery of her ability, and with a
spirit of vengeance, starts to liquidate
all her lovers and assailants.

This most touching tale is the
premise of Liquid Sky, a film that
combines the fantasy of science fiction
with the smutty decadence of today’s
underground youth movements. Since
its release last year, Liquid Sky has
made an impact on reviewers and
audiences not seen since the days of
David Lynch’s Eraserhead. Blaring
trumpets disguised as superlatives,
including ‘‘dazzling’’, “‘brilliantly ori-
ginal’’ and ‘‘innovative and imagina-
tive’, have emerged from such di-
verse newspapers and magazines as
the New York Times, Newsweek, The
Wall Street Journal, and USA Today.

Such lavish praise is usually direc-
ted towards state-of-the-pap Holly-
wood. merchandise or the rare quality
film, and not towards a low-budget
($500,000) film flaunting drug-
drenched, fashion-conscious andro-
gynes who indulge in illicit sex.