J aS lta = oa ei —— eee eee _ x i PR iy OE peer tr ~ zoe Ses Festival challenges actress The idealogy of theatre by Trent Ernst rista Levar is an attractive kK young women, and it’s a bit unsettling talking to her about getting naked in front of an audience. I’m not deliberately leading the conversation, but we keep returning to the topic, because it is something that she has had to learn to deal with in preparation for A Fool For Love. “I’m not embarrassed or anything, but it takes getting used to. The first time it was like...” she mimes covering herself. But baring herself physically is nothing compared to the strain of baring her soul. “It’s a very passionate play. We’re either passionately angry or passionately sexual. It’s difficult sometimes to keep yourself separated from the character.” But that’s a problem that goes with the territory. “Even though the characters are only a part of what is written on the page, and the rest is us, you get used to it. You learn to distance yourself emotionally.” She laughs. “It’s really strange. After yelling “I hate you go away, I love you come back” on-stage, we’ll go backstage and it’s like, “so how was dinner? It’s disconcerting.” An adaptation of Sam Sheppard’s one-act play, Fool deals with a number of topics normally considered taboo. “We use coded language when we talk about [the play]. It has ‘mature content,’ and there’s coarse language, suggestive scenes, and nudity.” She’s quick to qualify the last point. “Not total nudity, just top up. And not even from the front...sort of from the side.” Krista spent two years in the Douglas College Theatre program- *Did you see anything I was in...no? Oh well. It was a long time ago.” Well, not that long ago, but 90-92 predates me by a year or two. She believes that students will enjoy Fools if the heavy themes don’t scare them off. Besides, the play is only an hour long, due to Fringe time restrictions. Even so, they only shaved off about ten minutes of A Fool For Love Venue #2, The Vancouver Performing Arts Centre, and will be showing Sunday Sept. 8 1:45 PM and 10 PM, Sept. 14 @ 1 PM Sun 15 @ 4:30. Clash Theatre’s next Murder Mystery will be September 27. THE dialogue. They’ve changed the play in other ways, to. “We’ve given it a feminist twist. The original is very masculine, so we made my character, May, a lot stronger and we gave her a lot more ee. power within the play. We aren’t ' Y A rewriting the play, we’re just bens 1520S presenting the characters in a different light.” Clash Theatre Society, the company putting on Fools, was founded by Krista and her business partner. “We’ve been running the society for two years now. It’s a non-profit group and this is the first time we’ve been involved with the Fringe. We do Murder Mystery dinner theatre shows throughout the Lower Mainland.” Fools is a departure for Clash Theatre Society, and a change from the usual Fringe fare as well. “We chose to do this play because it deals with things that are taboo, things that other companies won’t deal with.” Working on the production has been interesting for Krista and cast. “It’s been a real collective process, We have a director, and we have the basis for a hierarchical structure, but we operate as a collective, basically. If we don’t like what she [the director] says, we won't do it, which really ticks her off. It’s coming together really well, and it’s a real learning process. “Tt’s very challenging to do the play itself, and we thought it would be a worthwhile experience for us. Nest year we’re doing a play, called Theatre of Domination, and it has very Shakespearean themes to it. This year is an experimental run, because next year we'll be touring across Canada with Theatre of Domination.” D WS psaesl ON — oO Check out the Amelia Douglas Art Gallery on the fourth floor, New West Campus. The present exhibit is Short Stories, by Jana Rayne MacDonald. Showing from tat September 1 to October 11, 1996 MN eC Pou Opening Reception September 12 4 to 8pm Other Points of Inte aa wh The Other Press September 31996 9