Livestreamed from the Cultch until November 22, 2020
Tickets from $29 at tickets.thecultch.com or 604-251-1363
Posted November 21, 2020
Does the Cultch have what I want? Absolutely.
Do You Want What I Have Got? A Craigslist Cantata ran on the Arts Club Revue Stage back in 2012 to rave reviews so it’s about time someone remounted it, albeit now titled in lower case letters.
That’s not all that’s different about it: do you want what i have got is now a Covid-19-friendly production, thanks to a fantastically skilled crew under the technical direction of Cody Biles. Videographer: Cameron Anderson. Head electrician: Kaden O’Reilly. Audio: Kyra Soko and Chris Engleman. Why name them all? For good reason; five performers in five separate rooms (including the Cultch lobby and the lounge) with multiple cameras and mics – appearing together on your TV, computer or iPhone screen. It’s all perfectly synchronized with split second timing thanks to the high-tech wizardry of this crew. Cultch publicist Lisa Mennell says, “the whole place is wired”. Songs (by Veda Hille and Bill Richardson) sung by two, three, four or five singers none of whom can see the others. Really.
After the show there’s Gather.Town – a virtual meeting place where you can bump into other viewers and chat about the show. From the website: “Gather [Town] is a video-calling space that lets multiple people hold separate conversations in parallel, walking in and out of those conversations just as easily as they would in real life.”
And if you have difficulty getting the livestream or Gather.Town working there’s help right on your screen where you can chat with a technician and get yourself sorted out.
So that’s the amazing technical part of the show.
The show itself, under the direction once again of Amiel Gladstone, is clever and funny and sad and may have you misting up by the last refrain , “Did someone see me today? Did someone see me today?” The exquisite thing about this show, written by Richardson, Hille and Gladstone, is its slow burn. Based on actual Craigslist ads, especially the Personals, do you want what i have got? begins with some goofy, quirky ads – all sung – like, “I want to smell you again”, an ad placed by a SkyTrain rider bumping up against someone interesting in an olfactory sort of way; an ad offering a bunch of “headless dolls”; or free, used cat and kitten hats (now that “Snowman” is “no longer living”). Or how about a coffin, with a “handsome varnish finish” that has only been used for “storing produce”? And then there’s the three hundred stuffed penguins on offer to a “deserving child”. The weird and bizarre ads just keep coming, digging deeper and deeper into the human condition as the show progresses.
It’s distinctively Bill Richardson (a previous winner of the Leacock Award for Humour): off-the-wall, sweet, dark, kindly, quirky and compassionate. None of the characters is mocked or made fun of. Like Richardson himself, his sense of humour is uniquely wired. With Hille at the keyboard and Barry Mirochnick on percussion, the songs are varied, intricate, spiralling explorations that beg you to listen carefully if you want to catch all the intricacies of language and sound.
And it’s a whole new cast since 2012: Amanda Sum, who turns “Three Hundred Penguins” into a soulful lament, “I probably won’t catch a m-a-a-a-n” after reciting, in alphabetical order all the varieties of penguins worldwide; Meaghan Chenosky who hits a high C – or something near it – when she relates all would-be roomies she does NOT want answering her ad; Josh Epstein and his suave commercial for pet care after the “Rapture” when there will be a “lot of pets abandoned by Jesus”; Chirag Naik making a pitch with, “Hi, hi, my lady” and promising “a chicken, my lady”; and Andrew Wheeler looking for a guy who wants to drink coffee with him – in their underwear. You can’t make this stuff up. And these are just a handful of an evening-full of songs.
Eventually, the songs begin to merge into a universal longing for connection, for being noticed, for being seen. “Am I the one? Am I the one?” And a finish that, given the pandemic, the plight of theatres, the plight of us all, that is so ironic, so melancholy and so beautiful, you might find yourself in need of much more than a virtual hug.