Credit: Emily Cooper
At the York Theatre until January 6, 2019
Tickets from $24 at 604-251-1363 or www.thecultch.com
Posted December 2, 2018
“Let’s Do The Panto Again” (to the tune of “Let’s Do The Time Warp Again”) brings both the curtain and the house down on this season’s East Van Panto. Oh, what fun, glorious fun! It’s the sixth year Theatre Replacement has done a politically and theatrically goofy, family-oriented panto and given audiences a chance to tap into their inner child. That inner child is free to boo and cheer, to holler “Oh, no you don’t” or “Look behind you” along with the kids. It’s a free-for-all and we love it.
Writer Marcus Youssef joins the creative team this year along with performers Craig Erickson (as the Wicked Witch of Western Canada aka Rachel Notley) and Christine Quintana (as Dorothy). Back for more are Dawn Petten and Raugi Yu in a multitude of roles as well as musicians extraordinaire Veda Hille and Barry Mirochnick with twenty re-worded songs from “Northwest Passage” to “Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead.”
Director Stephen Drover miraculously manages to keep a lid on things and get Dorothy and Toto from PoCo to East Van and back in two hours – and with loads of adventures.
Credit: Emily Cooper
A pipeline explosion blows Dorothy and her little dog Toto from the tiny home where she lives with her Auntie Em (Yu) and Auntie En(Petten) in PoCo. She’s sick of Port Coquitlam with its sorry claims to fame – two 7-Elevens and the Mary Hill Bypass – so when she and Toto land at the corner of Nanaimo and Hastings, she’s ready for adventure in the World’s Greenest City. She soon meets the familiar but slightly altered trio: The Cowardly BC Lion (or maybe it was the Beastly Lion) in need of courage; the Tin Them (gender neutral) with a heart three sizes too big and Stoned Crow, a life-size doobie in need of a, of uh, of uh – oh, yeah, a brain.
Laura Zerebeski’s loopy, wonky painted backdrops are once again amazing with everything off-kilter and in technicolour: curvy buildings leaning into winding streets, Ballantine Pier cranes standing like praying mantises and the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge disappearing into the North Shore mountains.
Credit: Emily Cooper
When Dorothy, Toto and the trio of new friends find themselves in a West Point Grey mansion in their search for the Wizard of Ov (Olympic Village, don’t you know), they find it full of escaped factory chickens. Barbara Claydon’s chicken outfits are outrageously ingenious with scrawny yellow legs and flipper-like wings. These costumes plus Amanda Testini’s choreography – especially for the adorable little kids in the show – make these scenes completely, charmingly unforgettable.
Who knew that Craig Erickson (a Bard on the Beach regular), as the Wicked Witch/Rachel Notley, could be so funny? Dressed as a sort of upmarket witch in a long, black, fitted coat, big hat and long, wavy blonde hair, Erickson thrives on the “boos” he gets. He chortles and only gets wickeder and wickeder until he ‘melts’ when Toto lifts his leg on him. Toto, on opening night, was played by cute-as-a-real-puppy Kiyo Roth.
Credit: Emily Cooper
Kayvon Khoshkam arrives as Justin Trudeau to make sure there’s sufficient Canadian content and to try to placate the pipeline protesters. But when he strips off his Trudeau threads and does some dirty dancing, he and the crowd go wild.
What playwright Youssef and actor Dawn Petten do with CBC’s Gloria Macarenko ought to be illegal it’s so funny. Petten is Gloria Macarenko/aka the Good Wiccan of North Vancouver and leads everyone into a bastardized Macarena – now the Macarenko, the rowdy highlight of the evening.
Credit: Emily Cooper
Dorothy holds it all together and Christine Quintana – whose voice is spectacular (and yes, she tries to sing Somewhere Over The Rainbow but is interrupted) – is the engaging, more realistic centre of this production in her pink, red and purple Fluevogs which also happen to be the prize in the raffle.
It’s all very East Van, CBC and NDP-loving, pipeline-hating, Justin Trudeau-mocking hilarity. The script is so smart it will knock your Christmas stockings off.
So, if your inner child is saying, “Let me out, let me out”, don’t delay. The little kids won’t get all the political fun-poking but there’s so much going on it doesn’t matter. The East Van Panto kickstarts the holiday season with fun for everyone.
Joy to Theatre Replacement, The Cultch and everyone involved who, each year, brings us the best present – ever!