Once

At the Arts Club Granville Island Stage until July 29, 2018
Tickets from $29 at 604-687-1644 or artsclub.com

Posted June 22, 2018

It’s mind-blowing just how much talent is on the Arts Club Granville Island Stage these nights. Director Bill Millerd (retiring as Artistic Managing Director after 46 years) told the opening night audience that the cast was chosen, in part, by how many musical instruments they played. As with Chelsea Hotel, which ran at the Firehall on and off for a few years, each one seems to pick up a violin or guitar or banjo or penny whistle or ukulele or mandolin or cello or accordion or clarinet (who knew Chris Cochrane played the clarinet?) and goes at it with gusto. Most of them also take turns on the cajon (pronounced ‘ka-hone’), the box drum.

Amidst all that variety, it’s a simple story: broken-hearted guy meets upbeat girl (referred to in the programme as Guy and Girl); she turns his life around. Simplicity, however, ends there: Guy’s Irish, Girl’s a Czech immigrant in Dublin. He (Adrian Glynn McMorran) is a Hoover repairman and busker who’s pining and drooping over his girlfriend who has left him and gone to New York; she (Gili Roskies) is a musician and a single mom. She’s so darned positive it sometimes seems she might be an angel sent to help the lovelorn Guy. And dialogue like this leaves us wondering: Girl: “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Guy: “Where?” Girl: “I’ll find you.” Somewhere in Dublin? But, no, she’s real. She has her mother Baruska (accordion-playing Alison Jenkins) and a community of wildly passionate Czech musician friends to back her up.

Not only is there the coming together of Guy and Girl, there’s the fusion of what we think of as Celtic and gypsy music – a combination to stir the heart and get the blood running.

Almost as much fun as the show is set designer Ted Roberts’ set: an Irish pub complete with real beer on tap. On entering, the audience can go on stage, get a beer and be entertained by some rousing, foot-stomping Irish music performed by the cast. Gradually the audience leaves the stage, beer in hand, and Once begins.

Roskies could not be more charming as Girl: she’s spirited and talented on the piano (from Mendelsohn to the Guy’s newly penned compositions) and she harmonizes beautifully with Guy. With her dark bouncy curls and a smile that lights up the place, Girl’s running joke, when asked if she’s serious, is, “Of course I’m serious. I’m Czech.” It gets a laugh every time.

As Guy, McMorran has a little more difficulty endearing himself to us because Guy is kind of pathetic in his moping around and eventually trying to romance the girl. She’s pretty clearly having none of it. But McMorran is really accomplished on the guitar and has a great voice although music by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, with the exception of the rousing gypsy music (of which I would have loved more), lacks much variety. Several of the songs seem to play on a repetitive four note melody: do-re-(falling to) ti-do.

Chris Cochrane is the delightful bar manager with back problems Kelly (of course); his Spanish dance (choreographed by Scott Augustine) with the incredibly foxy and super talented Marlene Ginader is a hilarious showstopper. John Murphy as Guy’s father Da also does some very fancy footwork; Sarah Donald as Guy’s ex-girlfriend and Caitriona Murphy, as the loan’s manager from Cork, are both supremely accomplished musicians (violin, cello, guitar and cajon) and fine actors, to boot. Murphy, particularly, has a fine comedic edge.

The best part of Once is that it doesn’t go where you suspect it’s going to go. That’s usually a good thing.  And the other best part is the music that precedes the show. It makes you wish you’d stuck with those piano or violin or accordion lessons – or, at the very least, that you had learned to play the spoons. You, too, could be up there having a whole lot of fun.