news | Saturday March 17, 2012

Commentary Upon Vancouver Playhouse Closure

The Vancouver Sun’s Malcolm Parry gave a short commentary on the closure of the Vancouver Playhouse:

CURTAIN: The Playhouse Theatre collapse caused much nailing and washing of teeth, as a late CBC drama critic Ben Metcalfe would say.

Happy memories, too, among them he-man actor August Schellenberg wearing a kind-of diaper to play Inca emperor-god Atahualpa in Peter Shaffer’s The Royal Hunt of The Sun. Schellenberg was also Jaimie Paul in George Ryga’s The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, which premiered in 1967. It was thrilling then to see Frances Hyland, as Rita, comforted by Tsleil-Waututh band chief Dan George. That former longshoreman later brought the same soft tones to counselling Dustin Hoffman in the movie Little Big Man.

Rita Joe shows a now-lost aspect of the Playhouse’s role. Then artistic director Malcolm Black had offered playwright Beverley Simons a commission for the work about an aboriginal woman exploited by white society. She and then-lawyer-husband Sid suggested the gig go to their friend Ryga. Five years later, Hyland directed Simons’ play Crabdance at the Playhouse. And so it went, until this week.