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Drama flogs stereotypes

Sarah and Hans by Rod Brown,
AnE & RB production directed by
Lies! Laiferty at Station Street
Arts Centre (to Jan, 21.
Reservatlons: 688+ 3312.

L DID not expect to be enter
tained by Sarah and Hans,

By Martin Millerchip

Contributing Writer

A play set In the Polish death
camp of Auschwitz is not likely to
be a comedy,

1 did, however, hope for revela-
tion — the ultimate aim of all drama
—— and by that] mean more than the
fact that Auschwitz was not a nice
place to live.

J truly do not mean to trivialize
the memory of a place that stands as
a warning of just how close to the
pit humanity stands.

But I fear that Hans and Sarah,

‘despite its good intentions, does just

that.

On the face of it, a story that
revolves around hate and love
between guard and prisoner amidst
bonfires of human flesh is potential-
ly incendiary in dramatic terms.

- Unfortunately, playwright Rod
Brown. strikes few sparks in his
story of a guard with a conscience,

_ Hans is an Iron Cross hero from
a panzer division of the SS.

5 for $5"

“his Children's

He has been assigned to
Auschwitz while recovering from
the loss ofan eye and faved with the
tisk of “diseassembting” ghildren,

Living Inside a vodka bottle, we
nivet him drunkenly recording per
sonal horrors in his journal,

Racked by memories of "O00
small feet lightly dancing’ and a
nile of toys two storeys heh, Hates
ts insensibly drunk when Sarah
improbably pops out of his closet
like every Nazi's worst nightmare,

She is a Jewish doctor and an
Auschwilz survivor a meniber of
a resistance group dedicated to
recording for posterity the atrocities
committed in the nume of puriticn-
tion,

The strongest moments of the
play are here as a modem audience
s slapped In the face with the world
in which these characters are forced
to live,

I suspect that these fleeting
moments of power are closest to the

-genests of Brown's play — a series

of pooms entitled Trooper Hans and
Poems of the
Holocaust veritten in 989,

Brown wants to tell us how the
Hitler Youth and the $8 were indoc-
trinated against the Jews.

So Hans tells Sarah how he
“knows” Jews are inferior.

But the scene is so ineptly han-
dicd that { fully expected a sign with
“EXPOSITION” to Pop out of the

 Avalable af pertaspating
Arby's (oe a hint s3 tune

after 5pm

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five Famous Roogt Beet sandwiches for just $5.55.

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Go West. It's better out bere."

+, - Glosest Location:
Park Royal Mall South
West Vancouver

Other Vancouver Locations:
© 6038 Kingsway, Burnaby
® City Square, 555 W, 12th Ave., Van.

* 830 S.W. Marine Drive,

Vancouver

© 4151 No. 3 Road, Richmond
© Royal City Centre, New Westminster

' « Offer Expires Sunday, January 29, 1995

closet tad,

We fearn nothing about thins and
Sacuh beyond thelr worst experi
ences of the war,

Who they were. or what they
might have become had war and
genogide not intervened, in never
attempted,

Even if this is historienlly uecu-
rate, did director Lies! Latferty not
think to question this stereotype?

1 can't bring myself to recount
the implausible plot that develops
like something from a Bays Qwa
adventure story, but i you Uke a rip:
ping good yarn with lols of bravery
and torture Sarah and Hany is the
play for you,

If, on the other band, you wanta
sensitive portrayal of a relationship
that should teeter between using and
respecting with possibilides of
infatuation and tendemess, If not
love, then think back to the
Tamuhnous production of Bent.

Westview bids in

THRBE CONSORTIUMS
have submitted proposals: to
design and build the much
anticipated Westview inter
change on the Trans-Canada
Highway in North Vancouver,

By Anna Marie D'Angelo
News Reporter

Ministry of Transportation and
Highways spokesman Jim
Davidson said the $33.5 million
project ts on sehedute with a com:
pletion date set for June 1997,

Construction js slated to start
this spring,

The “bidding consortiums
which had their proposals in by
deadline day on Jan, 12 include:
@ Peter Kiewht and Sons Ltd
a SCt Engineers
Constructors;

4 The Westview consortium,

Davidson said the consortiums
are primarily Canadian companies
that have worked in the Vancouver
urea. Kiewit. he said, had both

and

1.07, and Alberta businesses ia the
go wortiumn,

The Westview consortium
Includes companies such as Noah
Vancouver's I A. Blacktop tu.

The highways ministry Js
expeeted to nnnounes (he stecesn
ful bidder in Febroary,

Davidson suid the Westview
interchange will be bullt using a
new tendering process: the suc-
cessful) bldder wi) design: and
build the complete project,

“This Is an attempt to fast track
the project," said Davidson.

Employment and Investment
Minister Glen Clark announced
tase July that the taterchange
would be built,

The Westview Interchange,
slated for the intersection of the
Trans-Canada Highway — and
Westview Drive, will eliminate
the daily wuffic jams associated
with commuter and ferry vehicles
travelling the busy highway,

Talk of building the inter.
change has been ongoing for
about 30 years.

~ This Man Wall
Steal Your Heart —

_ Pianist Radu Lupu, January 30.

He is a pianist with an international reputation for the sensitivity
and passion of his performances. And he is krown as one of the finest
interpreters of Brahms in the world today. Join conductor Sergiu
Comissiona and the VSO when they welcome the famed Radu Lupu in
a rare Vancouver appearance. The program will consist of Brahms’
Piano Concerto No. 1, Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 1, and Kodaly’s
Hary Janos; Suite. The concert is 8:00 pm atthe Orpheum, Radu Lupu
has not played here in 14 years. Don’t miss him this time.

VANCOUVER

54 MPHONY

Performing The Greatest Hits in History for 75 years

Sergiu Comissiona, Music Dlractor

A ae ae rales et

Pewee meee enawer

rats

anane

.
SAAR