Unusual comedy born out of passion and pain

Tough! by George F. Walker,
directed by Palrick McDonald.
A Green Thumb Theatre pro-
duction at the Vancauver East
Cultural Centre to Feb. 20. tn-
formation and reservations: 254

Mariin Millerchip
THEATRE REVIEW

OU CAN smell
Phillip Tidd’s set for
Tough!

The fresh sod and cedar bark
mulch conjure an aromatic field of
dreams before the play even starts.

But much as } cajoyed the olfac-
tory sutpriae ft initially doubted the
design attempt to create a mini-
park in the middie of the Cultch
with the problems of only black
backing and sightlines that include
the baicony audience.

As the fights went to black be-
fore the play started | was wonder
ing whether a hacder exierior
landscape defined by scaffolding
and wire netting might not have
worked better in this theatre.

But the first image caught by the
returning lights dispelled any se-
cond guessing of the design.

Here is a young girl so caught up
by the emotion driving her argu-
ment that she is physically con-
tracting her body energy before
expioding up and out, spewing
words like a demented fountain in
some desperate chase of its own
essence,

This is life at 19, pulsing with a
raw vigor that threatens to over-
whelm.

Of course the set should be
“alive” and growing too,

Photo by David Cooper

Jill (Leslie Jones) teaches Bobby (Frank Zotter} a tough lesson in
Green Thumb Theatre’s world premiere of George F. Waiker’s
emotionally charged but very funny Tough! at the Vancouver

East Cultural Centre.

The girl in question is Tina, who
is in love with Bobby but has just
found out that he has been explor-
ing new territory inside somebody
else's shirt.

Confronted with his commit-
ment to love Tina “forever,”
Bobby is overwhelmed by the

See Walker's page 44

eet

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