North Shore actress making “ We (actors), ---allMave .” - make'fora . -more.open West. Vancouver Memorial Library Gallery: Journeyings Into Watercolor, .. works by artist Gina Charles, and A View of Your Own, mixed media works by artist Elaine Sills, exhibition Dec. 2-Jan. 5. Info: 925-7410. Ferry Building Gallery: Christmas : Group Show, the works of 10 North . Shore artists in a variety of medi- ums. Artist's Dialogue, Tues. Dec. 10, 7 p.m. Meet artists, discuss art- related issues. Gallery winter hours: 1) am-—-5 p.m. daily. closed Mondays. Info: 925-7266. Silk Purse Arts Centre: Craft Show, \1a.m.-5 p.m., Dec. 3-8, Dec. 10-15. info: 925-7292. North Vancouver District Hall: Peak. Performance, performance photographs from a recent evening of collaborative performance art by 60 local students. Juck Ploesser, ceramic pottery. Both exhibits to Jan. 4 during business hours. Seymour Art Gallery: Victor Miles. Opening reception for the West - GILLIAN Barber plays an ana .totic mother in the new Canadian fitm Kitchen Party, currently being shot in Vancouver. Vancouver painter Dec. 5. 924-1378. West Vancouver Museum and Archives: West Vancouver Collects! Exhibition includes Coast Salish baskets, West Van Girt Guide mementos, and a section on “mod- ern” office technology (tum of the century to World War Two). 925- 7295. Dundaraye Cafe: Season's Greetings, paintings by Ann Hurst, opens Dec. 3. Exposure Gallery: Cowboys and Angels, recent works by North Vancouver artist Michael Downs. Sat. Dec. 10, 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Dec. 8, 12 noon to 6 p.m. 851 Beatty Street, Vancouver, Presentation House Gallery: Between Dreaming and Living, exhibition by Vikky Alexander, ongoing to Dec. 15. Info: 986-1351. Also see Special Events. Outer Space: Presentation House Theatre Lobby: Jerry Tam, classi- cal photographic works. North Vancouver Museum and Archives: The Amess Collection, continues through Dec. Bottoms Up! A Walk in Burrard Inlet, to March 9. What Goes On Below The Surface ?, NEWS phote Paul MeGrath ity retentive, neu- Wednesday, December 4, 1996 — North Shore News - 17 arber excels at baring her soul movies By Martin Mitlerchip Contributing Writer TLLIAN Barber is finally mak- ing her living from films and television. “Ten years ago we were all mired in the role of day players because there wasn’t the feeling from the Americans that we could progress,” Barber says. That would be the Americans as United States’ film companics who came to Vancouver in the 1980s to shoot our scenery with cheap Canadian extras standing in front of it and then went home to L.A. to add the scenes with the big talent or, worse, voice- over the funny = canajun accents. Barber doesn’t say it quite like that — she scems alwavs to look for a positive before a negative. But she does allow as how the Americans have come up here so often “they are beginning to trust the actors here.” And why wouldn't they? Actors like Barber and, for instance, fellow North Shore talents Jay Brazeau and Don McKay, have proven time and again they can do the job for Hollywood or Canada if given the chance. “There’s a lot of work out there for some- one my age,” she explains. “It’s also Hollywood. Everyone down there looks like this (she pushes the skin of her cheeks back towards her ears) and J don’t.” Asked her age, Barber offers it immedi- ately. “38. I’m not shy.” “Pm getting a lot of the 40 to 45 parts. The camera does that to my face,” she says with a ringing laugh, turning self-mockery into a huge joke. Barber herself has just returned from the Los Angeles premier of the mini series In Cold Blood in which she plays the doomed housewife Bonnie Clutter. The made-for-TV remake of Truman Capote’s harrowing tale of senscless murder in the heart of America avoids comparison with Richard Brooks gritty 1967 film by tak- ing the time to create the texture of the Clutter family of Holcombe, Kansas. And Barber deserves much of that credit for her intensely restrained portrayal of a brave’ woman crippled by agoraphobia brought on by post-partum depression. She says it is absolutely the most satisfying work she has done since the complex, schiz- ophrenic murderer she portrayed in Matinee. “The week of the murders I went into work every day stecling myself because I knew I would spend the entire day crying — and I did. “Bur there’s nothing like the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve hit that emotional mark and done it successfully.” But despite her growing success as a film to Dec. 9. Lower Lonsdale: A Community in Transition to March 9. Hours are Wednesday to Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Info: 987-5618. The Coastal Incident: Seven locai artists are participating in the fourth annual Art from the Heart exhibition to benefit the Vancouver Food Bank. The exhibition and sale will run at the gallery, 101-1260 Hamilton, Vancouver, to Dec. 14. A percent- age of art sales and total proceeds from a silent auction will be donated to the food bank. Admission is by a non perishable food item. 669-2500. Hendry Wall Theatre: The Snowglobe written and directed by See more page 18 CHRISTOPHER Hunt and Kerry Sandomirsky star in the British farce Tons of Money, to Dec. 14 at the. Vancouver Playhouse. actress (she’s about to play the lead in Gary Burns’ new Canadian movie Kitchen Party) Barber is not sure if she wants to leave the world of theatre actor behind her. “[ don’t wart to say I’m one or the other. I try to do at least one theatre show a year if I can. “I don’t want to lose the roots of where I started — my first Jove.” Those roots started growing when she was four. That's when she watched her mother rehearsing at the Calgary Music Theatre (later Theatre Calgary). “My mother loved theatricals but it just ‘wasn’t done’ according to her parents so she was a frustrated actress in amateur productions. “I would go along and watch rehearsals anc ended up being - in them at four years oltl.” : Barber’s family had emigrated from England but her older sis-- ter “never really moved to” Canada” so when she was 17 Barber went to live with her in London and study at. the © Guildhall School of Drama. : Back in Canada, she. became - one of six or seven ‘actors’ (including North Vancouver's” . Bill Dow} who worked “almost - like a repertory company” for Ray Michal at City Stage. _ wi “Bill Millerd (artistic director of the Arts Club) would come and watch and finally was cast in Talking Dirty.” ae She singles out a couple of the many Arts. Club productions in which she has appeared. “Angry Housewives was so much fun (she - has played three of the four roics in different” productions). fot “We did a tour and decided we would do: a video and we filmed everything: drunken parties, the bus, parts of the show, the crew’s version of the show. ‘ “It would have made a great film — how we became a family.” . Barber agrees that the strong, surrogate- family bonds that most casts forge is an attraction and acknowledges the acting pro- fession attracts wounded psyches. “We all have broken wings and that does — - make for a more open heart.” Bur she says the love of the stage is more ©. . than that. Y “It’s also the bond of going out there in front of an audience and baring your soul. If. mistakes happen you've got to, got to trust the other person on stage. ; “That’s what creates the bond. That trust.” ..: The other Arts Club production Barber . recalls with pride and affection is Caryi -- Churchill's Top Girls. “I never told (former Vancouver Playhouse - artistic director) Larry Lillo’ I was 25 when he asked me to play a woman of 40. That's when .. I discovered I could project this maturity.” . Trust Lillo to discover something ‘about :: Barber more than 10 - years before Hollywood.