Vancouver Playhouse to
May 20. Box office: 873-

i. accuracy.
sketches then (and now)? The

scene in the pet shop where

John Cleese attempts to

throu,

lay is badly boring

WILLIAM Webster (reclining) and Ric "Reid's c charm
cannot save Tha Bachelor Brothers on Tour.

Norwegian blue ($), is in fact
deceased and not just pining
for fhe fjords.

I bring all this up only to
indicate what was running
my mind as The
Bachelor Brother on Tour
slowly unfolded on the
Playhouse stage last week.

Memories of the dead par-

- rot were triggered by the

choice of the play’s adaptors
to include Mrs Rochester, an
ancient parrot, in the cast of
characters. hI
air nou: mu

When you are only puttin;
three people on the Playhouse
stage a raucous
would seem like a og worth,
a few laughs.

~The problems i is, however,
when the parrot is the best
thing on stage there’s not

- much left for the audience!

I hasten to add that the
work of William Webster,
Christine Willes and, especial-
ly, Ric Reid is not the faule,
All three do their best to fill
the stage with Golf Island
whimsy and charm while,
mostly, avoiding over-acting.

Of course commissioning
a play based on whimsy and
charm is, well, whimsical and
charming, bur it’s also a risky
proposition if NOTHING

. HAPPENS. The closest this

script gets to conflict is when
the parrot throws a snit fit
and blessedly sulks in silence
for a while.

The script is based on Bill
Richardson’s Bachelor
Brothers novels (three of
them, | think), the first of -

‘which won a Stephen Leacock

Medal for Humeur. The
quirky and literate volumes

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chronicle the eccentric lives of
two bachelor nvins who run a
hard-to-find bed and break-
fast on a Gulf island.

Program notes trom
Playhouse artistic director
Glynis Leyshon tic her love of
the books to their ability to
ward off the wet West Coast
blues.

Fair enough, but a good
read has never been a recipe
for a good play. Muffin
recipes are cute in the context
of the book but are appalling
as music hall patter ticked
out with the sexual innuendo
of limp bananas, and the
wonderful possibility of mect-
ing characters like the bad
poet who loves from afar or
the iesbien mechanics who

“channel” auto diagnostics
are rejected. Instead we get
brothers Virgil and Homer
and their friend Altona on a
community hail stage teiling
us about them (the justifica-
tion is that it’s a fund raiser
for a new roof).

Reported anecdote like
this can work weil in a limited
fashion. [ enjoyed Letters from
Wingfield Farm when I saw it
at the Playhouse, but the
anecdotes had a story format
that moved forward.

It would have been a lot
less expensive and far more
successful if Leyshon had just
hired Richardson or a stand-
in to read the from the
books. At least my imagina-
tion would have been
engaged.

Bachelor Brothers on Tour
would probably work well as
radio drama. Failing that, this
lifeless script should be nailed
to the bottom of the
Playhouse birdcage and pro-
nounced deceased.

Friday, May 5, 2000 ~ North Shore News - 17

Punters mix up rock
and traditional styles

From Page 16

never met him until | was over
there.” Tracing his roots was
one thing but by the time he
arrived back in Canada Foley
was ready to rock out.

Together for five years, the
Punters mix of traditional and
modern styles clicked early on.

“From the get-go there was

just a spark about it,” says

Foley. “We were just as into

rock music — played “Smoke on the Water” in high school like
everybody else. This band was always about mixing it up and
blurring the lines.”

Will You Wait, their third album was produced by Gary
Moffet of April Wine fame. Not necessarily the first guy you think
of when discussing traditional music but that worked in the
band’s favour. “We were really ready to do a different kind of
record and he was ‘OK, guys, you’ve got these qualities about
you that make you different from anybody else — don’t be so
quick to dismiss them.’ He really made us appreciate again what ic
was we had.”

The result includes original material from Foley and new band
mate Chris Bastone as well as some classic Newfoundland tunes
from the likes of Johnny Burke and Dermot O'Reilly. The cover
of Ray Davie’s “Come Dancing” fits right in with the other mate-
rial but also suggests there is life outside St. John’s George Street
clubs. “We always get called a Celtic rock band but all we ever
wanted to be was the Punters.”

Calts will rock the Rothstein

SOME of the world’s best Celtic musicians are in
town this weekend for the Sixth Annual
Vancouver Celtic Festival which is taking place
Friday, May 5 and Saturday, May 6 at the.
Norman Rothstein Theatre.

Ireland supergroup Tanasa, the sublime duo of Martin ;
Hayes and Dennis Cahill and the Martimes’ Kendra
MacGillivray perform both evenings. Cape Breton’s J.P.
Cormier a; appears on Friday only and  Seattle’s Setanta per- "
forms on the Saturday bill

The Norman Rothstein Theatre is at 950 West 41 Ave. 09.
Vancouver. Doors open at 7 p.m. with the show at 8 p.m. :
Tickets are $32 and available ac Highlife, Black Swan and |
Rufus Guitar Shop.The Vancouver Celtic Festival is pre-

‘sented by Stomp Productions and Guinness Canada.