Comic talents energize Green

1 rae

Criminals In Love by George F.
Walker. A Green Thumb Theatre
production directed by Patrick
McDonald at the Vancouver East
Cultural Centre to Nov. 13. Res-
ervations: 254-9578.

Martin Millerchip
THEATRE REVIEW

HE CHOCOLATE

bombe that was the

centrepiece of the
feed-a-starving-actor recep-
tion on opening night seem-
ed entirely appropriate.

It was satisfyingly sweet, packed
a wicked chocolate punch but was
light enough that | still wanted
more (despite the second helping).

It survived untouched for an
amazingly long time given that the
prandial habits of the theatre
community would shame a plague
of locusts.

‘But, like Nicola Cavendish’s out-
rageous Wineva, its siren song was
just too powerful to be resisted

_and it finally went to its digestive
destiny as the first cautious kisses
became aggressive knife swipes.

- ' Green Thumb Theatre artistic
director Patrick McDonald has
assembled some of the best talents
in town for this production of
George F. Walker's Criminals In
Love.. :

Like the richly tempting choco-
late borbe, one knew this cast
would be good. It was merely a
question of how satisfying the feast
would be. ;

Vincent Gale and Jennifer Cle-
ment play a pair of teenaged
lovers, Junior and Gail, who are
cursed with the destiny implicit in
their social station and the crimi-
nal calling of Junior's dad, Henry.

Junior, something of a helpless
baby, would rather bury his head
beneath Gail’s sweater than face
up to the malevolent influence his
father continues to exert, even
while failed and waiting sentence
as a possible chronic offender.

Junior knows he has come from
nowhere and expects to amount to
nothing. He quit school in embar-
rassment after his class watched

- his father botch a bank raid:

This self-fulfilling prophesy is
fought by Gail and later by a lo-
quacious dumpster-diver named
William Vay Brazeau) with rotting
intestines who, despite his back-

2.
©
7)
3

ie

confection

NOT YOUR average nuclear family: David King, Jei
Vincent Gale, Leslie Jones, Nicola Cavendish and: Jay.
are the talented cast who concoct a sweetly funny, Criminals in

Love tor Green Thumb Theatre.

alley existence, fears a further fall -
into an abyss of degradation.

But Junior faces an immutable
force.

His father (David King) may be
an incompetent thief who has
never gotten more than 50 yards
from the scenes of his crimes
without being caught, but he re-
tains his claim on Junior's life.

A father and son is destiny, he
tells Junior in a prison visit, ‘‘It’s
not a relationship.”

In fear of his own life Henry in-
volves Junior with his brother, the
droolingly evil Uncle Ritchie,
whom we never meet, and
Cavendish’s Aunt Wineva, whom
we indelibly do.

As Henry later rationalizes:
“4t’s in the blood. You can’t fight
a :

This sense of inertia, of there
being no real hope, is exemplified
by Gail’s best friend, Sandy (Leslie
Jones).

Sandy has just made sure she
can turn a hotel trick when we
meet her. :

She has given up her virginity to
ensure that she will be capable of

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the act should the time‘come that
she can’t get money’any other
way. wat

It was planned as a.one-time ex-
perience, but we later meet her
walking the streets —‘just in case
she has to do that tool- +

Sounds like this is pretty dark
stuff, doesn’t it? | :

Well, like dark checolate, there

.is a lot of sugar in McDonald’s di-

rection. ,

Gale, Clement and Jones pro-
vide honest, even sweetly inno-
cent perfomances. An amazing
achievement given the actors’
ages. an
Although their characters are
threatened by their environment
and genes, they remain untouched
at present.

Even Brazeau’s phitosophizing
bum, William, has such an air i

Thumb Theatre's Criminals in Love

44 Gale, Clement
and Jones provide
‘honest, even
sweetly innocent
performances. 99

gentility to him that it is hard to
believe that he really does smell.

These spotless choices certainly
set up a bunch of lambs for Aunt
Wineva (always wins — get it?) to
slaughter but move the production
to a point where it can only be
judged on its comedic terms.

Here it succedes.

Jones, King and Brazeau are all
delightful in their deft handling of
their.quirky characters. |

Cavendish is a delicious parody
of sex on the hoof, A cornucopia
of bodily bonding.

Her salacious domination of
Junior's extended family is outra-
geously funny. Not since The Ex-
orcist have | laughed so hard at
tongue-acting.

But Walker’s play shifts.

Wineva, as she sheds layers of
her costume, reveals more of her

truth. a =

She.could be a revolutionary,
she could be schizophrenic, but
ultimately she is looking for.
somewhere to lie down and rest.

| felt | ought to have cared about
her unhappiness at this point, but
it was difficult to see her as the
product of the same conditioning
that threatens the other characters.

Having created an impossibly
outlandish Wineva, Cavendish.
succeeds in making her work
where others would surely fail. But
having blown fife into the giant it
was as if there was no breath left
for vulnerability.”

McDonald knew, I think, that
Walker's politics would survive all
of the comedy this talented cast
could create. And certainly the
message does.

But the medium becomes more
unreal as the characters become
heightened.

Kate King’s gritty set would have
welcomed a bit of hamburger with
the airy cake.

EL NRE TON TSR? TACT aI

Sue Coleman.
Meet the Artist

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