Vancouver Theatre mini-review

[Richard Sutherland]

Accustomed as I am to the appalling mediocrity that for the most part
afflicts theatre in Vancouver, when one experiences a committed, talented,
dare one say, transcendant, theatre artist, it is like getting injected with
a shot of adrenaline. Such is the way I felt last night after witnessing Los
Angeles based performing artist Stephen Rappaport at the Vancouver East
Cultural Centre (better known as "The Cultch"). At times demonic, at times
angelic; at times grotesque, at times sublime, he infused both his lengthy
self-written pieces (The Museum of Contemporary Art and The Chocolate
Quarry) with an almost Blakean vision of our contemporary world. To witness
an actor who is obviously totally committed to his craft, who has a sublime
disregard for the proprieties, and who has the genius (and the courage) to
elevate the events of everyday life into the stuff of myth, was (is) to feel
oneself transported from an ordinary plane of being.
 
I felt, near the end of his performance, a welling of love in my heart for
Rappaport--for, among other things, his daring, his generosity, his
commitment. It's a feeling that, alas, I almost never even come close to
experiencing in Vancouver. I'll say no more.