Stephen Aberle

Carousel stages Stuart Little

“When Mrs. Frederick C. Little’s second son arrived, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse. The truth of the matter was, the baby looked very much like a mouse in every way. He was only about two inches high; and he had a mouse’s sharp nose, a mouse’s tail, a mouse’s whiskers, and the pleasant, shy manner of a mouse. Before he was many days old, he was not only looking like a mouse but acting like one, too – wearing a grey hat and carrying a small cane. Mr. and Mrs. Little named him Stuart, and Mr. Little made him a tiny bed out of four clothespins and a cigarette box.”

So begins EB White’s classic children’s story Stuart Little, which was published 75 years ago. To celebrate the anniversary, Carousel Theatre for Young People is presenting the play Stuart Little, which was adapted from White’s book by Joseph Robinette. Jewish community members Advah Soudack and Stephen Aberle are part of the production, directed by Carousel Theatre artistic and managing director Jennica Grienke, at Waterfront Theatre April 23-May 11.

Soudack and Aberle take on multiple roles, including as Stuart’s parents. Castmates Melanie Yeats and Megan Zong also play several parts, while Katrina Teitz plays the title role.

photo - Advah Soudack in a table read of Stuart Little, which will be presented by Carousel Theatre for Young People at Waterfront Theatre April 23-May 11 — Advah Soudack in a table read of *Stuart Little*, which will be presented by Carousel Theatre for Young People at Waterfront Theatre April 23-May 11. *(photo by Kezi Jacob)*

“I was so excited when Jennica called me to offer me the role of Mrs. Little,” Soudack told the Independent. “I knew being part of Stuart Little would be wonderful and the fact that music was being added to the story made me even more jazzed! I love being part of theatre for young audiences, as I think it is so important for children to get the chance to witness and experience live theatre. I have very fond memories from the theatre productions I saw as a child and I know they were part of what inspired me to be an actor myself.”

“I loved the book when I read it as a child, and the approach taken by this production sounded like fun,” said Aberle of why he wanted to be a part of it. “I have a long history with Carousel, going back to the ’80s and including many years both touring to schools throughout BC and performing at the Waterfront, so it’ll be fulfilling to come back and perform here with the company again. I’ve also had the pleasure of working with director Jennica Grienke in the past, and I’m looking forward to renewing that connection. Finally: it’s work! And I love to work.”

Aberle has performed in Carousel’s Scrooge, Macbeth, Dream Castles, The Taming of the Shrew and other productions over the years. Soudack was in The House at Pooh Corner, directed by Kim Selody, in 2020. “Unfortunately, COVID shut us down, so we didn’t get the chance to finish our run with Carousel, nor did we get to remount with Presentation House,” she said.

In preparation for the play, Soudack re-read Stuart Little, a book she read as a child – “and I remember loving it and putting all this effort into a very detailed title page for a book report I wrote … putting a lot of effort into drawing Stuart Little and trying to get him just right.”

Not only did Aberle read the book – “and Charlotte’s Web, another favourite by the same author” – but he read it “a number of times and loved it.”

“It’s interesting,” he said, “to re-read it now with grown-up eyes and see things I’d forgotten: Stuart’s pluck, and his enduring quest to reconnect with his bird-friend Margalo, for example.”

photo - Stephen Aberle in a table read of Stuart Little — Stephen Aberle in a table read of *Stuart Little. (photo by Kezi Jacob)*

For Aberle, the enduring messages include: “Don’t give up on your dreams – and don’t pout and sulk when things don’t quite go the way you’d planned! Don’t be a pushover, and don’t be a jerk either. It’s OK to be different. It’s OK to love who you love. Everyone – including animals, both human and non-human – matters, deserves respect and has their part to play.”

“I feel that the relevance of the story in today’s world is to not fear differences in one another and to not judge each other by our appearance or stature,” said Soudack.

“The part of the story that I particularly like is how everyone accepts Stuart without judgment or fear,” she said. “His parents love him for who he is and everyone he encounters takes him at face value, shows him respect and treats him like an equal.”

Aberle’s favourite part is Stuart driving off into the north, searching for his love, Margalo.

Rehearsals hadn’t started when the Independent spoke with Aberle and Soudack, so they couldn’t say exactly what playing more than one part would be like, but they explained their process.

“I usually approach playing different roles by working with different character bodies and vocal placement. I like to work off of a first hit that I get from reading the script and various characters and build from there. Some of the roles we get to play are animals, so that will be fun!” said Soudack.

Aberle said “one of the most interesting things about playing several characters is finding the characteristics that distinguish them so that one can step quickly and surely into their shoes – or, in some cases, paws. Vocal qualities, gestures, mannerisms, all that kind of thing.”

Neither actor approaches a performance for younger audiences differently than they do other shows, though both pointed to some differences.

“Children’s theatre is usually quite playful and energetic and requires a different way of storytelling,” said Soudack, “so I keep that all in mind when I start my prep and enter the rehearsal hall.”

“Younger audiences can sometimes be more upfront in their responses, which can teach everyone – actors, directors, playwrights, everyone – a lot,” said Aberle. “Back in the day, when shoemakers moved from laces to Velcro for young people’s footwear, we used to talk about discovering the ‘Velcro moments’ – when the youngest audience members, sitting cross-legged in the front row on the school gym floor, would start to play with the Velcro on their shoes, peeling and re-fastening it, and the sound would fill the air. Usually, these were ‘author’s message’ moments – when the script stopped being the story of the interplay between the characters and started becoming a moral. Young audiences can smell a moral approaching from a mile away, and they have little patience for it. (That’s probably true for older audiences as well, but they’ve grown better at hiding it.)”

For tickets (from $19) to Stuart Little, visit carouseltheatre.ca.

Heart of the City tribute

Actor Kieran Sequoia (Breaking Bad, Disney’s Night at the Museum) is one of the performers in The Keep It Raw Cabaret: A Tribute to Jay Hamburger, co-presented by the Heart of the City Festival and Theatre in the Raw on Nov. 9 at Russian Hall (photo by Katie Keaveny)

Guided by the theme “Threads of Connection,” the 21st annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival takes place Oct. 30-Nov. 10, with more than 100 events throughout the Downtown Eastside and online. Several members of the Jewish community are involved.

The festival opens Oct. 30, 2 p.m., at Carnegie Community Centre Theatre with co-founders Terry Hunter and Savannah Walling as they reflect on their 21-year history with the festival, express gratitude to fellow artists, residents and organizations, and “pass the paddle” to new leadership. Special guests include, among others, Bob Baker/S7aplek (Squamish Nation); Chinese-Canadian rap artist Gerry Sung (Scope G), who is also a cast member of Props Master’s Dream, which is part of the festival offerings; Pavel Rhyzlovsky (accordion) and Leonard Chokroun (violin), from Strathcona’s Ukrainian Hall; and grass dancers Larissa Healey and Pavel Desjarlais.

Jewish community member Itai Erdal is the lighting designer for The Prop Master’s Dream, which takes place Nov. 2, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., at Vancouver Playhouse (tickets: bit.ly/3B8rO0w).

This fusion opera produced by Vancouver Cantonese Opera is inspired by the true-life story of Wah-Kwan Gwan (1929-2000), a little-known Chinese opera performer and prop master born to a local Chinese father and Indigenous mother. The Cantonese Opera cast is joined by Sung and Haudenosaunee/Irish actress and singer Cheri Maracle, and features projections by filmmaker Anthony Lee.

photo - Counselor and stand-up comic David Granirer will be joined by comedians from Stand Up for Mental Health on Nov. 2 for a Heart of the City Festival show at Carnegie Theatre — Counselor and stand-up comic David Granirer will be joined by comedians from Stand Up for Mental Health on Nov. 2 for a Heart of the City Festival show at Carnegie Theatre. (photo from Heart of the City Festival)

Also on Nov. 2 – at Carnegie Theatre, 4 p.m. – is Funny Side Up: Stand Up for Mental Health. Counselor and stand-up comic David Granirer will be joined by comedians from Stand Up for Mental Health, to look at the lighter side of taking meds, seeing counselors, getting diagnosed and surviving the mental health system. Jewish community member Granirer’s Stand Up for Mental Health teaches stand-up comedy to people with mental illness. This event is one of the festival’s many free offerings.

On Nov. 9, 8 p.m., at Russian Hall, the festival honours Jewish community member Jay Hamburger, who died earlier this year. Hamburger was a beloved teacher, political activist, radio host and artistic director of Theatre in the Raw, which is co-presenting the event (tickets: bit.ly/4eqs3Cu).

The Keep It Raw Cabaret: A Tribute to Jay Hamburger features choral singers, stand-up comedy, staged theatrical surprises, a taste of Hamburger’s original poetry and writings, and more. Among the participants are Jewish community members Stephen Aberle and Hamburger’s son, Sylvan Hamburger.

The Heart of the City Festival is presented by Vancouver Moving Theatre in association with the Carnegie Community Centre and the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians and a host of community partners. The festival works with, for and about the Downtown Eastside community to carry forward the area community’s stories, ancestral memory, cultural traditions, lived experiences and artistic processes to illuminate pathways of resistance and resilience. For the full lineup and other information, visit heartofthecityfestival.com.

– Courtesy Heart of the City

Burying sacred books

On March 9, community members gathered to bury sacred Jewish texts at Beth Israel Cemetery. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

According to Jewish law, no sacred texts and objects are allowed to be thrown out. This includes anything with God’s name printed on it. These texts and objects must be buried in a respectful way,” explained Rabbi Jonathan Infeld of Congregation Beth Israel in an email to the Jewish Independent about the March 9 Genizah Project ceremony at the synagogue’s cemetery. “Since a burial spot is not always convenient, people store their sacred material in a special place called a genizah until they can be buried.”

A few months ago, Infeld received a phone call from Eugene Barsky, a librarian at the University of British Columbia. Barsky was looking for a place to bury a considerable number of sacred books that were beyond repair. Infeld “immediately said yes.”

“But I wanted to do much more than just bury the materials,” the rabbi said. “I asked if he would be interested in a community-wide program, and Eugene also agreed. After that, we sought other interested parties including UBC Jewish studies, Hillel BC, King David High School, Peretz Centre and the Waldman Library.”

Representatives of these organizations were present on March 9, including students from KDHS and UBC. Infeld spoke about how sacred objects and texts not only give Jews a connection to our spiritual existence, but a social connection as well.

“And, no matter what differences we may have as a people, we are brought together within a rubric of study, of prayer, all connected to the written word,” he said. “For us, as a Jewish people, the book is sacred. For us, as a Jewish people, study is a sacred task, a sacred opportunity. And so, it only makes sense that, when we have studied, have brought a book to its conclusion, that’s literally falling apart, we don’t just throw it away, but the book, or the sacred object, has become our friend and become part of us. And so, according to Jewish tradition, we bury it.”

Barsky highlighted one of the many books being buried: a Pentateuch (the Five Books of Moses) published in Furth, Germany, in 1805. “I wish we could preserve these books, but some of them are molding,” he said. “We have a preservation lab at UBC but they reviewed them and some of them just could not be preserved.”

Barsky asked two members of the Vancouver Jewish Folk Choir – Stephen Aberle and Aurel Matte – to sing a couple of songs. The pair led “Hinei Ma Tov,” about how pleasant it is when sisters, brothers, all of us, gather together; and “Al Sh’loshah Devarim,” about the three things on which the world stands (Torah, divine service, acts of love) and by which the world endures (truth, justice, peace).

For UBC student Ellie Sherman, the burial ceremony was particularly meaningful, “as someone who spends every day reading more and more information, paying close attention to authors and narrators, and focusing on crafting assignments with correct references, to give credit where credit is due.”

She said, “The need for the genizah recognizes that the significance of words is beyond two-dimensional figures on a page, that the lessons we learn and the knowledge we gain from our books can be infinite, just as the meaning behind the words.”

Gregg Gardner, associate professor and Diamond Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics at UBC, shared how the name genizah came about. “The ancient rabbis of the first centuries tell a story about a king,” he said. “The king’s name is Munbaz. This king travels to Jerusalem, where there is drought and a famine. To provide relief, Munbaz gives away his fortune to the needy. Munbaz bizbez, Munbaz spends. His brothers confront him and demand an explanation as to why he’s giving away the family fortune…. Munbaz says that he does not bizbez the fortune … but rather he ganaz the fortune, he stores it, he saves it…. Munbaz explains that, by giving your money to charity here on earth, you do not waste your money … you save it in the world to come, in the afterlife.

“The word genizah literally means ‘storing’ and, in doing so, it can denote hiding from view,” he said. “Ancient Jewish traditions going back to the first centuries, the Second Temple period, talk about hiding many things, even the holy vessels from the Jerusalem Temple, and there are traditions in which the word ganaz is associated with storing valuables.”

Gardner said, “We are here at a cemetery, essentially taking these books out of use, laying them to rest, and yet, at the same time, going back thousands of years, the genizah has been a story not only about death, but about Jewish life.”

Richard Menkis, associate professor of medieval and modern Jewish history at UBC, picked up on this last aspect. During the planning for the burial, he said, there was a feeling towards solemnity, even mourning. But, he said, “there was a whole other sensibility that we could be bringing to it.”

He spoke of the Jews of Algeria, who would place items wherever they could around the synagogue and “several weeks later, they would carry them, the books, the other objects, in sacks. They’d escort them to the cemetery and bury them and, on that day, there would be a feast and special hymns for the occasion. There were similar customs in the community in Morocco of Meknes.

“The Sephardic Jews of Jerusalem had a custom of placing sacred objects and texts in the walls of the synagogue and, every three to seven years, would … joyously take them from the synagogues to a special section in one of the cemeteries in Jerusalem.”

The joy would come, said Menkis, from knowing that “the respect and honour that they were giving to these items would bring down upon them a variety of divine segulot, a variety of blessings. For some, it might be, we can call down rain. For others, it might be to prevent a plague.”

Menkis said, “I embrace the Genizah Project as the moral opposite of a horrible feature of modern life – the book burning. While the book burning denigrates ideas and discussion, the genizah shows reverence for ideals and aspirations.”

Those gathered were reminded of this reverence by Rabbi Kylynn Cohen, senior Jewish educator of Hillel at UBC, who led the service by the gravesite. As in the burial of a human body, she said, it is up to us to do the carrying when a person – or, in this case, the books – cannot go forth themselves.

Everyone helped transport the books from the chapel to the gravesite. Maiya Letourneau, head librarian of the Waldman Library, held up a book with gold embossing, another with lace embroidery. She said, “When we’re thinking about the memories that books create and the importance that they have in our lives, as a librarian, it can be really, really hard to take a book out of the collection, but it’s part of maintaining a healthy library, it’s part of making sure the library is useful for years to come, and it’s just an important part of what we do.”

After those gathered recited the Kaddish d’Rabbanan, the prayer that is said whenever a minyan of Jews finishes studying, Rabbi Stephen Berger, head of Judaic studies at KDHS, spoke about the class he brought to the ceremony, which has been studying Malachi, the Book of Kings. “It’s not just that we study to know,” he said. “The studying itself, opening the book and learning the book is a religious act in Judaism. And that’s why we treat it so carefully and so succinctly and sanctify it…. All these acts [serve to remind us] this is who we are, and we should live up to the title of the People of the Book.”

BI Rabbi Adam Stein concluded the ceremony with Eitz Chayim Hi, which most congregations sing when putting the Torah scrolls back in the ark at the end of a Torah service. It describes the Torah as a tree of life.

Exploring youth, adulthood

Left to right: Stephen Aberle, David Bloom, Suzanne Ristic and Gustavo Fabres are among the cast of Western Gold Theatre’s production of Seventeen, which opens Nov. 4. (photo by Javier Sotres)

None of us can go back in time and relive – or revise – our lives. But Matthew Whittet’s play Seventeen, which opens Nov. 4 at PAL Studio Theatre, offers audiences an idea of what that journey might look and feel like, with veteran stage actors playing the roles of present-day teenagers. Two of those actors are members of the Jewish community and they spoke with the Independent about some of the memories the show has roused.

Stephen Aberle plays the character of Tom, and David Bloom the part of Mike, two of the “kids” hanging out at a school playground after the end of the last day of school. One description of the play states, “It is the casting that gives the play its original twist. Older actors bring to it their own life experience and invest it with an extra layer of hope and sadness, striking the ideal balance between imitation of the freewheeling exuberance of youth and intimations of the future that faces these carousing teens.”

“There’s no improv in the show, but we are – with the playwright’s permission – adjusting some of the vocabulary,” explained Aberle. “The play was written and first performed in Australia and subsequently adapted for a British production, and now we’re readapting it to set it in East Van.

“It’s written to be performed by senior actors, with the stipulation that the company engage a youth advisory council of teenaged consultants,” he continued. “The three young folx Western Gold has found have been invaluable in helping us old codgers get into the bodies and minds and culture of being teenagers in 2022, working with us on everything from cussing and slang to clothing choices, hairstyles, posture and movement – and how to hold our phones.

“We’ve all of us been 17 … however many decades ago, and I think we all bring our memories of those days to our work. I know I’m personally finding lots of moments that snap me right back to the heady, emotionally buffeting, thrilling, infuriating days of high school: understandings, misunderstandings, love requited or unrequited, and nights in parks with like-minded friends in various altered states.”

“This show has me thinking a lot about my two closest male friends from high school,” said Bloom. “With both of them, the friendship came with spikes. One was weirdly competitive with his close friends and the other had a sharpshooter’s ability to be acutely nasty – and his nastiness usually contained a precise awareness of your greatest weaknesses and insecurities. It was like you had to keep proving your love by putting up with some really abrasive behaviour. They were also both brilliant and witty and incredibly fun to be around. I feel like I’m channeling a lot of their teenage bravado in my performance as Mike, as well as my own teenage (and continuing) insecurities and often spectacularly inappropriate behaviour. Pain and love come out in weird ways in this show, and that feels really human to me.”

Bloom said he’s known several people involved in the production for decades. “I first worked with Stephen Aberle on a touring kids show when I was 15 or 16, 1976ish,” he said. “There’s an ease and generosity in this cast of pros that makes going to work a real pleasure.”

As interesting and fun as recalling the teen years may be, Aberle said he’d probably decline any opportunity to be so young again.

“Leave youth to the young and let us silverbacks go to our deserved rest and make way for the next cohort,” he said.

On a more serious level, he shared a meditation by Rabbi Chaim Stern from the old Reform Gates of Repentance Machzor (High Holiday prayerbook).

“If some messenger were to come to us with the offer that death should be overthrown, but with the one inseparable condition that birth should also cease; if the existing generation were given the chance to live forever, but on the clear understanding that never again would there be a child, or a youth, or first love, never again new persons with new hopes, new ideas, new achievements; ourselves for always and never any others – could the answer be in doubt?” Aberle quoted.

The meditation includes the plea for divine help “to fulfil the promise that is in each of us, and so to conduct ourselves that, generations hence, it will be true to say of us: the world is better because, for a brief space, they lived in it.”

Western Gold Theatre’s production of Seventeen previews Nov. 3, opens Nov. 4 and runs to Nov. 20. For tickets, visit westerngoldtheatre.org.

Gritty, moving, funny stories

Stephen Aberle, Nicola Lipman and Geoff Berner will perform stories from Vilna My Vilna: Stories by Abraham Karpinowitz, as translated by Helen Mintz, as part of Western Gold Theatre’s Virtual Gold series.

Vilna My Vilna: Stories by Abraham Karpinowitz (Syracuse University Press, 2016) is a collection of 13 short stories and two brief memoirs by Abraham Karpinowitz (1913-2004), translated from Yiddish into English by local storyteller Helen Mintz.

Thanks to Mintz, “more of us can now visit Karpinowitz’s Vilna – a city full of colourful characters, both real and not, and share in a small part of their lives.” (jewishindependent.ca/vilna-the-place-its-people) And, thanks to Western Gold Theatre, even more people will be able to visit Karpinowitz’s Vilna this Chanukah.

When Vilna My Vilna was published, actor Stephen Aberle both helped present the book and interviewed Mintz at the JCC Jewish Book Festival.

“As part of the presentation, Helen and I read excerpts from several of the stories. I was struck immediately by how engaging and naturally theatrical these stories and characters were, and I’ve been thinking ever since that a dramatic rendition would be a great thing,” Aberle told the Independent. “Then, earlier this year, Tanja Dixon-Warren, Western Gold Theatre’s artistic director, approached me with the idea of curating one of their Virtual Gold series around Chanukah time. I immediately thought of Vilna My Vilna as the perfect material for such a project, pitched it to Tanja, and she loved the idea, as did Helen. So, I set about to recruit my luminously wonderful co-presenters, Geoff Berner and Nicola Lipman, to be part of it all.

“When Helen and I first began talking about some kind of performance of these stories, we thought of Geoff and it just clicked perfectly. His ‘klezmer-punk’ material and presentation and his beautiful selection and rendition of Yiddish songs provide exactly the flavour to suit these rather gritty stories,” said Aberle. “And I had got to know Nicola through working together on the development of a wonderful new play by Manami Hara, Courage Now (coming soon to a theatre near you – but that’s another story) about Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who helped thousands of Polish and Lithuanian Jews escape the Nazis.”

Lipman was “another perfect fit,” said Aberle. “And here we are!”

Western Gold Theatre will release individual video recordings of the selected stories, one at a time, throughout Chanukah, said Aberle, “and Geoff will frame each of them with some of his stirringly beautiful Yiddish music – an intro and an ‘extro,’ if you like – thematically linked to the content of the story. I won’t say a lot more except to add that, when Geoff and I were talking about which songs to do where, what connections to make and so forth, I think we both found it haunting and moving. Chills.”

Deciding which of the short stories to include in the production wasn’t easy.

“I have pages and pages of notes about the stories, characters, settings, arc of the narrative and so forth,” said Aberle. “In the end, I felt like a lot of my choosing was helped along by the format: we’ll be recording ourselves reading over Zoom, so we need to keep things fairly simple, with not too many characters and not too much complex action. I chose stories where the scenes tend to involve one or two characters at a time, so the performers can dig in and work off each other.

“I also tried to choose a variety of themes and moods. The stories are written against the backdrop of the writer’s awareness of what was to come: the Nazi annihilation of Vilna’s Jewish community. We have to be true to that bleak awareness; at the same time, there’s a lot of joy and humour. I tried to make choices to honour the depth and balance Karpinowitz brings to his work.”

Of the stories to be presented, the production’s press release highlights “Vilna Without Vilna,” describing it: “A Vilna native (a pickpocket in his youth, now grown up and respectable) comes back to visit his home city and finds that not a trace of what he remembers remains.”

In “The Folklorist,” a “researcher into Yiddish folklore finds himself professionally drawn to the Vilna fish market – and personally drawn to one particularly expressive fishwife.” And “Chana-Merka the Fishwife” picks up this story, “continuing the adventures of the Vilna fishwife and the school of Yiddish Institute scholars who swim after her.”

Finally, “Tall Tamara” recounts how a “Vilna prostitute and her friend find their way out of the brothel and into very different lives.”

The performances will all be online.

“Theatres are just starting to re-reopen up to in-person performances, but, for this project, we’re sticking to video presentations,” said Aberle, thanking Dixon-Warren and Western Gold “for their vision in creating the Virtual Gold series.”

“When the pandemic shut things down,” he said, “they decided they weren’t going to let it stop their work. They also decided it was important to provide opportunities to artists from a diverse spectrum of communities. And to make all the presentations free! That all takes courage and generosity of spirit.”

For those who watch the Virtual Gold series, Aberle said, “I think I can pretty much guarantee there will be laughs; there may be a few tears. It’s an honour to help share these works so more people can get to know them.”

The stories from Vilna My Vilna will be posted throughout the week of Chanukah, Nov. 28-Dec. 6, at westerngoldtheatre.org/virtual-gold. The full name of the series is Look! Listen! and Learn! Virtual Gold, and the Learn! segment will feature a video interview with Mintz about Vilna, Karpinowitz and being a translator, which will be posted on the Virtual Gold page, as well as on Western Gold Theatre’s YouTube page.

It’s a Wonderful Life in music

Erin Palm and Nick Fontaine reprise their roles as Mary and George Bailey in Patrick Street Productions’ musical It’s a Wonderful Life. (photo by David Cooper)

So ingrained in popular culture is Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life that many Jews probably make it an annual tradition to watch the 1946 film. This year, there is also the chance to see a musical adaptation of the classic, in which the angel Clarence is assigned the job of trying to save Bailey Building and Loan owner George Bailey from committing suicide on Christmas Eve, after there is a run on the bank and George faces the possibility not only of financial ruin but of believing his life has been a waste.

Patrick Street Productions presents the musical version by Peter Jorgensen, with arrangements and orchestrations by Nico Rhodes, at the Anvil Centre Theatre in New Westminster from Dec. 19 to Jan. 5. The show is the only ticketed event of Winter Celebrations, free daily performances by professional artists, singers and musicians at the Anvil Centre until Jan. 5.

It’s a Wonderful Life features a few Jewish community members: Erin Palm as George’s wife, Mary; Andrew Cohen as Ernie, who Cohen describes as “everyone’s favourite Bedford Falls cabbie”; and Stephen Aberle playing, in his words, “the ruthless, cold-hearted capitalist Mr. Potter, as well as the Sheriff, and hero George Bailey’s father, Peter.”

“Mr. Potter is the antagonist of the piece,” explained Aberle. “He owns practically everything in the small town of Bedford Falls, other than the little Bailey Building and Loan Society that George Bailey’s father founded and that George continues. Potter hates the Building and Loan and does everything he can to crush it because it helps working people to save and buy their own homes instead of having to rent from him and live in the slums he owns.”

While Cohen and Aberle are new to the show, Palm played Mary in the 2018 Patrick Street production at the Gateway Theatre. As an aside, she said, “I also auditioned for the original production in Chemainus so many moons ago. I am so happy it all worked out the way it did. I truly believe it was the right fit for me at this time in my life. I have so much more personal growth and experience to bring to the role of Mary.”

Never wanting her acting to be a copy of someone else’s work, Palm said she has not seen the movie in its entirety. “I have seen some clips,” she said, “but not enough to develop a multifaceted character. Peter has written a great script and all I need to bring Mary to life is in the text. The musical aspect is completely different from the movie, and I think a beautiful addition.”

About her character, Palm said, “I appreciate Mary’s faith in community and her love for her family. She’s really strong and an anchor for George. When she wants something in her life, she goes after it. She’s the matriarch and heroine of the story. She comes through for her family and for her community when times are at their worst.

“I also appreciate her love of the simple life. In complex times like ours, and when I find my ambition too great, it’s people like Mary that remind me I can be happy and grateful for what I have, what I have worked so hard to create.”

One of Palm’s favourite scenes is “the moment right before we meet Clarence,” she said. “George is on the bridge and he’s deciding the fate of his own life, the same bridge where so many of his life’s highlights happen. It often makes me weep backstage. It’s difficult to think of people who carry the weight of the world with them, feeling isolated and alone, especially around the holidays, but the reality is the troubles of the world do not stop around those times and are in fact amplified for people who are struggling with depression and financial hardship. It’s a beautiful reminder how important it is to reach out to those around you, be a light in their lives. It only takes one person, one gesture to change the outcome of the lives of many.”

For her part, Palm is grateful to be working with the cast and especially Aberle, who happens to be her father-in-law. “Working on a show that has to do with family makes me long for family during the holidays and it is a gift to work with him,” she said.

Of the Christmas aspect of the show, Palm said the story is based in community and, “while we sing some Christmas carols, the heart of the piece is a very human story of how communities can overcome hardship by coming together around the holidays to help those who need it most, to support each other and to celebrate life. It touches on how faith can be a guiding light, but, ultimately, it’s in our own hands. Our daily work, prayer and decisions can change our own lives and people around us.”

While acknowledging that the story “seems to be somewhat synonymous with this season,” Cohen said it’s “the story of a stalwart man who continually puts the needs of his community members above his own. He learns that the value of life is not determined by monetary gain or ambition but rather the positive impact you have made on the lives of others. Even though we like to watch this story around Christmas time, it is not a story about any one holiday, but rather a family man who learns how to be a mensch.”

Aberle echoed his co-stars’ comments, adding more context and noting some Jewish connections.

“It’s a Wonderful Life is about the importance of family, fairness, justice, courage in resistance to oppression and people sticking together in hard times,” he said. “It celebrates the human spirit and the importance of individual action and responsibility. While it’s true that the climactic scenes of the story are set at Christmas time and that our production (like perennial TV broadcasts of the film) is coming out at that time of year, I’d say (with director Frank Capra himself) that it’s not a Christmas story. To quote Capra: ‘I didn’t even think of it as a Christmas story when I first ran across it. I just liked the idea.’ In a 1946 interview, Capra described the film’s theme as ‘the individual’s belief in himself.’

“It happens that several of the writers who were involved with it were Jews, or of Jewish descent,” Aberle added. “The original short story, The Greatest Gift, was by Philip Van Doren Stern, whose father was of Bavarian Jewish extraction, and the writers who contributed to the film screenplay included Clifford Odets and Jo Swerling, both Jewish, and Dorothy Parker, whose father was a Jew.

“A heck of a lot of the music in this adaptation – like a heck of a lot of American musicals in general – is by Jewish composers and librettists, including George and Ira Gershwin, Alan Jay Lerner, Kurt Weill.”

For tickets to It’s a Wonderful Life, call 604-684-2787 or visit patrickstreetproductions.com. The show is recommended for ages 9+.

Complex, funny, beautiful

Dylan Floyde (Willy), left, and Stephen Aberle (Evens) rehearse for Slamming Door Artist Collective’s production of The Sea, which opened May 2 at Jericho Arts Centre. (photo by Michelle Morris)

“Published in 1973, The Sea is fiercely, presciently relevant. [Edward] Bond seems to anticipate David Icke’s mad, xenophobic alien conspiracy fantasies, flat earthers’ denial of gravity, ‘fake news,’ societal upheaval and the potential for devastation – and, through it all, glimmers of hope through stoic resilience, change and growth,” said Jewish community member Stephen Aberle, describing Bond’s play, The Sea.

Slamming Door Artist Collective presents The Sea at Jericho Arts Centre until May 19. It opened last night, May 2.

Director Tamara McCarthy told the Independent that she had seen a production of The Sea at the Shaw Festival in 2014 “and was deeply struck by the complex poetry and stitch-ripping humour, all playing out within a beautiful tragedy.

“There are many current resonances, from Trump to Brexit,” she said. “Interestingly, The Sea debuted in 1973, the same year Britain joined the European Union.”

On a more solemn note, she added, “Eventually, the sea will sweep us all away. Until then, we choose to live in hope or despair. Or both. This play intricately explores these themes.”

The synopsis reads: “A wild storm shakes a small East Anglian seaside village, and Willy is unable to save his friend from drowning. The raving coast guard is too drunk to do anything, Hatch the draper is passing by but he believes that hovering alien spaceships are slowly replacing people’s brains and he refuses to help, while the grande dame, Mrs. Rafi, bastion of respectability, amateur theatricals and velvet curtains from Birmingham, sets her face against the chaos.” The play is set in 1907.

“There are big time echoes of [Shakespeare’s] The Tempest, for sure,” said Aberle. “Storm, shipwreck, collision of worlds and societies, innocence blossoming into love, monsters and a kind of shimmering magic. I would say there’s a strong parallel with the Book of Jonah as well: shipwreck again, and the struggle to find meaning in an often apparently unkind and unfair world. Ecclesiastes, too: ‘the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all.’”

Aberle plays the character of Evens, who he described as “the grizzled, weathered, often drunken ‘wise fool.’ A bit of the Prospero type, if we want to look at The Tempest connections, with aspects of both Jonah and the big fish, as well. He has withdrawn from society and lives (and drinks, ‘to stay sane’) in a little hut on the beach. It’s said of him in the village that he ‘knows the water round here,’ though, as he points out, ‘… luck and chance come into it. It doesn’t matter how clear the main currents are, you have to live through the details. It’s always the details that make the tragedy….’ The young hero, Willy, comes to him, looking for answers. Whether he finds what he seeks is a question whose outcome you’ll have to watch for.”

“Slamming Door Artist Collective presents classic contemporary works that aren’t otherwise being produced in Vancouver,” said McCarthy. “We provide not only opportunities for our audience to see these plays, but for established and emerging actors and designers to play with us on material they likely wouldn’t have the chance to otherwise.”

Joining Aberle on stage will be Raes Calvert, Genevieve Fleming, Dylan Floyde, Jessica Hood, Elizabeth Kirkland, Cheyenne Mabberley, Michelle Morris, Melissa Oei and Mason Temple. The collective’s members “work professionally in film, television and theatre throughout the Lower Mainland.”

Aberle said he is “overjoyed to be introduced to this play and this playwright.”

“In my experience,” he said,

“Edward Bond is sadly unsung and underproduced – I’d never seen or read any of his work before and it’s delicious. My sense is that, when he came on the scene, he alienated the powers-that-be in British theatre. He’s from the working class and he writes about class alienation, struggle and societal transformation, with sometimes brutal clarity of vision. Apparently, there was nearly a riot when one of his early plays, Saved, was first performed – shouting from the audience and fisticuffs in the lobby.”

For tickets to The Sea, visit theatrewire.com.

Experience Sweeney’s revenge

Colleen Winton as Mrs. Lovett and Warren Kimmel as Sweeney Todd in Snapshots Collective’s production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, which runs Oct. 10-31. (photo by Nicol Spinola)

“To seek revenge may lead to hell, but everyone does it, if seldom as well as Sweeney,” said Stephen Aberle, quoting from the finale of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Aberle plays Judge Turpin in the Snapshots Collective production of the musical, which will take place at Mrs. Lovett’s Pie Shop, or at least a facsimile of it, at 348 Water St., in Gastown, Oct. 10-31. Most shows are already sold out.

“Part of the power of the piece,” explained Aberle, whose character sets Sweeney on his murderous path, “is that we can identify with all of the characters, see their strengths and their flaws, and observe how much we share with them. That’s what makes it troubling, that irresistible doubt: would I do anything differently?”

Let’s hope most people would, as Sweeney Todd slits quite a few throats in his barber’s chair – providing the main ingredient for Mrs. Lovett’s pies – before getting to the object of his revenge, Judge Turpin, who abused Sweeney’s wife and exiled Sweeney for a crime Sweeney didn’t commit.

“When we decided on doing Sweeney Todd,” director Chris Adams and choreographer Nicol Spinola told the Independent in an email interview, “we knew we wanted Warren Kimmel as Sweeney, so we approached him first to see if he would be interested in playing the title character. He was on board almost immediately and we started moving forward to cast the rest of the show. We next approached Colleen Winton for the role of Mrs. Lovett and held auditions for the rest of the cast. We weren’t shy in letting auditioning actors know that our show was going to be different and that seemed to excite them. We were thrilled with the turnout and were able to cast the show exactly how we saw it.”

And the intimate audience – theatre capacity is about 56 – will be right in the midst of it all.

“The show is staged around the entire venue with some seats being directly in the action,” said Adams and Spinola, who are also co-producers of the show, with Ron Stuart, Wendy Bross Stuart and Kat Palmer. “There will be interactive moments between the actors and the audience, although there is no audience participation required. Sometimes the action will take place right in front of you and other times the action will be across the room.”

Kimmel looks absolutely terrifying in the production’s 44-second teaser.

“It’s always more fun, interesting, to play dark or evil characters than good ones and, for the most part, I am cast as good guys rather than bad guys so this is fun from that point of view,” said Kimmel of playing the title character in the musical, composed by Stephen Sondheim, with book by Hugh Wheeler. “Also, Sweeney Todd is probably one of the most challenging pieces in the musical canon to perform, so that makes it a stimulating and scary experience as well, which is, I suppose, fun in a twisted fashion.”

“I think this is a tremendously important story for our time,” said Aberle, “a time when the power structures that reinforce men’s privilege and women’s presumed subservience (as well as racialized, class-based and other power imbalances) are being challenged by some; desperately defended by others. We read about Judge Turpin analogues just about every day in the news. I think it’s particularly important for those of us who possess power to check in with a story like this and consider our own exercise of that power. To what extent am I being a self-serving brute in this situation? Are there ways I might reduce that extent? The play, it seems to me, asks questions like those pretty insistently.”

About how he has chosen to portray Judge Turpin, Aberle said, “I’m looking for him the way I generally look for a character: by trying to figure out what he wants in the context of the given circumstances. That context, for a judge in mid-19th-century England, was power, privilege and prestige.

“One of the things that makes Judge Turpin interesting, to me, is that he’s not merely a psychopath or even a simple, spoiled narcissist: he tries to do ‘the right thing’ according to social convention and struggles with his desires (though more because of deeply ingrained inner shame than because he really understands his own power to harm, or empathizes with his victims). There are some questions about the man that I’m interested in exploring. What was his blue-sky vision of the perfect outcome when he set this engine of vengeance rolling, 15 years before the play begins? Why, especially given the power of his urges, has he gone through life so far without marrying? Why did he adopt a year-old infant as his ward? There are several plausible answers – and plausible combinations of multiple answers – for each of these, and I’m enjoying playing with them.”

Echoing Kimmel’s assessment of the music, Aberle added, “And, really, let’s face it. This is Sondheim at just about his Sondheimiest. If I can sing the material more or less in time and on pitch, I’ll be pretty happy.”

“The music plays a central role in telling this story,” Bross Stuart, the show’s musical director, told the Independent, “and there is no one more brilliant than Stephen Sondheim to do this for us. Central to the core of this music is the Gregorian chant, ‘Dies Irae’ (‘Day of Wrath,’ ‘Day of Judgment’) theme, heard throughout this work. We hear fragments of this musical motif hidden everywhere. Extended, shortened, pulled out of shape, but it’s there. We know it is the underpinning of Sweeney Todd’s motivation. It helps us understand Mr. Todd’s state of mind; and how revenge morphs into mental illness. When we are in the asylum, in Act 2, some of the ‘patients’ sing a demented version of ‘Dies Irae.’

“Another example is Sondheim’s use of a repeated note for more than 100 bars. Why does he do this? It is Mr. Todd’s obsession with murdering Judge Turpin. Even while the men are having a seemingly ‘friendly’ conversation, Todd is thinking along more sinister lines.”

“Sweeney Todd, as far as we can tell, is a normal man with a wife he adores and a new young daughter,” said Kimmel. “Without spoiling the plot altogether, life deals him a hand that most would find impossible to survive, let alone overcome, and so we have a perfect vehicle to allow us to ask what we would do in his position and, if we are honest with ourselves and had the courage to follow through, we could easily imagine doing the same things he does.”

photo - Warren Kimmel looks absolutely terrifying in the production’s promotional material — Warren Kimmel looks terrifying in the production’s promotional material. *(photo by Nicol Spinola)*

But, he added, “In the end, I think it is a very moral story and the final destination is morally inevitable – although we feel for him and want to see him get his revenge, and although he and Mrs. Lovett almost get away with what they have done, it cannot be…. The world is set to rights at the end of the piece.

“You could say that this is just a Victorian melodrama, a deliciously dark tale underlining all the Christian moral virtue of the period,” he continued. “However, like all great drama, I think the rules of the game are timeless – first dramatized in Greek times or even biblical times. You cannot fool God; you cannot escape the price that must be paid for transgressing His rules. There is a fashion now to believe that we have moved past these religious moral strictures and that religion has less to offer a modern society but, in the end, this is a morality tale that resonates with very deep archetypal themes. No matter how justified it may seem, revenge will lead nowhere good.

“From a performance point of view, it is always a gift to be able to play someone truly morally compromised and, in a broader sense, I think that is what the theatre is really for: to allow us to watch this story and go through all that life is able to throw at us, to imagine, to understand and even to justify truly extraordinary behaviour, and yet to laugh and cry and cringe and know that, at the end, the moral compass of the world is back on true north.”

An emotional connection to the show is one of the reasons that the Stuarts wanted to be involved in this production. “We saw the original Broadway production in New York City in 1979, with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou,” said Ron Stuart. “It was brilliant and riveting and unique in the genre – like West Side Story was 20 years before or Showboat before that.

“Our co-producers had the concept of an immersive version of the show at a Gastown venue around Halloween, and we thought it was an interesting way to present the work.”

In addition to funding, he said, “with projects of this scale, we are also very hands-on. Our director, choreographer, music director and assistant director are also producers. We readily share our contacts in a variety of specialities, such as costumes, set design, lighting, instrument rental, legal issues, marketing, etc. Moreover, we are a collective under Equity rules, so we all have ‘skin in the game.’”

This is Palmer’s first experience as a producer. “It has been nice to learn from professionals who have been through this journey from beginning to end,” she told the Independent.

Knowing that they wanted this show to be immersive, the venue not only had to work from a mechanical perspective, “but add to the experience,” said Palmer, who is also in the ensemble.

“It’s been a fun challenge,” she said, “to be switching between my assistant stage managing hat and my performer hat – ‘this prop will need to be pre-set here, oh no, this is the lyric, this person has a quick change.’”

Palmer described the show as being very difficult technically, “there is not just Stage Left and Stage Right to worry about, there is a whole building.”

This is part of the attraction for Bross Stuart.

“We, the musicians, are very close to the audience and to the actors,” she explained. “Communication, page-turning, singing as you play – could be problematic. And the action is very immediate and very gripping. Very exciting!”

“My favourite number in the show,” said Palmer, “has to be our opening number, ‘The Ballad of Sweeney Todd.’ Our amazing choreographer, Nicol Spinola, has created something so eerie, unique and unsettling. It immediately brings the audience right into this dark and thrilling world of 1840s London. Not only does it sound fantastic to have our entire cast of 17 singing Sondheim’s challenging music, but it also sets the mood for the entire show. I get chills performing it and I am very confident the audience will have never experienced anything like it before.”

For more information and tickets to Sweeney Todd, visit sweeneytoddthemusical.ca. And plan to have dinner at the venue before the show – pies, of course.

“Our pies come fresh each day from the Pie Hole located on Fraser Street in Vancouver,” said Adams and Spinola. “We are offering a traditional steak-and-stout meat pie, an aromatic Moroccan chickpea vegetarian pie and a delicious Thai coconut curry vegan pie. Pies can be added on when you are purchasing your tickets.”

A sentimental journey

Stephen Aberle as Dan and Annabel Kershaw as Sue reflect on their life together in Snapshots: A Musical Scrapbook, at Presentation House Theatre Oct. 28-Nov. 8. (photo by Megan Verhey, Megan Verhey Photography)

Theatre often allows us, the audience, a safe place in which to experience feelings that we are more guarded about showing in daily life. It can offer a way in which to reflect on our own lives and actions without the vulnerability that such introspection usually entails in “real life.” We can learn from what we witness on stage, whether a comedy, a drama or something in between. At the least, we can escape from our own cares for a time, immersing ourselves in someone else’s joys and pains. A perfect example? Snapshots: A Musical Scrapbook.

So popular was last year’s Canadian première of the show in Vancouver at Studio 1398, that WRS Productions – Ron and Wendy Stuart – is bringing it back for 12-day run at North Vancouver’s Presentation House Theatre, Oct. 28-Nov. 8.

“The response was amazing,” Wendy Bross Stuart told the Independent about last year’s production. “People laughed. People wept. Tissues were in short supply. The actors were very moved by the content and the music of Snapshots. The last five shows were completely sold out; people were turned away at the door. It was at that point that Ron and I decided we would seek the opportunity to remount the show.”

In Snapshots, Sue is set to leave her husband Dan after 30 years of marriage. While she is going through the attic, Dan comes home. A box of photographs (snapshots) falls open, leading the couple to reflect on their life together.

Conceived by Michael Scheman and David Stern, composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz adapted music from his stage shows, feature films and original CDs to mesh with the book by Stern, which takes the audience back to Dan and Sue’s earlier days.

In the WRS Productions’ show, Dan and Sue are portrayed by Stephen Aberle and Annabel Kershaw; Daniel and Susan, by Steve Maddock and Jocelyn Gauthier; Danny and Susie, by Daniel Johnston and Georgia Swinton.

About the ways in which he personally related – or not – to Dan throughout the character’s life, Aberle said, “Hmm, well, younger Danny/Daniel has a winning way with women. Many, many women. I was definitely not like that growing up; I was shy and repressed and a bit of a goob, I guess.

“On the other hand, when Dan truly falls in love, he falls hard and he stays fallen. I identify with that. While he has this playboy past, he’s careful about where he really gives his heart, and he finds it hard to put the truth of his love into words. I think that’s the central struggle in the play for him. Casual physical intimacy comes easily to him (unlike me!), but he’s scared by commitment and emotional intimacy. He’s experienced deep hurt in the past, and he fears opening up too far because he doesn’t want to get hurt like that again. I get that.

“Details from the past – talismans, little triggers for powerful memories – really get to him. I guess they get to all of us one way or another, so it’s not necessarily a specific character thing, but it resonates for me.”

Like Aberle, most of the actors are reprising their roles, but there have been changes, and not only in casting.

“Last year’s Snapshots was in a ‘black box’ theatre,” explained Stuart. “This gave us the opportunity to configure the show ‘in the round.’ The set design was done by Jessica Oostergo.

“This year, we are working in partnership with Presentation House Theatre in North Vancouver. We are in a traditional theatre space. This meant the show needed to be completely reconfigured. With the experienced hand of Pam Johnson, we have a brilliant set – full of secret entrances and exits. This design is in conjunction with our new director and choreographer, one of Canada’s most sought-after and experienced, Max Reimer, former artistic director at the Vancouver Playhouse. The show will look very different.

“In addition, we have two new cast members: Daniel is played by Steve Maddock and Susie is played by Georgia Swinton. The rehearsals are very exciting; we have a chance, now, to add new interpretation and shape to the music. The sound of the ensemble is thrilling!”

Aberle spoke about the ensemble and what it feels like to have different actors “all playing aspects of the same role.”

“The other performers playing Danny and Daniel – my character’s younger selves – give me ideas about Dan that I wouldn’t necessarily have come up with on my own,” he explained. “There’s a lot of give and take. We have an opportunity to develop a shared physical vocabulary, for example: postural or gestural or vocal details that stay with the character as he grows older. That’s a lot of fun to explore.

“We’re all, all six of us – along with the band and the creative team – sharing the task of bringing this decades-long, deep relationship to life. One intriguing consequence is that I get to fall in love on stage with not just one woman but three. I have a lot of interplay with all three of Sue, Susan and Susie. When I’m watching them, the younger selves of the love of my life, remembering how we met as kids and how much we meant and gave to each other, it’s profoundly moving.

“It’s interesting,” he continued, “to relate on stage to my character’s younger selves. We don’t get a lot of direct connection but there are important moments, of both frustration and understanding. In real life, we don’t get to say to our younger self, ‘You idiot! Not that way, this way!’ It’s refreshing. It’s also illuminating to see how patterns set in youth change, or don’t change, in later life.”

And what is it about Schwartz’s music that touches people so much?

“I will speak more specifically about the music in Snapshots,” said Stuart, who also wears the music director and pianist hats in this production. “Here, we have examples of Stephen Schwartz’s music from as early as 1971 (Godspell) and as recently as Wicked (2003)…. Schwartz chose the songs to move the new story (book by David Stern) forward in the most compelling way. About 85% of the story is told in music.

“This plot line allows two characters to each communicate with themselves at different stages of their lives. Stated differently, we have a story that takes place 1) in the present, 2) in the past and 3) in one’s interior life. The music is not simply one song after another, it is multi-layered, with (formerly unrelated) songs performed simultaneously in gorgeous counterpoint with one another.

“I truly feel that the music and lyrics (often changed by Schwartz himself to fit the arc of the new story) can simply be enjoyed for their depth of meaning, their melodic interest and their beautiful harmonies. However, for those who know Stephen Schwartz’s music, the complexity and brilliance of the multi-layered nature of this work are simply breathtaking.”

Stuart added, “Yesterday at rehearsal, we had many moments when we simply had to stop. The actors were so ferklempt (choked up with emotion), they were unable to continue. I feel the same way.”

For tickets to Snapshots, visit phtheatre.org, call 604-990-3474 or drop by Presentation House Theatre, at 333 Chesterfield Ave.

Community talent in TUTS

Left to right: Nathan Piasecki (Artful Dodger), E. Marie West (Nancy) and Stephen Aberle (Fagin) in Theatre Under the Stars’ production of Oliver! Aberle also plays Mr. Brownlow. (photo by Tim Matheson)

Actor Steven Aberle describes Theatre Under the Stars as “a thrilling combination of enthusiastic, amazingly talented youth and, as they say, ‘seasoned’ pros.” In this instance, Aberle – who plays both Fagin and Mr. Brownlow in TUTS’s Oliver! – counts among the seasoned pros, while fellow Jewish community member Kathryn Palmer, who plays Strawberry Seller and is in the ensemble, is one of the talented youth, though Aberle and the other seasoned pros also have plenty of that, of course. The Independent caught up with both actors by email earlier this month.

More than just luck

JI: You’re a relative newcomer to the Vancouver stage. Could you share some of your performing background?

photo - Kathryn Palmer is Strawberry Seller / ensemble in Oliver! — Kathryn Palmer is Strawberry Seller / ensemble in Oliver! *(photo from TUTS)*

Kathryn Palmer: I have always had a deep-seated passion for music and performing. When my home life started getting rocky, my Auntie Kathryn, who was a professional opera singer, seized the opportunity to get me out of the house for a few hours a week and into her studio for voice lessons. I was hooked and completely inspired! It wasn’t long before I was accepted into the voice program at Canterbury Arts High School, taking Royal Conservatory Exams, singing in choirs, competing in music festivals across Canada and performing in as many musicals as I could.

JI: You’re a graduate of the Canadian College of Performing Arts in Victoria. Are you from Victoria? Can you share some of your personal background, including what role, if any, Judaism or Jewish culture or community has played (plays) in your life?

KP: Born and raised in Ottawa, I moved to Victoria to study at the Canadian College of Performing Arts. I was very fortunate to graduate with about two years of paid theatre work … beginner’s luck, I call it.

At school, we were always told to use what makes us different and unique. One of the things my auntie had taught me was all about Jewish folk music. Being able to sing folk songs in Yiddish and Ladino was definitely something that made me unique but also grounded me. Being Jewish doesn’t exclusively impact the work I choose to do but it definitely infuses it. When I’m doing these musicals that are set in the past, I always wonder that would my life be like a young Jewish woman during this time. I also get excited to perform in shows with a more Jewish theme, like Hodel in Fiddler on the Roof at the Gateway Theatre or Louise Philo in Girl Rabbi at Congregation Emanu-El in Victoria.

JI: What are some of your aspirations regarding a career in performance?

KP: I adore theatre. I love musical theatre. I also love working with kids. I want to go back to school within the next few years and do my ECE [early childhood education]. I’m hoping to one day move back to Ottawa and start a theatre school there. Hopefully, I can inspire children the same way my auntie inspired me.

Not just the beard

JI: You seem to have been very busy on stage in the last couple of years. Can you share with readers some of your performance highlights since the JI last spoke with you in December 2013 about Uncle Vanya?

Stephen Aberle: I have been blessed with busy-ness these past several years, yes, kein ayin hara [no evil eye]. I guess I’m at that stage in my career where, if one remains alive, willing and (unfortunate but still true in today’s theatre) male, opportunities arise. Since

Uncle Vanya, I’ve had the good fortune to perform in Snapshots: A Musical Scrapbook, with music by Stephen Schwartz (of Godspell and Wicked fame) at Studio 1398 on Granville Island last fall. That was an opportunity to work on some amazing material with a wonderful company, including director Chris McGregor and Wendy Bross Stuart as music director.

I’ve been fortunate to perform with Wendy many times, including a couple of shows together at TUTS. We’ll be doing Snapshots again this coming fall [late October, early November], at Presentation House in North Vancouver, this time to be directed by Max Reimer.

I got to be part of a workshop of Hamelin: A New Fable by Leslie Mildiner (another member of the Jewish community) for Axis Theatre, although, unfortunately, scheduling didn’t make it possible for me to be in the touring production. And, earlier this year, I was in What You’re Missing, a lovely new play by Vancouver-born playwright Tamara Micner (she’s now based in London), at the Chutzpah! Festival.

JI: What most attracts you to, and repels you about, the character of Fagin? How are you approaching the role?

SA: Well, Fagin is one of the great characters of 19th-century literature – and, in Dickens’ novel at least, one of the great antisemitic caricatures of all time. That kinda sums up both the attraction and the repulsion: the character and his motives and passions are grand, fascinating, delicious for both performers and audiences; he’s also, let’s not mince words, a brutal travesty – again, as Dickens originally conceived and presented him in the novel Oliver Twist.

I want to rise to the level of the challenges the character offers. He’s big, and I need to honor and own that and, at the same time, find the truths in the character and his situation. Lionel Bart, who was Jewish and who created the musical Oliver!, trod a careful line in dealing with Fagin. There are no explicit references in the play to Fagin’s being a Jew, but Bart wove klezmerish themes into a lot of his music. The late great Ron Moody, also Jewish, who originated the role in London and who played it in the movie, followed that line, playing into Jewish nuances in the music and in the character’s accent.

The story of Oliver Twist and of the musical Oliver! deals with some dark themes – themes that are very much still with us, here and now. Grinding poverty rubbing shoulders with enormous wealth and privilege; love, hatred, loyalty and betrayal; violence against women; criminality, justice and injustice; prejudice; legitimacy and illegitimacy and the arbitrariness of those categories. Our director, Shel Piercy, is not shying away from that darkness, and I’m interested in his approach, his color palette. There can be a tendency, sometimes, for musical comedy to be cutesy, all fun and games and sweetness and light; that’s not the intention with this production. So, I’m looking for ways to explore Fagin’s breadth and depth. He’s devious, avaricious, by turns fearful and bold, can be selfish and brutal; he’s also probably the closest thing to a parent most of his gang of little thieves have ever known. He uses them, but he also feeds them and shelters them and plays with them and teaches them the only way he knows how to make a living, which happens to be thieving.

Shel has made some intriguing casting choices. One actor – Damon Calderwood – plays both Mr. Bumble and Bill Sykes, and Shel has me playing both Fagin and Mr. Brownlow, the kind gentleman who strives to rescue Oliver from Fagin’s clutches. I get to play both the wicked and good father (or grandfather) figures, if you like. A practical consequence of that choice is that I spend a lot of time on stage, so one important goal for me as an actor will be to remain upright. It’s going to be a workout.

JI: You were Buffalo Bill in a prior TUTS season. How did you come to start auditioning with TUTS, and have there been other roles? Does performing on an outdoor stage present unique challenges?

SA: I first worked at TUTS (in those days it was called Theatre in the Park, or TITPark) in the mid-’70s as a carpenter and stagehand, and I’ve had the pleasure of performing there each decade since – in Anything Goes in ’87, as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof in ’97 and as Buffalo Bill in Annie Get Your Gun in 2008.

I started auditioning for TUTS soon after I graduated from Studio 58, and I keep auditioning there when I’m free and I think there might be a role for me. I love it there. The people are great, a thrilling combination of enthusiastic, amazingly talented youth and, as they say, “seasoned” pros. There’s a lot of love around the place. A special smell pervades the atmosphere, although it no longer carries as much of the whiff of pigeon droppings as it had in the old days. I’ve probably been just about everywhere it’s possible for a human being to get to in that building, including all over way up in the gridwork, where I spent a great deal of my time during those summers in the ’70s.

Playing outdoors presents some curious and inspiring challenges, yes indeed. There are obvious ones, like wildlife, for example. You never know when you might be joined on the stage by a raccoon or a squirrel or a crazed moth, and every actor knows that small children and animals – even insects – are far more interesting to watch on stage than we are because they’re unselfconscious and unpredictable.

We’re playing in Vancouver in the summer and the days are long, so the first half or so of the show is hard to light – you can’t use light to draw the audience’s attention very effectively because it’s hard to compete with the sun. Shel pointed this out to us in rehearsal: “Your movement is my spotlight.” We as performers need to provide focus through our actions, positions, motions and stillnesses. We’re also quite far away from the audience, so we have to use our bodies fully. Someone in the 20th or 30th row may barely be able to make out my features, so I need to release my thoughts and emotions into my body: to smile and frown and laugh and wonder, not just from the neck up but with all of me….

JI: If there is anything else you’d like to share with readers, please do.

SA: Well, there is one other thing. It’s interesting to me that, especially in the last few years, so many of the characters I’ve played have been Jewish. Tevye in Fiddler, Jacob in Joseph … plays at the Chutzpah! Festival, now Fagin. I think I get called to audition for most of the film and TV rabbi parts that come into town.

I guess it’s the beard.

Oliver! alternates evenings with Hairspray from July 10-Aug. 22 at Malkin Bowl (tuts.ca).