Eleven performance cells clustered around a central bar. Each participating company creates an intimate, short theatre piece, performing it for no more than twenty people at a time, at repeated intervals over the course of the evening. Audience members grab a drink and select from a menu of performances, according to their own tastes and inclinations. They can see all 11, pick and choose, or just hang at the bar, and cross-pollinate. At HIVE, everyone’s the Queen Bee.

Rumble’s HIVE offering was devised and presented by Artists-in-Residence, The Chop (Anita Rochon & Emelia Symington Fedy).

2 Truths + 1 Lie = Proof

A father and daughter team up to perform excerpts from Proof, by David Auburn. Armed with an old walkman, each audience member listens to a cassette containing a recording of the family members telling two truths and one lie about their personal lives, in tandem with watching them perform in character. Can you guess the truth? Does your knowledge of their dirty secrets effect the way you watch them perform? This funny and honest piece delivers an intimate experience with the performers while experimenting with how personal history affects public performance.

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A new work by Greg MacArthur, one of this country’s most exciting and subversive playwrights. Around the world, people are succumbing to the addictive pleasures of a mysterious new substance. Society is threatened. But not to fear, “They” are taking care of everything. A speculative examination of an addicted world and the ramifications of a 500 billion dollar pharmaceutical industry, recovery is a sometimes funny, sometimes horrific tale about the commodification of fear and the oppression of the individual.

Nominated for six 2006/07 Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards including:

•Outstanding Production Large Theatre
•Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Lead Role – Sean Devine
•Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role – Kathleen Duborg
•Outstanding Lighting Design – John Webber
•Outstanding Direction – Craig Hall
•Significant Artistic Achievement – Projection Design – James Nesbitt

Recovery was a part of See Seven, Vancouver’s passport to professional, independent theatre.

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The Gold Rush

(1925) Friday, September 1, 2006

The film Charlie Chaplin most wanted to be remembered by – The Gold Rush is the quintessential Chaplin film, with a balance of slapstick comedy and pantomime, social satire, and moments of tenderness. A Lone Prospector, a valiant weakling, seeks fame and fortune in the mad rush for hidden gold in the Alaskan wilderness.

Featuring live accompaniment by Stefan Smulovitz (viola/laptop), Viviane Houl (voice), Pepe Danza (winds/percussion), and Peggy Lee (cello).

Three Monks

(1980) Saturday, September 2, 2006

Winner of a Golden Rooster and a Silver Bear, A Da’s animated Three Monks is an adaptation of a Chinese folk proverb:

“One monk will shoulder two buckets of water, two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch the water.”

Featuring live accompaniment by Stefan Smulovitz (viola/laptop), Viviane Houle (voice), Pepe Danza (winds/percussion), Peggy Lee (cello), with narration by Andrew Laurensen

Metropolis

(1927) Sunday, September 3, 2006

Possibly the crowning achievement of silent cinema, Fritz Lang’s blockbuster fuses the frenetic storytelling of twenties pulp fiction with Lang’s personal fascination with the dark side of human nature. A vast towering city’s exploited subterranean workforce threatens to overthrow the technocratic elite who callously rule them from above – even if it means destroying the city itself. Lang’s dystopian vision of the future pits science against religion, love against death and revenge against redemption.

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Into an eerie darkness enter the seven members of the Stipple family and their indentured servant. Their demeanor is proud but each of their steps is exact and cautious, as if the slightest deviation might prompt the audience to pass judgment on their secrets. So begins Terrible Things, a chronicle of the wealthy, prestigious and morally vacant Stipple family.

A feat of mischievously delightful ensemble storytelling, this collective creation is inspired by a few of history’s most notorious characters and the works of author and illustrator Edward Gorey.

“It’s not who you are, it’s what people see. So though there is pain, always dignity. Which is why we take care to be well to do. The truth doesn’t matter, except if they knew.” – Terrible Things

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