It’s a play I’ll be attending here in Vancouver later this month and would like to recommend, but I have a conflict of interest. Here’s the Web site; if you get interested in seeing it you’d better move fast as there are only seven performances and some are already sold out.
All The Way Home is a Pulitzer-prize-winning play by Tad Mosel based on James Agee’s A Death in the Family.
This production, by Vancouver’s Electric Company Theatre, is unconventional. It takes place on the stage of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, but the (vast, immense) auditorium will be empty; the audience (150 or so) will be on the stage with the action taking place among them. Here are a couple of pictures by Michael Julian Berz taken at a rehearsal.
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Of course, the bare concrete won’t be in evidence. This production is set in Canada in 1915; the decor and costume will be appropriate. As will the music; there are multiple tunes-of-the-time, the sort of thing that you know via your racial memory.
I expect to enjoy it immensely.
Disclosure · I know about the staging and music and so on because I’ve been in and out of rehearsals, because my 12-year-old son is in the cast. He’s got a bit part, but it’s real professional theatre and he has a few lines and is even getting paid; he’s on cloud nine.
No, we’re not a drama family; the boy stumbled into summer musical-theatre camp and liked it and a theatrical friend suggested he go to auditions and now here we are. We’re a little worried he’ll get the impression that acting is easy money; we haven’t pointed out the laughable result of dividing his pay by the number of hours of rehearsal; six or eight a day when school isn’t in.
Anyhow, it’s expanding our family’s horizon and especially the boy’s. My conflict of interest is huge; but I think it’s going to be a pretty good show.
Comment feed for ongoing:
From: Dusan (Jan 04 2012, at 09:42)
Today was a premier of All The Way Home in Belgrade. It was amazing!!! For all your visitors from this part of Europe, here is complete review on serbian language Sportske vesti
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From: Michael (Jan 04 2012, at 23:37)
Way cool - congratulations to your son. Broken limbs all around!
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From: Thad McIlroy (Jan 13 2012, at 22:25)
I went last night with a friend, based on your recommendation, and because it sounded like something different.
It was a marvelous evening. So many good things. Uniformly fine acting; some of it better than fine. The kids were astoundingly good. It's so risky working with very young actors -- usually there's a few cringe-worthy moments to endure. Not so here. Jordan Wessels as Ivan was completely believable -- your heart went out to him as he navigated mother, father, aunt, uncle and grandparents (& great-great grandparents!), but most of all the complex relationship with the other boys.
The music worked beautifully -- very, very moving.
I bet Sean Bray is having the time of his life -- it sure looked like everyone -- including the audience -- was.
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