reviewvancouver: Snowman

Opening night Saturday, November 5th was a packed house.The play is not, by the way, about a snowman. It's about a body found beneath the ice.

The play starts with the character Denver at centre stage telling us about his life with Kim. They decide to take off and go up north to the edge of a glacier near a small town where they intend to survive by renting out videos from their cabin in the woods. They have several unpleasant encounters with three teenagers who constantly bombard them with requests to rent them video games that Denver and Kim do not have in their video inventory. Their neighbor Jude, abandoned by his parents, has strange sexual preferences. He fancies Denver as well as the man buried below the ice.

Denver (Derek Metz) is a totally macho 60’s kind of guy. He is the funniest character in the play. His home grown blue collar earthiness makes his character and everything he says believable. It is amazing how well the production company did with improvising props, no doubt due to the funding cutbacks this year. A bed with white sheets also became the ice lake that glowed where the body lay beneath the ice.

The storyline for this play was good but there were long boring segments that needed to be spiced up to keep the audience interested. It had a good beginning and a good ending, but the audience became restless towards the end of Act I. There are some good actors here but they need a good script to sink their teeth into. The play has a good story potential but the script needed more life to entertain an audience for two hours.

The Revue Stage is a very comfortable theatre and many in the audience were happy to find that they were allowed to take alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages to their theatre seats. You may need one to help you get through some parts of this play. It is good to see a media sponsor like The Georgia Straight supporting this fine theatre and I hope many more will support the Arts in Vancouver.