Another On The Boards brought to you by your guest host. This week, we're kicking it off with a bang - Riffs, a collection of five short new pieces, straight from those sharp shooters at the Lyric Stage Project. In the interest of full disclosure, our man Simon is the author of one of those works and a founding member of the company; meaning, of course, that I'm biased, and also meaning that you are guaranteed a brilliant night of theatre. The first in a seasonal series, Riffs was inspired by Simon's challenge to the company members to go out and write a play. They did. Electric, original, charged - Riffs goes up this weekend at 8pm at the Lyric School in Gastown. 604.685.0752 for reservations.

"There is no peace in being extraordinary."

Peace, it seems, is something that eludes everyone in The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, from the imprisoned and impoverished title character to the understanding but inescapably racist magistrate overseeing her fate. Canadian George Ryga's masterwork of a play, currently at The Firehall, is given a powerful reworking by director Donna Spencer and her talented ensemble. Although the language sometimes verges on didactic, there is enough potent poetry and staggering social relevance to make this play significant even 40 years after its debut.

Rita Joe (Lisa C. Ravensbergen) is a young First Nations woman who left the reservation for some semblance of modern life in the city. She's been arrested for vagrancy and prostitution - charges she doesn't understand - and is plagued on all sides by a foreign religion, government, and haunting memories of a childhood divided between a humiliating residential school and the natural harmony of home with her sister (Tricia Collins) and father (Byron Chief Moon). Her boyfriend, Jaimie Paul (Kevin Loring), promises a life of autonomy and plenty, but their dreams are continually dashed by a system trying to sweep the "Aboriginal problem" under the tightly woven rug. It's a simple story, and sometimes the plot seems to be more of a vehicle for Ryga's views on the treatment of Aboriginals in Canada; still, Spencer's direction keeps the production moving quickly on the sparse, auditorium-like set.

Simon has graciously requested that I take over On The Boards for the next couple of weeks while he works on a play of his very own - more on that in our next issue. I'm very flattered that he entrusted me with the job of steering you through our theatrical wasteland, but also rather terrified since Simon has some sort of drama-dar and manages to find hidden gems everywhere. So I find I'm left with...well, not a whole heck of a lot. Still, onwards - I know the 2 or 3 of you that go to see theatre in Vancouver might be disappointed if we missed a week of the column.

Simon noted The Ecstacy of Rita Joe at the Firehall last week, but I'm flagging it again in conjunction with Tomson Highway's The Rez Sisters, currently playing at UBC until November 24th. It's a distressingly rare moment when two of Vancouver's mainstream theatres are headlining Aboriginal plays. The Rez Sisters is the first of Highway's (a member of the Order of Canada) cycle of seven plays that combine traditional Native storytelling with Western dramatic structure. Sort of like the harmonious relationship between our cultures. Right.

The first act of Wajdi Mouawad's Tideline, a co-production of neworldtheatre and Touchstone Theatre currently playing at The Roundhouse, is undoubtedly some of the best theatre I have seen in Vancouver this year. At intermission, I waxed euphoric about the quality of the acting, the imaginative, almost dream-like prose matched with the manic pace of the script, the impossibly perfect set. When ushered back into the theatre for the start of Act II, I sat twitching in my chair until the lights dimmed.

By around minute 65 of the second act, however, I honestly felt as though I were watching a different play. And therein lies the problem with this truly remarkable script: Mouawad can't really decide what he wants to write, and we, the audience, appear to be his testing board. It's not a role I really mind filling, considering he's one of the best playwrights currently working in Canada, but at over three hours even my patience was strained. Thankfully, the combined talents of the directors (a joint effort of Camyar Chai and Katrina Dunn), cast, and designers inject enough spark into this epic to cobble together the disparate pieces and produce a beautifully chilling (if uneven) work about "war, exile, and the search for home."

I knew it would come back to bite me in the ass when I complained recently that I hadn't been able to write any glowing theatre reviews for this site. Worried I would develop some sort of reputation as the scourge of the Vancouver theatre scene, I longed for a piece of theatre that would sweep away all negativity and restore some balance to this town.

Well, be careful what you wish for. I got just what I needed last week in the Arts Club production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, currently playing at the Stanley Theatre. In this companion piece to His Greatness (which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago), director James Fagan Tait once again demonstrates he's one of the best directors currently working in this city by giving a fresh voice to Mr. Williams in this beautiful rendering of a quietly heartbreaking play. And I discovered it's a lot harder to write a glowing review than a scathing one.

His Greatness, one of the most highly anticipated shows this season, opened last week at the Granville Island Stage. A new work by celebrated Canadian playwright Daniel McIvor, it tells the "potentially true story" of two days the American playwright Tennessee Williams spent holed up in his room at the Hotel Vancouver for the premiere of his play, the poorly-received The Red Devil Battery Sign. The details that remain of his time in our city are legendary - really, the stuff great plays are made of (check out this Globe piece for some of the facts). His Greatness distills this experience into McIvor's rendering of Williams (Allan Gray), his gay assistant/former lover (David Marr), and the young hustler hired to keep Williams entertained (Charles Christien Gallant).

Sounds riveting, right? A legendary playwright who was an even more legendary character, grasping at the last straws of his former glory, gasping for some sort of rebirth? I mean, really, what could go wrong?

A lot. A lot could go wrong, and frustratingly, a lot did.