On the Boards This Week: Nov. 15-21

From the look of this promo shot and the sound of the press release, Avaler la Mer et les Poissons could be one big, melancholy sigh of a play. Théâtre la Seizième (Vancouver's all French-language, all kick-dérriere theatre company in case you didn't know) presents this "delicately feminine" work about the dynamics of the friendship between two women and their "appetite for life and their need to embrace all it offers"; thus the title, a French proverb meaning "swallow the sea and its fishes". Shouldn't it be "fish"? Either way, it's gotta be dark and sexy, it's in French.

While we're on Francophonic theatre, PI Theatre, who specialize in bringing French-Canadian plays in translation to the West Coast, have got one goin' on at the brand spankin' new and mighty cool PAL theatre in Coal Harbour. John and Beatrice is a "modern love story" about an answer to a lonely woman's personal ad: "Well-to-do young heiress is seeking a man who will interest, move and seduce her." Hopefully she doesn't mean to move her apartment.

Meanwhile, over at the Firehall, there's a little something going on that's described in the press release as "the first work that addressed issues relating to the treatment of Aboriginal peoples that was mounted on stage and taken seriously." So there. The Ecstacy of Rita Joe tells the story of a young aboriginal woman who moves to the big city and can't fit in with the suits or with her own peeps. It's actually considered an important work of Canadian theatre, and this production is in honour of its 40th anniversary. And hey! It's got Cancer Man in it!

I can't make this stuff up. Debbie Does Dallas (The Musical) is ready and waiting for you at the Media Club until the 24th. Mounted by the same crew that recently put up a stage version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, we're warned to not "be too shocked about what lengths some people will go to get what they want in life" and that there are some "suggestive scenes." Well, there damn well better be.

Photo courtesy of Théâtre la Seizième