On the Boards This Week: Nov. 1-7

If you're in the mood for some intense theatre this week, Martin Sherman's Bent returns to Vancouver in its first professional run in 26 years. The last time it was here it broke attendance records in a four-month holdover run. Harsh and relentless, Bent deals with the treatment of gays by the Nazis in WWII, from the hedonistic underground of Berlin in the '30s to the nightmarish compound of the Dachau concentration camp. Like I said, intense.

Canadian-content alert! And another play about war! Soldier's Heart is a historical play set in post-WWI Newfoundland that deals with the struggles of a soldier to reconnect with his father despite a "horrible secret" (horrible secret alert!) that he carries with him from his time on the battlefields of France.

Goat-sexytime alert! Edward Albee's much-alerted about play The Goat, or Who is Sylvia has finally gotten a staging here in Vancouver five years after its debut. Considering that Albee could very well be America's greatest living playwright I'd say it's about time. The play is about the fallout that occurs in the household of a successful architect when his family discovers that he's been having an extra-marital affair with...a goat. No, really. A goat goat.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Imemgee