>>REVIEW
HIPPIES AND BOLSHEVIKS
Alberta Theatre Projects
playRites Festival
Written by Amiel Gladstone
Runs until March 5
Martha Cohen Theatre
(Epcor Centre)
St. Paul said that when he became a man he put away childish things, and the admonition to "grow up" is a familiar one, but the transition between youth and adulthood has never been quite as simple as it sounds.
Written by British Columbia playwright Amiel Gladstone, Hippies and Bolsheviks is a story fundamentally about the bridge between youth and adulthood, employing the 1970s motifs of the hippie commune and the Vietnam War.
After hauling fresh-faced American draft-dodger Jeff (David Beazely) into her leaking Vancouver apartment, Star (Daniela Vlaskalic) finds herself waking up to both the various frustrations of her naive new acquaintance and the arrival of her former, ex-hippie lover, Allan (Shaker Paleja). Having abandoned his previous "Green Tree" moniker and taken a job selling insurance with his father, Allan’s attempts to revive his failed relationship with Star represent his own effort to grow up, even as Star wrestles with her bittersweet memories of the commune and the impending necessities of her pregnancy.
The play is informed by an indulgent esthetic, complemented both by Scott Reid’s chaotic set and the characters that populate it. While Jeff, Star and Allan debate the future of their lives, looking back on the mistakes and inevitabilities that have brought them to this leaky apartment, water drips into carefully placed buckets against the backdrop of a shimmering wall of simulated rain. Crumpled clothes lie on the floor, tousled bedsheets litter Star’s futon – the need for change is palpable and even beautiful.
Without casting judgment on the time period, Gladstone’s script is able to paint a portrait that, while fascinated with the dilemma of idealism versus pragmatism, refuses to offer pat answers.
As Jeff, Beazely’s performance seems the most at home in Gladstone’s world, balancing an earnest sensibility with the comedy that keeps the production from becoming mired in its own introspection. One scene in particular embodies this balance, as Jeff stares plaintively at Star’s ringing phone, eager to act but paralyzed as Star and Allan argue in the foreground. The result is both comic and deeply endearing, speaking both to Beazely’s skill and to director Rachel Ditor’s ability to keep the production dynamic, even within the confines of a cramped studio apartment.
Unfortunately, like the play’s ambivalence toward its time and characters, the script itself often fails in relative proportion to its successes.
Despite being the ostensible epicentre of the play’s conceit, standing in the middle between Jeff’s unfettered beginning and Allan’s yuppie capitulation, Star remains underdeveloped. Oscillating between anger and introspection, her character emerges touched but fundamentally unchanged, without ever having exhibited the kind of warmth or depth that might have snared Allan’s Green Tree persona. Just as the play straddles the line between acceptance and mockery, Star’s character remains in the middle, operating more as a symbol for ambivalence than as a fully realized character.
Similarly, the play’s dialogue lacks authenticity. Perfunctory 1970s slang like "square" and "man" stick out sorely in a script that otherwise does little to tailor its speech to the time period, focusing more on the broad themes of youth and its inevitable, if unfortunate, demise.
But simply drawing in broad strokes is not enough to waterlog this rain-soaked Vancouver play. In spite of its faults, Hippies and Bolsheviks explores a deeply resonant dissonance with humour and beauty, proving that the difficult choice between the idealism of youth and the unfamiliar province of adulthood is by no means exclusive to the ’70s. |
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