Tosca Cafe
At the Playhouse until Oct. 29
Tickets: 604.873.3311, vancouverplayhouse.com
I can be seduced by beauty. And Tosca Caf, created and staged by Carey Perloff and Val Caniparoli, is simply gorgeous from its gleaming, early 20th-century bar (designed by Douglas W. Schmidt) to its lithe and leggy dancers. Early in the show, Dean Paul Gibson, as the Bartender, makes an origami swan for the Orphan (Annie Purcell). The child is fascinated by this paper bird and flies it around the cafe. From the wings, and unseen by the Bartender and the Orphan, glides dancer CindyMarie Small, en pointe, who then dances The Dying Swan from Swan Lake. It's a flight of imagination so beautiful it takes your breath away.
The project began with American Conservatory Theatre's Perloff and San Francisco Ballet's Caniparoli wondering what would happen if you put five actors and five dancers in a room together and tried to make "a piece." Partly inspired, they claim, by Wendy Gorling and Morris Panych's deservedly celebrated The Overcoat, Tosca Caf differs in a significant way: The Overcoat began with Gogol, a master storyteller. What's missing in Tosca Caf is a narrative sturdy enough to hang your toe shoes on.
The caf itself vies for main character status with the Bartender. Founded in 1919 by three Italian immigrants, the actual caf still stands in San Francisco's North Beach area and bears witness to generations of Americans from flappers to hipsters, jitterbuggers to disco-dancers.
In what's been dubbed a "dansical," we see the Bartender and two lost souls he rescues-a black American musician on the lam (Gregory Wallace) and the Orphan, a street urchin (Annie Purcell)-serving up and cleaning up as diners and drinkers, some real, some imagined, dance through. With the exception of a frenzied reading of Ferlinghetti's "I Am Waiting" by Peter Anderson and some late-in-the-play voice over, Tosca Caf is all mimed. Throughout, a mysterious woman in red (danced by Sabina Allemann) appears; only the program notes tell us this is the Bartender's lover, left behind in Italy when he came to America.
As the generations move through the Tosca Caf, so the music evolves. Included are several selections from Puccini's Tosca, silent film scores and popular music. It's an ambitious piece of movement theatre that, at times, sprawls and despite the strong Canadian component (including Gibson, Anderson and dancers Rex Harrington and CindyMarie Small), it feels like America through the ages.
Gibson holds the whole thing together as the burly bar owner with a heart of gold. His mimed movements are precise and full of flourish. And he's a very credible raging drunk when the Bartender goes on a binge. Both Wallace and Purcell age well alongside Gibson and their characters' relationship with the Bartender is deep and sweet.
Anderson, in a variety of roles, adds the light touch. Somewhere between a clown and a dancer, Anderson moves with the best of them-in this case a comic pas de deux with ballerina Allemann. She, as an elegant visitor to the caf, is all grace in midnight blue while Anderson's dumbstruck character attempts to mirror her moves whilst tangling himself in her long scarf.
Harrington, principal dancer in the National Ballet of Canada for almost two decades, is wonderful but under-employed.
What really has legs in this show is Small, a former Royal Winnipeg Ballet dancer. Long, long legs and arms, she's exquisite in every role from the Dying Swan to the '60s flower child dancing with joy-filled abandon. Other dancers-superb in every way-include Nol Simonse, Kyle Schaefer and Sara Hogrefe.
Tosca Caf is ambitious and sometimes bewildering. But it's beautiful. And there's not enough of that going around.
